Knowing who you are and being confident in yourself can sometimes be harder for people living in care, because of all the extra things you may be thinking about. People tell us that they worry about things like being safe and secure, who to trust and whether they will be able to have positive relationships in the future, even what they will be like as an adult or a parent.
This can affect your relationship with lots of people such as foster carers, teachers, other workers and friends.
There are lots of people around you to help you make sense of everything.
Advice from others
You might feel scared that people will judge you when you are older – you don’t need to tell people – it’s up to you!
It’s so hard – I use to worry about telling my school friends; that if we fell out they would have all my secrets. However once I plucked up the courage to tell a few trusted friends it really helped me.
Coming into care was really scary at first, but now I can see that it was to help me and it’s ok.
If you have experienced difficult things before coming into care these can stay with you in lots of different ways. Some people find it really hard to trust adults or believe what they are saying. For others, their experiences might affect different areas of their lives such as sleeping (having nightmares or a poor sleeping pattern), eating (eating too much too quickly or hoarding food) or how they feel about themselves. You may feel really angry but not know why.
There are lots of reasons why – for example you might have missed out on a lot of play opportunities. Sometimes because of this you might want to do activities or play with games that are for younger children and that’s totally fine.
Advice from others
I used to hoard food under my bed because when I was at home I didn’t know when I would next get food. I eventually talked to my foster carer who helped me with this.
I remember playing with my Polly Pockets – people thought I was too old for them but I’d never got the chance to play with them before.
About the author
This piece of content was adapted from a project created by members of York Children in Care Council (‘Show Me That I Matter’).
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