10 Things You Learn About Yourself When Becoming a Kinship Carer / Special Guardian

When I first stepped into the role of kinship carer, later formalised as a Special Guardian (SGO), I thought I had a fairly realistic idea of what to expect. I mean, I’d done the late-night Googling, skimmed the forums, chatted with a couple of people who have similar experience… so surely I was prepared, right?

Yeah. No. Not quite.

Becoming a kinship carer isn’t just a change in your schedule or your responsibilities; it’s a full-body, full-mind, full-heart shift. It stretches parts of you that you didn’t even know existed. It exposes whole new layers of your personality. And sometimes it drops you right into the middle of emotional landscapes you never expected to explore.

Here are 10 things I learned about myself along the way.

1. I’m capable of more emotional resilience than I ever imagined

Nothing tests your emotional muscles like suddenly becoming the stable adult in a child’s life after they’ve experienced loss, disruption, or uncertainty. I used to think “resilience” just meant keeping it together. Turns out, it’s also about adapting, re-adapting, crying in the bathroom, doing the school run anyway, and getting up the next morning determined to do better. Every hard moment somehow carved out a bit more space for strength I didn’t know I had.

2. But I also break more easily than I thought. and that’s okay

I always imagined myself as this steel-spined, crisis-proof person. Spoiler: I’m not. But I’ve learned that breaking down doesn’t make you weak; it makes you human. There’s something strangely empowering about realising that vulnerability isn’t a flaw. It’s a sign that you’re actually feeling things instead of just steamrolling through them.

3. My patience has layers, like a never-ending onion

I used to think patience was a single dial: either you had it, or you didn’t. But being a special guardian introduced me to new levels of patience I didn’t even know were possible. There’s “I can wait five minutes,” patience, “I can explain this again,” patience, and then the ultimate boss-level: “I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, and stressed, but I’m still holding space for you because you deserve calm even when I don’t feel it.” That last one is a superpower on its own.

4. I can be fiercely protective without losing my softness

Kinship care flips a switch you didn’t realise was there. At some point, you go from “I’m helping” to “This is my child, and I will walk through fire if I have to.” I found myself advocating, pushing, emailing, calling, and raising the sort of fuss that pre-kinship-me would’ve avoided at all costs. But the real surprise? I learned how to protect without hardening. To be firm without becoming sharp. To be loving while also being loud when needed.

5. I had no idea how complicated family dynamics could get

Let’s be honest, kinship care comes with extra emotional knots. Loyalty pulls you in multiple directions. You’re caring for a child you love, but you’re navigating relationships with birth parents, extended family, and sometimes professionals who have never sat at your kitchen table but still have opinions. I learned that I’m better at boundary-setting than I thought. Or at least I’m learning to be.

6. I can learn new systems faster than any bureaucratic maze can throw at me

You quickly become part-parent, part-caseworker, part-administrative ninja. Forms? Meetings? Acronyms? (So many acronyms!) I didn’t choose to become fluent in social-care-speak, but here we are. Somewhere between the assessments, support plans, and applications, I discovered I’m actually pretty good at untangling complex systems. It’s a weird skill, but I’ll take it.

7. I’m braver than I give myself credit for

There’s something quietly courageous about saying “yes” when life hands you a situation that wasn’t part of your plan. Or stepping into a role without a perfect roadmap. Every time I made a decision that scared me, or spoke up when my voice wanted to crack, I realised bravery doesn’t always feel big. Sometimes it’s very small. Sometimes it’s just choosing to keep showing up.

8. I’ve got a sense of humour that borders on survival strategy

I didn’t realise quite how much laughter would become my anchor. Dark humour, silly humour, the kind of humour that appears only at 11 p.m. after a day full of emotional mayhem, it all counts. I learned to laugh at the chaos, at myself, at the situations that felt too big to hold onto without a little comic relief. A well-timed joke has saved my sanity more than once.

9. I had to let go of the person I thought I’d be

Before becoming a kinship carer, I had a picture of what my life would look like. A neat little timeline. A plan with checkboxes. Those checkboxes have now been scribbled over, redrawn, set on fire, and replaced with new ones. And weirdly… I’m okay with that. I discovered that I’m more adaptable than I gave myself credit for. That a life that doesn’t match the original blueprint can still be incredibly rich.

10. Love really does grow in unexpected places

Here’s the big one. The thing I didn’t see coming. Love grew, not just between me and my child, but inside me. I learned I could love in a new way, a fiercer way, a more intentional way. Kinship care isn’t just about stepping up. It’s about opening up. It’s about letting a child’s story intertwine with yours until you can’t imagine it any other way.

Becoming a kinship carer or special guardian shifts your entire identity, but it also reveals the parts of you that were just waiting for the right moment to shine. It’s messy, exhausting, overwhelming, beautiful, and absolutely life-altering. And somewhere in the middle of the chaos, you discover a version of yourself you might never have met otherwise, a version that’s stronger, softer, wiser, and more human than you ever expected.

If you’re on this journey too, just know: you’re evolving in ways you can’t even see yet. And you’re doing better than you think.

About me

I am a married mother of four children. One of those four children is our granddaughter, for whom we are SGO (legal guardians)/kinship carers. I run a small business and enjoy writing, so I blog. My blog focuses on my family life as well as my experiences of living with chronic illnesses and disabilities such as ME/CFS, spinal stenosis, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia.  Oh, and I am only in my mid-40s.