The goals of the foster system prioritize what’s best for the child, yet they are not set by the child. There’s a big difference between goals set on your behalf and goals that you set yourself. Arizona Friends of Foster Children Foundation empowers children in foster care by granting caregivers the resources to pay for enrichment activities.
Why Children Should Set Goals
Setting goals gives people a sense of control over their lives and well-being. Accomplishing goals boosts self-esteem. The whole process of defining, pursuing, failing, retrying, and achieving goals teaches essential life skills. Setting long-term goals and teaching a child how to break them into short-term benchmarks teaches accountability and persistence. Long-term goals give them something meaningful to focus on, something that grows and stays with them even as they go through major life changes.
Family Goals and Individual Goals
Reunification is the ideal outcome of foster care. To achieve this, members of the birth family often have to set goals to change the circumstances of their lives or change their behaviors. Teaching children in your care life skills such as time management, prioritizing tasks, and realistic goal-setting not only helps their development. It might help their family members, too. Certainly knowing their children are well cared for and finding interests to enjoy can ease the pain of separation for parents who are working toward reunification. And however the birth family responds, the child him- or herself will have something to be proud of, something that helps them relax, something that just lets them be a kid with dreams.
New Year’s Resolutions for Foster Families
Take the time to brainstorm goals, and strategies for reaching them. Consider making a poster, a calendar, or a chart to help remind and motivate children to keep working at it. Most importantly, let them choose their own passions as a goal to work on! Don’t set goals for them, and don’t make it about “fixing” a behavior. Let them take the lead, and help make it fun. If you need financial help funding activities for children in foster care, check out our award guidelines and apply for an award.
Your Arizona tax credit donation helps us fund activities for children in foster care. Learn more about what we do, or about the Arizona tax credit.