Next Sunday is Groundhog Day, a holiday that, because of one of my favorite movies, has become forever linked with repeating the same day over and over. That’s a familiar sensation, whether we are foster parents, step-parents, or biological parents. Parenting often feels like a revolving door of reminders: “Say please,” “Don’t forget to wash your hands,” “We don’t hit when we’re angry.” No matter how many times…
A study of Dutch school children indicates that participation in team sports correlates with increased executive function in children. The study followed 880 Dutch children from 2006 through 2017. The researchers used meters to measure physical activity in children at ages 5 to 6 and questionnaires to assess sports participation in children ages 10 to 11. The study then had parents complete a questionnaire that measures executive function. “Executive function” is a phrase that encompasses thinking skills that children need to organize facts, remember details, make decisions, and stay focused.
I like to describe raising other people’s children as learning how to fit into the stories that our children tell themselves. We humans are story-telling animals. For thousands of years, we have used stories to learn and make sense of our reality. Our children have done the same thing from their earliest days. They have a narrative of their life, and when we enter it, they have to figure out where we fit…
Helping our kids process the loss of a biological family and new family dynamics can challenge even the most patient caregiver. Here’s how we can respond in ways that can build a healthy blended family or at least not torpedo whatever fledgling relationships we have with the children we are parenting…
In my last blog post, I discussed the unavoidable reality that our journey as a foster or stepparent begins in a child’s loss. Our children will spend a lot of time grappling with their desire for an intact biological family. In our relationships, we’ll see a few common patterns in how they process their loss…
When we create a new stepfamily or become foster parents, we like to think of the transition as a fresh start for our children, a new chance for stability, love, and belonging. And we can certainly build strong relationships with our children, no matter when we join their history. But we can’t overlook the profound reality that our new family starts with a loss for our children. We will see this loss play in different ways in our individual situations, but there are some common themes that we are likely to see…
The beginning of a new year is a traditional time to make new plans. For youth organizations, it is also a good time to take a close look at child protection policies to determine which ones to keep or change going forward. Not only will…
Our new understanding of childhood trauma is wonderful in many ways, but I’ve also seen some disturbing downsides. As we try to help our child trauma survivors overcome the effects of their experiences, it is essential to avoid the twin evils of (1) making a child’s traumatic event the central focus of their life, and (2) believing that they cannot overcome the effects of that trauma…
When I first started foster parenting more than 30 years ago, no one had heard of trauma-focused techniques. Now, the phrase is everywhere. In fact, it’s become so popular that it’s hard to know what the word “trauma” means these days. The first step in parenting children who have suffered trauma is to know what we’re talking about…
One vexing part of parenting is watching our kids make decisions that we know will turn out badly for them. Children who have suffered trauma seem to be particularly prone to making problematic decisions. How do we respond when our children insist on making life decisions that we simply cannot support? Below are some thoughts about how to keep lines of communication open with our children when we can’t agree with their decisions.
We’ve discussed principles for parenting kids who reject you, but sometimes that rejection can be so deep that any sort of healthy relationship is impossible. What do you do when your relationship with your foster child or stepchild starts feeling toxic? How can you live with that child and still preserve a healthy blended family? There are no simple solutions, but there are some principles that can help you get through the challenges of parenting a child who insists on a toxic relationship…
Once we’ve thought through what treating our kids the same means, we have to know how to communicate to them that we care about them equally. It’s particularly difficult when we are trying to blend step-siblings or transition a foster child into our home. The non-biological children are extremely sensitive to favoritism, and often see it when we don’t think it exists. They also tend to interpret any different treatment as unfairly letting someone else get away with breaking the rules. So we need to figure out how to communicate to our kids that they are a part of the family just as every other child in our home. As with most parenting challenges, there are few hard and fast rules, but there are some important principles that can guide us…