Running your own business while fostering a child can be demanding and challenging. As a business owner and foster parent, you need to be able to balance your energy, time, and resources between growing your company and providing support, safety, and love to a child in need. However, when you put the right strategies in place; it’s entirely possible to find the perfect balance between fostering a child and business ownership. Here’s how.
Define Your Priorities
As a foster parent, your foster child needs to be a top priority. It may be necessary to deprioritise business tasks in order to ensure that you can commit to and spend enough time with your foster child. You can take advantage of foster allowances that are provided to ensure you are financially supported while fostering; so there’s less need to worry about making money.
Foster parents pay is often quite generous, providing you with everything you need to focus more time on fostering and less on working.
Set Clear Boundaries
Next you need to set clear boundaries with both family and business. This will help you ensure that you have enough time for both and avoid burning out. Make sure that you clearly
communicate your boundaries to your family, team, friends, and anybody else who needs to be aware of them.
Create a Schedule
Spend some time putting together a schedule that allows you to prioritise both the foster child and your business. Set specific times aside for working on your business, and time to spend with your foster child. Research tools that are available to help you achieve this, such as to-do list apps.
Don’t Be Afraid to Say No
It’s important to be comfortable with saying no to non-essential tasks and meetings when it comes to running your business. Even better,
delegate anything that isn’t necessary for you to do to somebody else. If you’re currently running your business on your own, it’s worth hiring somebody to help; or paying a freelance virtual assistant who can take over a lot of your work.
Be Prepared for the Unexpected
Like parenting any child, fostering a child can be unpredictable at time; so be prepared to adjust your plans or schedule at a moment’s notice. Have contingency plans in place for who will continue holding down the fort at your business if you need to take care of something related to your child.
Have a Support System
It’s important to ensure that you are surrounded by a
supportive network of friends, family members, and colleagues. Speak to the people in your life that you trust and can rely on and ask them to support you when needed. You may also benefit from joining a support group for foster parents; this is a great way to meet and get to know other people who are going through similar experiences to you. Take advantage of respite care services, where another foster family can take your foster child for a short period to give you a break. Fostering a child as a business owner is not always easy, but with the right plans and support in place; you can make it a rewarding experience for both you and your child.