Some people may not think this is necessarily a holiday that foster children will react to, but that is not the case with most foster children. We have what I believe to be the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with a large amount of food (with lots of leftovers) and your extended family sharing the holiday with you. Foster children have always been surprised when we have Thanksgiving at our house, or at family members home.

They do not understand why I am preparing that much food. One foster son we had continually asked, “When are the other people going to get here?” After a while and asking him several times, “What do you mean?” We finally realized he was asking because of all of the food that we were having. With everything going on preparing for the holidays we can forget to explain in more detail that some of these children need to know what to expect.

Over stimulation is another major issue with your foster children, especially when there are going to be a fairly large family gathering and new family members that they have not met before. This is something that you need to prepare yourself, foster children, and your family members for. Working out a plan before hand can help ease the stress of the day if your foster child starts to become overwhelmed with things. It could be a room or area, a chore or anything that would give the child time to regroup and a place without all the distractions.

The last thing is that seeing a family together makes them long for and miss their biological family even if they never experienced something like this, or it was a bad situation. I have heard a add of times, “I wish my family had this.” Oh, how I wish this too.

Do not forget to share why you became a foster parent and the chance of owning the new book “Forever Fingerprints”.

More reading:

Foster Children and Holidays

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