Letting Foster Children Get Crafty!

It’s 9:00 pm on a Friday night and my husband Allan and I are binge watching Schitts Creek. The phone rings and a friendly voice says, “Hi Silvana. Can you take two tonight? We do emergency foster care, so I know that “Can you take two tonight?” means two children have been removed from a dangerous situation and need a place to stay. Foster children come to our house for 72 hours, giving the social worker time to find a long-term foster home.

Of course I say “Yes!”. At midnight, two little girls arrive, scared and wide awake because they’d slept the three hour drive to our house. Four-year-old Holly was nonverbal and autistic. I saw immediately that her nine-year-old sister Jenny was used to being the “mother” figure. Since the girls were awake, Allan gave them flashlights and they went on a midnight walk around the neighborhood, shining their flashlights in the neighbor’s windows. They had fun!

The social worker told me their dad was in jail and their mom was declared unfit to parent. The social worker also said, “Don’t worry about dealing with Holly. Jenny is used to doing everything for her and knows how to communicate with her.”

She was right. Jenny watched over her little sister like a doting mother. Holly would run out in the street if a door was unlocked. She’d knock things off a coffee table with one swish of her hand. She needed constant supervision, which was relegated to Jenny, since no responsible adults were around. But I noticed Jenny was so serious, so grown up beyond her years. During the three days the girls stayed with us, we wanted Jenny to relax and be a kid. By the next afternoon, Jenny saw that Allan and I would watch Holly, feed her and let her play with homemade playdough as long as she wanted. I could see Jenny beginning to laugh more, to paint a picture without constantly worrying about what her little sister was doing.

I firmly believe in the power of crafts to spark creativity and imagination, so I have tubs and tubs of craft supplies for foster children to use. I encourage them to make anything they want. Do they want to make a monster puppet with three eyes? Why not? The world needs more three-eyed puppets! Jenny started telling us in detail about her love of My Little Ponies. She knew that Applejack represents honesty, while Pinkie Pie represented laughter. Then there’s Twilight Sparkle, who is a natural born leader and loves to learn about science. Who knew?

Jenny shyly asked, Could I make a My Little Pony stable?” “Of course!” I said. And the fun began! Allan took Holly to the park, so Jenny had my complete attention. (Plus she didn’t have to worry about her little sister destroying her creation.) We brought out boxes, colored paper, regular scissors, scissors that cut in waves and zigzags, glitter, stickers, ribbon….you name it… we had it! For over two hours, Jenny cut and pasted and glued and created an amazing two-story, My Little Pony stable. I watched this little girl physically relax because she wasn’t constantly looking over her shoulder to see what Holly was doing. When she asked for fabric to put inside the stable for pony blankets, I was there to get her what she needed. I loved watching her totally engrossed in her oversized craft project. When Allan returned, she beamed as he exclaimed, “That is the most amazing and creative stable I have ever seen!” For a few hours, she expressed her imagination through crafting.

It’s heartbreaking to think about the life Jenny was living. Instead of being a smart and creative girl enjoying life, she was responsible for her special needs little sister. Some people say, “I could never be a foster parent because it would hurt when the child leaves.” That’s true. It hurts. But it isn’t about me. All I can do is give children like Jenny the opportunity to have a few hours of fun and creativity. Holly will probably forget our names, but hopefully she and the other foster children we meet will remember they spent some time with two people who were kind, and funny and didn’t care when paint spilled on the floor!