4 Tips for Clothes Shopping with Your Teenage Foster Child

Being a foster carer means many things. One of the tasks that will inevitably come around during a longer-term placement but can quite often crop up in emergency ones too, is clothes shopping. This can be an equally rewarding and anxiety-inducing task, but there are some great tips to help you both through the experience to the other side.

Pick the Location Carefully

There are lots of places that you can go clothes shopping, whether you are fostering in Edinburgh or somewhere completely devoid of great retail. Some carers decide that shopping online is the way to go, but this creates its own set of challenges. Often, going into a store and encouraging the child to find their comfort zone is the best way forward and it saves the hassle of postage returns and so on. However, you have to get the timings and places right if you want your foster child to engage properly and feel as though they can handle the task.

Talk to Them

This is why it is of utmost necessity to talk them through their options. As the adult in the room, you will ultimately make the decision but that doesn’t mean it can’t be informed by what the teen needs and wants. Their voice really matters here because they are likely to already have a developed style and a whole load of anxiety around picking outfits because of their personal story which may include some trauma. Everyone responds in different ways, and you will never be aware of their full range of trigger stimulants so that is why it is super important that you let them be involved in picking where and how the shopping takes place.

Setting a Budget

Let them know what the budget will be beforehand because this will completely support your ability to successfully manage expectations. Teenagers are notoriously not well-versed in all things money and this is a real opportunity to show them how far things stretch and what can be achieved within a set budget. It will also hold the boundary of this far and no further when it comes to the inevitable extra requests that will be made throughout the trip.

Be Observant

As a foster carer, it is part of your mission to be as observant as you possibly can be. In this context, that means your foster child isn’t going to necessarily let you know exactly what they need in terms of a new wardrobe. It will be your job to fill the gaps and observe what is missing, too small, stained, or not good enough to wear anymore. Then you can guide them and say, ‘Okay, you need X number of T-shirts’ and so on. This will help them feel supported and take away the stress of having to A) ask for things and B) make decisions that they may not have the tools to make.

These four tips will help your shopping experience be more controlled and successful. It may not be smooth sailing all the way, but it could really be a relationship building exercise with a positive outcome if done with heart and knowledge.