When you decide to foster, your whole family becomes part of the journey — not just you as parents. Your children play a vital role in welcoming, supporting, and sharing their home with another child who may have experienced trauma or instability.
For many families, fostering is an incredibly rewarding experience, but it also brings changes that can be deeply felt by everyone, including your own children. Understanding what it’s like to be a foster sibling can help you prepare, support your family, and make the fostering experience as positive as possible for everyone involved.
The Positives: How Fostering Can Enrich Your Children’s Lives
1. Building Empathy and Compassion
Fostering offers children a powerful lesson in empathy. They see firsthand that not all children have had the same start in life, and they learn to appreciate the difference that love, patience, and understanding can make. Many parents say their children develop greater emotional intelligence and kindness through fostering — qualities that stay with them for life.
2. Forming Meaningful Relationships
Foster siblings often develop strong bonds with the children who come into their home. These relationships can be full of laughter, shared experiences, and new perspectives. Even when placements are temporary, the memories can leave a lasting impact, teaching children that family isn’t only about biology — it’s about care and connection.
3. Appreciating Stability and Family
Through fostering, your children may come to value their own family life in new ways. Seeing the challenges their foster sibling has faced often helps them recognise the importance of safety, belonging, and support — and it can strengthen their appreciation for their own home environment.
4. Developing Responsibility and Maturity
Fostering can bring out a new sense of maturity in children. They learn flexibility, patience, and how to adapt to change. Whether it’s helping a new sibling feel included or understanding when parents’ attention is divided, these experiences can help children grow into more considerate and resilient young people.
The Challenges: What Children Might Struggle With
1. Adjusting to Change
When a foster child joins the family, routines and dynamics can shift. Your children will need to share their home and time — and that can be hard. Preparing them in advance, and giving them a voice in the process, can make these transitions smoother.
2. Feeling Overlooked or Left Out
In the early weeks of a placement, foster parents often need to focus extra attention on helping the new child settle in. It’s natural for your biological children to feel a little pushed aside or unsure of their place. Setting aside dedicated one-on-one time and checking in about their feelings can help them feel secure and valued.
3. Coping with Difficult Behaviour
Some foster children come from backgrounds where trust, consistency, or appropriate behaviour were not modelled. This can be confusing for your children, especially if they don’t understand why their new sibling acts out. Honest, age-appropriate conversations about trauma and patience can help them make sense of these situations.
4. Managing Goodbyes
Perhaps the hardest part of fostering for many families is saying goodbye. When a foster child leaves — whether returning to their birth family or moving to another placement — your children might feel a real sense of loss. Encouraging them to express their emotions, make memory boxes, or keep in touch (where appropriate) can help them process those feelings in a healthy way.
How Parents Can Support Their Foster Siblings
Your children’s experience as foster siblings will depend largely on the communication, understanding, and reassurance you provide. Here are some ways to support them along the way:
- Be open and honest: Talk about what fostering means, why your family is doing it, and what changes to expect.
- Involve them in decisions: Ask for their input when possible — even small things like helping set up a bedroom can help them feel part of the process.
- Make time for them: Protect moments of normal family life and one-on-one time.
- Acknowledge their feelings: Reassure them that all emotions — excitement, jealousy, sadness — are valid.
- Celebrate their role: Recognise that being a foster sibling is an act of kindness and generosity in itself.
Final Thoughts
Being a foster sibling can be one of the most enriching experiences of childhood — but it’s also one that comes with real emotional demands. As parents, understanding this balance helps you prepare your family for both the joy and the challenges that fostering can bring.
When children feel supported, informed, and included, fostering doesn’t just change the life of the child who joins your home — it strengthens your entire family.
