Celebrating Mother’s Day as a foster carer

Mother’s Day is a day for celebrating mothers and maternal figures, and the role they play in people’s lives.

However, this is often a difficult day for children in foster care, who live away from their families of origin and may have conflicting feelings about this event.

Beacon Fostering is an inclusive organisation that acknowledges these issues and the validity of chosen, unrelated family in the lives of vulnerable people, so here are some ideas for celebrating Mother’s Day as a foster carer.

Acknowledge your foster child’s feelings

It helps greatly to sit down with your foster child and discuss how they are feeling about Mother’s Day in the weeks leading up to it. Ask them what they have done in the past to celebrate (if anything). This will be useful in planning and organising the day when it comes.

Community and inclusive families

Encourage your child to see valuable female role models outside of the traditional family structure, in the form of teachers, models, friends and neighbours. If you have biological children, make sure they include the foster child if appropriate. This will reinforce inclusivity and belonging and validate the concept of community and non-blood related family.

Talk with other adults in the child’s life

Check if your child’s school will be doing any activities related to Mother’s Day. If you know that this day is triggering for your child, you can talk to their teacher(s) to provide alternative arrangements for them and other children in the class whose biological mothers are not in their lives.

At Beacon Fostering, we understand that families come in all shapes and sizes. To find out more about how we can support, get in touch.