It’s never easy to lose a family member or loved one. But for young children in foster care who have lost everything that they know and are familiar with, this grief can be overwhelming. Care and compassion are essential tools for helping them work through these feelings.
The majority of children entering foster care have suffered from abuse and neglect, but there are also a number of children who have lost their parents through bereavement. Even if a foster child hasn’t suffered a death in the family, being separated from the life that they’ve always known can still cause them grief and upset.
As a foster parent, it’s your job to support children in your care through loss and to help them cope with grief. We’re going to take a closer look at what you can do to help them through these difficult emotions.
Understanding how children comprehend death
An important factor to consider while you’re helping a foster child cope with grief if they have lost a loved one is their understanding of death. Younger children may not yet comprehend that death is final and that their loved one isn’t coming back.
The key thing to remember is to be honest and open when you talk with your foster child about the death of a loved one. You should also be careful around the language you use. Younger children can think more literally, so softer phrases like “they’ve gone to sleep” or “we’ve lost them” can be really confusing.
Helping children to understand that death is final and that their loved one isn’t coming back will be more beneficial for them in the long run. You should also consider telling a child the cause of death in simple terms so that they don’t blame themselves for what happened or worry about losing other loved ones the same way.
A change of circumstances can cause feelings of grief and loss, too
While most people will experience grief when they lose someone they love, foster children can experience this loss in another way. Being separated from their parents, grandparents, siblings, pets, friends, and school can have just as detrimental an impact on them as a physical bereavement. They’ve experienced trauma as a result of this separation, and this can affect how they react to things in their immediate environment.
It can take a while for a foster child to feel safe and comfortable in their new home, so patience and empathy will be crucial for helping them navigate this new chapter in their life. Just because they’ve lost the life they once knew doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the world, but it will feel that way for them at the start of this new stage.
Taking a trauma-informed approach
All children in foster care carry their own trauma. Part of your job as a foster carer will be to give the children in your care the emotional support that they need to work through their grief. Trauma-informed fostering looks at the root cause of behaviour rather than the surface-level actions. If a child has lost a loved one or their support systems, they can react with big emotions or in an overly excited manner.
Therapeutic fostering will be essential for helping foster children to work through their grief. It’s important to remember that they’re not acting out to be difficult – they simply don’t know how to process what’s happened to them. Our support can help to give you the tools needed to manage their behaviour in a healthy way, with lots of courses and training for you to choose from.
How to support a child through their grief and loss
Loss is a hard thing for any child to go through, whether that’s grieving for the life they once had or bereavement. But there are a couple of things that you can do to help them work through their trauma. Grief isn’t a linear thing, and it will take them time to come to terms with what’s happened.
Here are a few things to consider:
- Keep communication honest and open – by talking openly about what has happened to them, your foster child will know that they can come to you to talk things over if they need to or have any questions. Help them understand the concept of death with age-appropriate language. Encourage them to talk to you if they feel they need to, and make it clear that you’ll always be there for them.
- Stay as active as possible – taking a walk and encouraging your foster child to get some fresh air can boost their mood. If you can’t get outside, try dancing to some of their favourite songs inside.
- Remember their loved ones – talking about their loved ones can be a way to help them still feel connected with them even after their separation or loss. Remembering stuff about them, talking to them out loud or in their head, keeping photos of them around, or writing letters can help.
- Encourage them to stay in contact – if they’ve been separated from their loved ones, they can still stay in contact with them through letters, online, or by meeting face to face if it’s safe for them to do so. Talking to them about their favourite people can remind them that this separation from their past life won’t necessarily be a permanent thing and they can still meet up with their friends and family in the future.
- Remind them that their feelings are valid – grief can be hard for anyone to deal with, but it’s important you tell your foster child that their feelings are valid. Grief is painful, but it’s a normal response to loss, and one we will all experience throughout our lives.
- Empathy – while a child may seem to understand what has happened to them at first, they may become sad, angry, or distressed at a later date. It’s important to treat them with empathy and allow them the space and time they need to come to terms with their loss.
- Make them aware that everyone dies eventually – although this normally doesn’t happen until people are very old, sometimes this isn’t always the case. However, by making them aware that this happens to everyone eventually, it should help them to realise that not everyone will die around them any time soon, and that they’re not to blame for what happened.
- Encourage healthy coping mechanisms – for some children, using a creative outlet may help them to express their emotions surrounding their loss. This could be done through drawing, crafting, or making a memory jar to remember their loved one.
- Use books to help you – for children who are reluctant to talk about what’s happened, you can use books on the subject matter to help open up a dialogue. This can allow them to express their feelings in a safe environment. For bereavement, The Laura Centre and Child Bereavement UK have some excellent suggestions. For foster children separated from their family, Dennis and the Big Decisions by Paul Sambrooks, Maybe Days: A Book for Children in Foster Care by Jennifer Wilgocki and Marcia Wright, and Delly Duck by Holly Marlow can help to open a dialogue about why they can’t stay with their loved ones.
- Maintain routines – keeping your foster child’s routines the same can help them feel safer and more secure while they come to terms with their loss. Whether it’s bedtimes, mealtimes, or activities they do regularly, try to keep daily life as normal as possible.
Want to know more about fostering?
Do you want to know more about fostering? There are several types of fostering for you to consider, from short-term to long-term, to emergency care. Or perhaps you want to transfer to a small fostering agency to ensure you get the support you need when you need it most? Clifford House is proud to offer generous fostering allowances to our foster parents so that they can feel valued for the hard work that they do.
No matter what questions you’ve got, our friendly team is here to help. Simply fill out an enquiry form or give us a ring on 0800 369 8515 to speak to one of our advisors.