Tips for Working with Children of All Ages

Are you a new case manager, social worker, resource parent or CASA?  Here are some tips for visiting and developing relationships with children and youth of all ages you may find helpful. 

Visiting with Infants and Toddlers (ages 0-2 years)

The key goal in visiting infants and toddlers will be to make observations of their development and interaction with their world. You’ll want to review child development stages and processes to remind yourself of developmental milestones.  Be watching for your kiddo meets these life stages.  A good website to reference is http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/

It is very important, however, to remember these milestones are simply a guide and are not steadfast rules.  A child missing one milestone by a month or two may not signify a developmental delay, but may prompt you to make additional observation or to seek out an assessment by a physician or development specialist.

You’ll want to spend time holding the little one and making eye contact...this is a great indicator of a child’s comfort with relationships.  How comfortable are they with this type of contact? Do they seek out eye contact or avoid it?  As the child gets older and more mobile, do they exhibit a preference for playing with others or alone?  Do they care when they’re left alone in a room or the caregiver leaves the room/line of sight?  Do they get excited to see people enter a room?  Does this differ from one setting to another (daycare, foster home, visit with parents and siblings)?

You’ll also want to observe how they interact with their birth parent during visitations and with resource parents in the placement, but take care not to let the differences, if any, cloud your objectivity...these relationships are likely to be instinctively different.    Smaller children typically love human contact, but this can be negatively impacted by trauma and attachment issues, so these are critical observations. You may also want to schedule check-ins with the child’s pediatrician so you can report any medical concerns or progress to the Court.  

Visiting with Preschoolers (ages 3-6 years) 

Preschoolers love to play! They’re often energetic and excited to have someone or something new to play with.  So, play with your preschool age kiddos!  Do you have a stock pile of small toys, puzzles, books, crayons, etc. you can bring with you to your visits?  (Don’t leave them with the child; they’re not gifts, they’re tools.) Balls are a great toy to take outside in the back yard and practice tossing or kicking around with your little one.  Playing tea party with stuffed animals, rolling and cutting play dough, puzzles, arts and crafts, and coloring are all great activities to do with the preschooler. 

The one thing you don't want to try is to sit at the kitchen table and just talk to them.  You won’t hold their attention for very long and you likely will not get the answers you want.  Ask the preschooler to tell you how their day was and you’re likely to get a 5 minute run-down with no time to breathe and random details of several of the day’s activities. Allow them some time to freely talk about what is on their mind (which may have nothing at all to do with your questions or the case, and likely will not) but also try to structure some activities or questions to prompt them to discuss certain issues. Remember, it is critically important to take advantage of the preschooler’s preoccupation with play. 

Ask them to color/draw you a picture of their family, a person, their favorite activity.  While your tossing the ball, ask them what they did with their parent or sibling during the last visit or when they lived in the same house.  While you’re playing tea party, ask them about their favorite thing to do with members of the foster family or their siblings.  Casually ask them their favorite thing about their current home, or things they wish were different.  Play, in these instances, is a great distraction and they often won’t realize they’re being “interviewed”.

Play is typically not intimidating for preschoolers, but having an adult ask you questions one after another, especially for children who have experienced an investigation and therapy, can be very scary. Using play can decrease the “assessment of the situation” the preschooler is doing over your visit.  It will also make your visits different from the other adults who come to see them regularly.

Visiting with School-Aged Children (ages 7-12 years)

School aged kiddos have a lot going on.  They have friends at school, teachers, they’re learning new things every day and are discovering areas of strength and struggle. School aged children have active memories and active imaginations.  When they’re in foster care, they’ve got extra appointments and they’re working through confusion and fear and anger every day.  Children in this age range are also pretty energetic, especially right after school and the early evening hours, when they’re letting it all hang out after a full day of structure. 

So, when you’re visiting with these children, keep these things in mind and use them to your advantage.  Ask the child about his friends, what he likes about school and what he doesn’t like about school.  Have him describe for you what’s different about his current school from his previous schools and allow him to talk about the things he misses.  Give him an opportunity to talk about memories and dreams, encourage him to dream big!  Often times, children from dysfunctional situations don’t dream because they don’t believe dreams can come true. 

You can use play, art, and board games to engage school aged children.  They’ll feel less vulnerable and on-the-spot when you interact with them through activity.  For these kids, make your visit time focused on them rather than your conversation or check-in with the resource family or caregivers.  You can always speak with them by phone...spend your visit interacting with the child.  Another advantage to this is that you can talk more freely about the child when you’re talking with the caregiver while the child is at school than you can when he’s in the next room.  A child of this age who hears a lot of negative reports will internalize these comments a great deal and that may significantly hurt relationships and trust.

Visiting with Adolescents (ages 13-15 years)

Adolescents in this age group are stuck in the nasty middle.  They’re still energetic and secretly want to run and play outside but they’re concerned that they’re “too old” for this type of behavior.  They’re confused about whether to continue to be friends with their elementary school buddies or make attachments to new, older, and “better” middle school friends.  This is also a time when they meet a lot of new peers because of the merging of several elementary schools in middle school. They begin to assert their own likes and dislikes with more certainty in things like music, clothing, activities, movies, etc., which differentiates them from their families while identifying them with their peers.  It’s a confusing time and a frustrating time, but they have absolutely no idea how to identify those feelings nor do they have any desire to really talk about it...that would be un-cool.

So, here’s the big tip...don’t interrogate them.  Don’t ask them 20 questions about their day, their friends, their classes, their likes, their dislikes, etc.  You’ll only frustrate them and this may lead to an attitude you’ve never seen before.  You’ll want to just “hang out” with these youth and give them freedom to experiment with new activities.  You may want to consider how you can vary the location of your visits with these youth...a park, an ice cream shop, a bowling alley, the mall for some window-shopping (Remember—you should not purchase more than a token gift for the youth and you don’t want to do paid activities on each visit. This creates opportunities for blurred boundaries and confusion over your role for the youth, as well as, potentially creates an expectation that you will always buy things for him/her.)  The variety will lend itself to free expression and non-intimidating conversation.  Even bowling can often times allow the youth the freedom to drop their guard and share with you exactly what you’re hoping to discover.  Also, allow them to talk to you about the “normal” stuff in their lives—don’t focus every visit on the circumstances of the case.  Adolescents need to feel normal, as much as possible...being in care makes them stand out.

Working with Older Youth (ages 16-18 years)

Older adolescence is all about transition...childhood to adulthood, underclassmen to upperclassmen, living in the here and now to planning for the future, etc.  Older adolescents are searching for independence and freedom at a time when there are still huge benefits to structure.  They still want a safety net, but often will not admit it, and for a teen in foster care, this safety net and soft place to fall may not exist.  All of this makes looking forward even scarier for teens in care.  “Normal” teens have parents against whom they must struggle.  Our teens have a whole “team” of adults making decisions for/about them, watching their every move, planning futures for them, pushing them to make major life decisions, etc. They may feel a little like a guppy in a shark-tank.  The last thing you want to do is be another shark!

Encouragement and Support are the tools you’ll need to pack in your tool belt when visiting with an older youth.  You want to encourage them to explore all their options, even if you don’t see the potential value of the option. Let’s say you really hope he goes to college, but he’d rather just work or go to trade school. Help him gather job applications, prepare and practice for interviews, visit the trade schools, talk to an advisor, shadow someone in the field of his interest, etc.  Don’t be the one to say ‘That’s not a good idea, let’s look at this.”  Allow him to explore, freely, and he’ll feel empowered to make a decision.  At the same time, though, he’ll sense a safety net in you.  He’ll be much more likely to bounce things off of you and seek your input.  Don’t push. Go along for the ride and let him lead. After all, these kids will be on their own soon and they must learn to make big decisions.  Often times, kids in care don’t learn to make decisions because so many people have done that for them for so long. 

Visits should focus on connecting them with the community. Take them out to explore life skills...but be subtle!  Trips to grocery stores, perusing the classified ads or car lots to talk about car possibilities and budgeting, learning about credit, learning to cook, clean or do laundry, apartment hunting, etc. are all great ways to spend time with and help the transition less scary for your teen.

**ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN FOSTER FOCUS MAG - September 2013 www.FosterFocusMag.com