Foster love by meeting real needs

In the busyness of summer, it’s easier to turn inward to survive than to think about how to foster love with those around you. Summer tends to be a time where you’re thinking about your vacations and your favorite summer activities. What if we found ways to take an hour or two a week throughout the summer to foster love for our foster and adoptive families?

Any time you’re serving others, it is crucial to find out what they actually need. So many times we decide ways we want to bless someone without considering if it’s really helpful to them. Maybe there is a desperate need for a date night to talk outside the earshot of little ears, but you bring a delicious meal to their home. No doubt they will appreciate it, but ultimately their need still exists.

We hope that you have the kind of relationship with your family where you can ask them their greatest need and they will honestly share their answer with you! Don’t let them get by with, “We’re ok… I don’t think we need anything right now”. Foster and adoptive parents are infamous for pushing through challenges, so they may need some prompting. “If you don’t “need” anything, what’s something that would be really helpful for you?” You could list out a menu of things you could do for them and allow them to pick.

• Food is always good! Whether it’s a prepared meal or picking up their grocery list, taking one thing off their plate (so to speak) is always incredibly helpful!
• Help with household chores. Find a convenient time for you to come over to fold laundry, take out trash, clean the kitchen or pull weeds. Who would refuse this kind of offer?!
• Watch the kids. You may not be a certified respite provider, but you are able to babysit for at least a few hours. If that doesn’t seem like a good option, plan on spending an afternoon at their home doing an activity with the kids so that parents can catch up on other things around the house or take a much needed nap!
• Offer coffee service. If your foster or adoptive parent has the love language of quality time and coffee, bringing them their favorite drink once a week.  Spending 30 minutes catching up may be an incredible lifeline for them.
• Be creative! If you have a certain gift or talent that could be a benefit to the family, add it to the menu and let us know at [email protected] or share it on Facebook and tag Project 1.27 so we can add it to our list as a suggestion as well!

We recommend downloading and printing the Adoption Connection’s Cheat Sheet of “8 Ways to Help and Adoptive or Foster Mom” to hang on your refrigerator with even more suggestions to foster love! ​