5 Foster Parent Tips to Help a Child Adapt to Their New Home

Foster care changes lives. 

For children who can’t live with their birth parents, foster care gives them another chance to live with a loving and caring family. It provides them with a safe place to thrive.

However, for newer foster parents, it’s important to help a child in care adapt to their new home—after all, it’s a big change, and some children can take longer than others to warm up to their foster family, depending on their past.

Here are five tips to help a child in care adapt to their new home.

1. Create a Welcoming Environment

When a child in care enters your home for the first time, they may feel overwhelmed or out of place.

One way that you can help them feel welcomed is by creating a welcoming environment yourself—a warm and inviting area can help a child in care feel like they belong.

Decorations in their room are a great starting point, whether it’s posters, drawings, or any other kind of decorations to help make their space their own. Personal touches like these go a long way toward making a child feel valued and respected from day one. 

2. Set Clear Routines and Expectations

Structure and consistency are essential for children in foster care—they provide a sense of stability and security that all kids need.

Examples of common routines include:

1. Wake up times
2. Mealtimes 
3. Bedtimes
4. Homework schedules

It’s okay to set reasonable rules—even for a new child in care. Staying consistent will help children in foster care thrive and grow up to lead fulfilling lives they can be proud of.

3. Have Open Communication

Communication is key to making anyone feel comfortable—including a child in your care.

Children in care come from all kinds of different backgrounds and endure many different kinds of challenges. 

Practice active listening with a child in care—take the time to pay close attention to what they’re saying and what they want to get across. They might just be children, but their voices deserve to be heard, and creating a safe space for them to talk to you can help them warm up to their new home!  

4. Provide Individual Care and Support

We can’t stress it enough: No two children in care are the same!

Everyone is different and has unique needs—and child in care are no different. Their unique backgrounds shape and make them who they are, so you must treat them as such.

This means you’ll need to look into individual care and support systems to best serve them, depending on their needs. Some children have gone through serious challenges, while others might have had a slightly easier time growing up—either way, the care and support you provide won’t be the same. 

5. Make it Easy to Make Friends

Your relationship with a child in care is important—but so is their relationship with other kids! 

Many of us remember struggling to make friends—some more than others. The truth is that for a child in care to truly adapt to their new home, you’ll want to make it easy for them to make new friends. There are many ways that you can do this, including community activities, clubs, sports, and more. Encourage them to join these activities and give them the means to do so—if they need a drive, drive them! 

The connections children in care make with their peers can be the key to them adapting to their new home. 

Learn More About Foster Parenting in Our Upcoming Webinar 

Looking for more information on foster parenting?

If so, our upcoming webinar can help point you in the right direction.

By attending a Foster Parent Information Session Webinar and learning more about the fostering process, you can take the first step toward becoming a foster parent and providing a safe, loving, and supportive home for a child in need. 

Sign up for our webinar today!