If your family has a big all day celebration of Easter, take into account that your foster child may not have experienced Easter like this before. This can be very overwhelming to a foster child and cause a lot of stress that could lead to negative behaviors.

Most foster children that I have parented have not experienced Easter as most of us have with church, visiting family, cook outs, dressing up in pretty clothes, pictures, Easter bunny, and the biggie, hunting Easter eggs. Holidays in the past, for foster children could have bad memories since a most foster children come from dysfunctional families. This can bring so many different emotions up for a foster child to deal with. Guilt... more

Foster children may be very reluctant to get in involved with your family holiday traditions. Most likely it is because they do not know what to do or how to do it. Baking cookies and decorating cookies can seem so foreign to them. I have fostered autistic, mentally retarded and delayed children, so I have found that making them interact works well. You may have to do hand over hand a few times, then before you know it they are fully involved. They can be so scared to try things and some would never try news things without having to be made to.

Most of these children have spent their lives watching others, just living in the shadows. The simple thing of making Christmas cards can seem... more

When visiting extended family with your foster children during the holidays, you need to do some extra preparing. If you have your own children that will be receiving gifts from family members take into account your foster children. You do not want your foster children sitting there watching your other children unwrapping presents. They have spent most of their life being ignored or left out. I do understand this can be a touchy situation with other family members. Understand they may not think of your foster children or have a tight budget. What ever the reason we should respect it. I tend to be open, okay maybe a little blunt with my family, so I just ask them. My husband’s family a tad... more

I don’t think you should change things about your holidays because of their experiences or lack of them. I believe they need to experience a family holiday, along with learning traditions. They need positive things to fall back on and to know how a family unit should spend the holiday. Some foster children will only be with us a short time, we have to show them a different life than they what have experienced. In the hopes, if they should return they know that there is a different life out there (besides drugs, sex, violence, etc.).

Understand that this is a very traumatic and difficult time for them. Allow them their feelings. Meaning, their feelings are real doesn’t mean they... more

The Christmas tree was in the living room, when the children came home from school. My 8 year old foster daughter was horrified seeing the Christmas tree sitting in the living room. She kept saying trees are suppose to be outside. We explained how we celebrate Christmas, it took some time. One of our family traditions is that everyone gets to choose an ornament for the Christmas tree every year. This does include my foster children, they choose two, one to take with them when they leave and one for us keep. The ornament we keep lets us remember them and then feel a little closer. This little girl didn’t get presents at Christmas and was clueless to the whole holiday. It was very heart... more

This is a very happy and wonderful time of year for you and your family. Cookies baking in the oven, children talking about what Santa will bring them. Family members visiting, presents to unwrap, and holiday parties to enjoy. This is a pretty typical family Christmas holiday. For foster child it is many things but not this.

They feel so out of place because they don’t have a clue what is going on. They feel depressed, lonely, sad, angry, etc. during the holidays. Christmas to them is just another day for them to endure their abuse and life. Allow them to talk about their feelings and their life at Christmas. It is hard to talk about their pain. I will share my foster children pains... more