Grief and Loss in Children
When my friend moved her 3-year-old foster child from her foster home into a potential adoptive home, she worked with the child to prepare him for the move. She made his lifebook available to him; they looked it over together and spoke often about his workers searching for a mommy and daddy.
He seems to be doing well in his new home. No matter how young, children grieve past losses. They may put on brave faces and go about life, but children will express their emotions eventually; often through behavior as they don't have the vocabulary to express grief verbally. When helping a child work through grief and loss, keep in mind the elements that may be affecting their grief. Also, know that just because a child seems to be doing well in a new home initially does not mean that the good times will last as some kids may "honeymoon" or be your dream child.
How have you helped children move, whether back to their birth home or into a new foster/adopt home? Share your experiences by clicking "comments" below. We can learn a lot from each other!
Comments
We have fostered 160 children over a 28 year period, transitioning all but 5 back to birth families or to adoptive homes, each time part of our hearts accompanied them, but we feel that the whole idea of fostering is to work yourself out of a job, the 5 that we adopted were “birthed through our hearts” The Morrissey family
Thank you Tracey for sharing your fostering story. You are an inspiration to the rest of us.
We have fostered two children in the past two years. We intend to adopt one of them, but the other had to go to a new foster home after almost two years. It was so painful for all involved.