Seeing your family can make you experience a whole range of emotions.
Before contact, you might worry about things like this:
- ‘What are we going to talk about?’
- ‘What are we going to do?’
- ‘Will I enjoy it?’
- ‘Who is going to be there?’
- ‘Will my mum turn up today?’
- ‘Are there going to be any arguments?’
After contact, you could have these sorts of feelings:
- ‘I feel happy that things have gone well.’
- ‘I’m excited about the next contact.’
- ‘The weight of worrying about them has been taken off my shoulders.’
- ‘I’m confused because I don’t know who to believe.’
- ‘I’m bored because we were having fun and now I don’t know what to do.’
- ‘I’m tense and upset.
It’s normal to feel nervous before you see people who are important to you. Preparing yourself really well can help.
You might feel emotional after meeting up with your family or friends and this can make it really hard to concentrate at school or relax when you get home.
Zoe says:
‘If you’re stressed beforehand, do something you enjoy. I listen to music.’
Ollie says:
‘Find out as much as you can from your social worker about who is going to be there, where you are going to go and when you will go home.’
Tina says:
‘Don’t bottle things up. Have a chat with your foster family about what happened.’
Alun says:
‘I like going for a nice walk with my foster carer afterwards.
