Behavioral Health Articles
Helping Teens in Foster Care Deal With Stress and Stigma
by Susan Prier
May is National Mental Health Month, and May 7 – 13 is Children’s Mental Health Week. The local Behavioral Health Task Force has launched the "Think Again! about Mental Health" campaign; throughout the month look for billboards, posters, and newspaper ads featuring the Think Again! message. The Cortland Free Library is also providing a table with books and various resources about mental health in the main reading area.
Being a teenager is hard enough, but what happens when you’re a teen and in foster care? Imagine having to leave your family and friends to go live with strangers. More than 500,000 youth are living in foster care on any given day across the United States. Many factors contribute to why children are removed from their homes. Children are exposed to many types of abuse starting at a young age; some are neglected to varying degrees and some act out and get in trouble with the law. Safety of a child is the number one concern for the agencies that have to remove them from their homes.
What do you think about when you hear the words “foster care”? Do you automatically think the worst about the kid, the family or both? Would you let your own child hang out with someone in care? Here is the sad plain truth of it: foster children are treated differently than kids not in care. “People always ask me why I’m in care,” 17-year-old Jaimz said, “They think I must be pretty bad to be here.”
Children in care deal with the same emotions and growing pains as kids not in care, but have additional stresses as well. School life may be stressful, because when foster children have to leave home, they usually change schools as well. Grades suffer, they don’t have friends, and they are already labeled because they are in care. “When your case worker comes to school, it’s embarrassing,” Jaimz continued, “They pull you out of class and everyone knows why you are leaving.” Many times impressions of the child are made based on that fact. Mickey, a 15-year-old in care said, “Foster kids are blamed for everything. Nobody ever trusts you and they always expect the worst from us.” He went on to say, “If anything comes up missing they usually blame us first.”
Children in care may act out at a new school or a new home. They deal with a huge amount of uncertainty every day they are in care. They’re not sure when, or even if, they will go home. They are put in unfamiliar situations, and they have to report to a case worker and “family” they don’t know. And then there is the court system: “Being told I was going home by my case worker and then having the judge tell me no,” Jaimz said, “was very stressful for me.”
Signs that a foster child is under stress may include mood changes, sadness, anger, weight loss, frequent headaches or stomach aches, and depression. These indicators are not any different than what other kids and adults feel; however, it’s important to recognize what might be triggering these feelings and try to help a child find ways to handle stressful moments better. Just listening is a big help to many.
If we all take a moment to think about what “these kids” are going through before we react or say something hurtful, you may see them differently - but in a good way. Foster kids are trying to find their way in life, just like the other kids we work with or live with. Being teens is the most difficult time in their lives, and they have so much to offer us. They are smart and funny and witty and talented.
Children that have spent time in the foster care system have gone on to become people who have given back in some way. Eddie Murphy, Marilyn Monroe, Cher, Ice-T, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer are just a few among the many who have been in care.
Susan Prier is a Nutrition Team Leader and Independent Living Skills Instructor for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cortland County.