How Do I Teach Safety Skills to a Foster Teen Without Being Overprotective? - Weekend Wisdom

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

How can you build safety skills for foster teens without becoming so protective that they feel you don’t trust them? Older youth who have experienced neglect, unsafe adults, exploitation, family disruption, or other trauma may need extra help learning to recognize risk and make safe choices as they gain independence. 

In this Weekend Wisdom episode, we share practical ways to build relational safety, practice decision-making before a crisis, set clear expectations without making them feel controlling, talk about friendships, dating, peer pressure, and online safety, and surround teens with trusted adults they can turn to for help. The goal isn’t to prevent every mistake—it’s to help young people recognize risk, think through their choices, recover when things go wrong, and know they always have a safe place to land.

Resources:

Strengthening the Connection with Your Tweens & TeensNavigating the Internet with Adopted or Foster Tweens and TeensAdvice for Foster & Kinship Parents from Former Foster Youth

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

Weekly podcastsWeekly articles/blog postsResource pages on all aspects of family building