Foster Kids

December 7, 2010

Many children in foster care aren’t hoping for a new toy, but a brighter future. Moving between families can make it hard for kids to succeed in school. Now a new study suggests emotions may stand in the way. Researchers at the University of Florida looked at reasons why some of these kids struggle at school. They found that many children who’d been abused or neglected struggle with regulating their emotions.

Jenni Schelble/UF Psychology Researcher: “Once a child has been abused, trying to do things that can help them regulate and manage their emotions, getting them proper counseling, things like that and other new interventions that are coming about. Another thing that we can do is we can try to look at children who’ve been abused that don’t have these emotion regulation problems and see what kind of adaptive or protective factors they have.”

For example, when a child stubs his or her toe, he or she may react violently or nonchalantly. The researchers looked at pre-collected data and found that the way a foster child reacts can prove problematic and could stem from their abuse or neglect.

Jenni Schelble/UF Psychology Researcher: “The important finding from this research was that placement stability isn’t the only factor that affects whether foster children do well in school. Also, this emotion factor, which is actually having even a stronger relationship, is a place where we need to focus our efforts as far as prevention.”

Experts still don’t know if there’s a direct link between emotional regulation problems and academics. But with studies like this one, we may come closer to finding out more about children in the foster care system.