The Mental and behavioral health aspects of children in foster care are usually not very big topics for high-profile studies. More than just material things, in order to secure a healthy condition of mental and behavioral health, it is just but important that there should be at least 1 nurturing and responsive guardian to look after the child or teen's life as it really plays a crucial role to their well-being over time.
In a statement released by the American Academy of Pediatrics, it has been found that children or teens under foster care could possibly develop well when parents display warmth and nurturance, basically treating them as their own. For foster care to be successful, showing a nurturing side and consistency in kinship should also be present as it can become the foundation of the sense of belongingness.
In the journal Pediatrics, Medical News Today has revealed that children in the United States who have been under foster care are in fact prone to acquiring mental and physical problems. These include learning disabilities, depression, asthma, and obesity.
According to previous researches conducted, the various trauma that these children and teens have experienced, such as abuse or neglect, had been found to likely to develop physical or mental health issues if not given much attention. Kristin Turney of the University of California-Irvine, however, emphasized that no research comparing the health conditions of children in foster care against that of children in regular families had been done yet.
Despite these gray areas, however, children in foster care usually carry emotional and psychological weight that is not appropriate for their age. While unfortunate, one of the biggest drivers of children ending up in foster care is abuse or neglect from their original homes. Thus, adjusting to a conventional family unit becomes a challenging endeavor.
