When you foster a child, you face different challenges depending on their age and experiences. Very young children might need more help with practical things like tying their shoelaces or using the toilet, while teenagers need help navigating our complex world as they become more independent.
During puberty, teenagers also go through lots of changes, from hormones and physical transformations to sitting exams and preparing for adulthood. But perhaps one of the most difficult changes they contend with is a shift in their relationships with their peers.
As they figure out who they are, they may make new friends or explore romantic relationships, and they’ll need your guidance to ensure these connections are safe and healthy.
Healthy vs unhealthy relationships for teens
When children hit puberty, it can be difficult for them to recognise when their behaviour or someone else’s is problematic due to the rapid changes they’re going through physically, emotionally, and socially.
When you’re fostering teenagers, their early childhood experiences can also distort their idea of what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like, making it more challenging for them to realise when a friendship or romantic connection is actually hurting them.
So how do you help them? As their foster carer, the first step in supporting your young person is to understand the difference between unhealthy and healthy relationships for teens.
Characteristics of a healthy relationship
Here are 5 signs of a healthy relationship between your foster teen and their peer:
- Communication: They feel able to express themselves openly and share their thoughts and feelings.
- Respect: They value each other for who they are, from their choices and opinions to their feelings and boundaries.
- Trust: They are honest and don’t prevent each other from seeing other friends and family, or from being themselves.
- Boundaries: They respect each other’s boundaries and feel able to say ‘no’ when they feel it’s necessary.
- Equality: Both teens play an equal part in the relationship, have a voice and are treated fairly.
Signs of unhealthy relationships
Although there are a few red flags that someone’s behaviour might be affecting your foster teen and vice versa, one sign on its own doesn’t automatically mean the relationship is unhealthy.
It’s normal for friendships and romantic relationships to have an influence on your teen’s behaviour, but only to a certain extent. It’s when things change dramatically, and a pattern seems to be forming, that it could mean something is adrift.
Knowing your teenager and paying close attention to their behaviour will help you notice the signs that a friendship or romantic connection could be harming them.
Here are some signs that someone’s behaviour may be affecting your foster teen:
- Significantly changing the way they dress, style their hair or apply makeup.
- Dramatic shifts in their weight either up or down.
- Unexplained injuries and suddenly wearing long sleeves or other types of clothing to cover them even in hot weather.
- Spending all their time with one person and less time with close friends and family members.
- Giving up things they once loved, such as hobbies, TV shows, or music and switching to something completely different.
- Drastic change in views, values, and opinions. They might start saying things that are completely out of character and agreeing or disagreeing with opinions that seem far from their own.
- More secretive about their phone or where they’ve been.
- Constantly receiving calls and texts at all hours of the day and seeming anxious if they’re unable to answer them. For example, if you have a phone ban at the dinner table, they might struggle to relax because they can’t respond to a call or message from the person.
- Their mood seems to swing rapidly from elated to sad, or they appear to be more anxious, down, irritable or tearful than usual.
- They say things about the relationship that make you feel uneasy. For example, they might tell you the person has told them to stop talking to someone or change the way they dress.
- Struggling to concentrate at school, which means their schoolwork suffers and their grades drop.
- They start engaging in more risky behaviours, such as drinking alcohol or vaping.
The signs that your foster teen’s behaviour could be impacting someone else are often trickier to spot, as outwardly the relationship might look okay, but you don’t see what’s really going on behind the scenes. Here are a few red flags to look out for:
- Constantly messaging or ringing a person
- Encouraging someone else to skip school, college or work
- Preventing a friend or romantic interest from seeing other friends and family
- Making demands, such as looking through someone else’s phone
- Regularly losing their temper or experiencing mood swings
- Being secretive about where they’ve been and who they’ve been with
- Pressuring someone else to engage in behaviour that they’re not comfortable with
- Seeming to be in constant conflict with their friend or romantic interest
Supporting teenagers in building healthy relationships
Guiding your teenager to make healthy relationship decisions might sound daunting, but whether you provide short-term or long-term foster care, it’s part of your role as their foster carer, and here are our top 5 tips to support them.
Be in the know by attending training
At FCA Scotland, as part of our support for foster carers, we provide training called ‘Healthy Relationships,’ where you’ll learn everything there is to know about supporting teenagers in your care to build more positive connections with their peers.
From the principles of healthy relationships and the signs of unhealthy ones to sexual health and consent, you’ll have more confidence to approach your teen’s relationships when you are in the know.
Teach your teen about healthy relationships
Now you’re armed with the knowledge you need, you can use it to teach your teenager about what healthy relationships look like. This doesn’t mean you have to sit them down and use a whiteboard; you could have a general chat while you’re doing something else or show them videos and discuss their feelings after.
But the main things to cover include:
- The principles of a healthy relationship: As discussed earlier, these are things like communication, trust, respect, equality, and boundaries.
- Boundaries: Help them understand what they are, why having them is important, and how to respect other people’s boundaries.
- Consent: What consent means, what it looks like, and ways another person might say ‘no’ nonverbally.
- Spotting red flags: Informing your teenager of the signs that a relationship might be unhealthy. At FCA Scotland, we have a great blog in our Being in Care Hub called ‘Spotting the Red Flags: How to Build Healthy Relationships in your Teens’, which you could encourage your young person to read.
- Sexual health: Talk to your young person about safe sex, consent and the law, and the principles of healthy sexual experiences.
Be a relationship role model
When a child moves into care, they might have never seen what a healthy relationship looks like. If they were born into a household where they felt unsafe or witnessed domestic violence, these sorts of relationships may feel normal to them.
As their foster carer, your relationship with your teenager and with other people, such as your own children, partner, and friends, can show your young person what a healthy relationship looks like.
This can help them see that safe, loving, and positive connections do exist, giving them a blueprint for relationships with friends and romantic interests.
Spend time together
Make sure you spend quality time with your teenager so they know they can always come to you if they experience problems in a relationship with a friend or someone they’re dating.
This will also help you spot signs that something has changed in them and whether it links to a new person in their life. Plus, if you are concerned, it will give you a chance to ask your young person about the relationship casually, which could prevent them from feeling interrogated and becoming defensive.
Remember you aren’t alone
At FCA Scotland, you’re never alone on your fostering journey. From your supervising social worker, who can offer advice and guidance, to our support for children in foster care, including participation ambassadors who ensure young people always have a voice, our team is here to help you support young people in your care.
We also organise activities and events for the whole family and foster carer meetups where you can get to know other families in your area, giving you even more people to lean on and learn from.
Plus, you can access additional resources on our foster carer platform, and organisations such as YoungMinds, NSPCC, and Safeline have lots of useful information to help teenagers build healthier relationships.
Want to learn more about fostering?
If you’re interested in becoming a foster carer and want to learn more about FCA Scotland, call us today on 0141 646 4805 or submit your details via our online form.
Whether you want to find out about our foster care allowance or discover exactly what sort of support you’ll receive, our friendly advisors are ready to answer your questions and get you started on your fostering journey.
