(Guest blog- Abby Crooks)
Have you ever played in the ocean and you’re floating and diving in the waves and then suddenly when you look up you’re nowhere near your friends and family on shore where you got in? As you get deep into tossing around in the waves and swift undercurrent of foster care and adoption, you may find yourself distant from those you thought might have your back. After all, they don’t want to see you stressed and they don’t feel called to this, but sometimes find their lives impacted by the challenges of difficult behavioral issues or charged emotions.
Human nature is to isolate more as we feel more stress and foster care can become all-consuming and cause us to play our own part in pulling away from those outside the foster care world who can’t possibly understand the complexities and overwhelming emotions of it all. Though our former support system might still be holding strong for us even, no one knows what we’re going through except another foster or adoptive parent bobbing up and down in the waves with us that can help us remember our why, share a different perspective on our situation, give us ideas about how to handle an issue with messy straightforwardness, and guide us back to shore and support when we’re worn down.
Since 2015, I’ve led a community foster care support group in the Upstate, SC. It has been a beautiful dream to see foster parents from all walks of life, from every religion (or without religion), and of all family varieties come together to have a meal together, grow, and process life while volunteers provide childcare. We warm up by playing some games as there is so much grit required and no clock-out in foster parenting that we need to laugh first, always.
Abby’s interview with America’s Kids Belong
Then, we have “table talk” in small groups with guided discussion questions, where we can let our guard down to say things or ask questions about our world without the fear of scaring someone off that might become a foster parent one day. We might hear things we were already thinking about but were afraid to say out loud for fear of being shamed. In the last hour, we have a trainer share new parenting tools to cope with unexpected behaviors that pop up like Whack-A-Mole in our lives.
This is a safe place where people are loving people (and) can whisper to us that what we are experiencing is normal. This is a place to find tangible support and respite care when we are grieving that this life might not be what we expected, and we may even grieve our former, simpler life. Other foster/adoptive parents can provide realistic solutions and help us course-correct some of the issues we are facing and someone might tell you how they coped or endured through dog-tiredness or about resources you didn’t know existed, about just the right therapists, or some creative discipline tool you didn’t think of that just might work! Of course, the group won’t have all the solutions as some things we face aren’t easily resolvable in this life but just having others listen to the hard happening in your life can bring healing.
We can watch all the TikTok videos out there and gulp down content from curated foster care influencers, but nothing will replace the face-to-face support (and hugs) from a comrade who has the same stubborn hope for hurting kids as us. Even my introverted hubby who resists leaving the homestead has found support group to be a place he finds inspiration from a heroic bunch who share their hearts and lives, embracing the hard stuff while advocating for kids in care tirelessly.
Find or make a safe group of foster or adoptive parents where you can vent in a very vulnerable way, and you’ll find some serious balm for a weary soul. I can guarantee that their companionship will enrich your journey. If you don’t have a support group, maybe you can start and lead one in your community. No one is strutting through foster care; our lives clanging together monthly makes the experience of getting in over our heads more of an adventure rather than a bewildering swim that, at times, could be terrifyingly lonely.
Checkout Abby’s great organization, Fostering Faithfully, where you can connect with her and take a look at her helpful resources.
More great resources from America’s Kids Belong:
Check the Foster Friendly App for support groups in your area!
Nothing around you? We have you covered!
America’s Kids Belong has a 19-page Support Group Guide to help you start a support group!
Get your copy and start planning!
Better yet, share with a friend or advocate who has expressed a desire to support foster families.
