Parenting is unique in that, if we do it right in the long run, we work ourselves out of a job. Our most important responsibility is to teach our kids how to develop into adults who don’t need us. Yet, in today’s protective culture, it can be hard to teach our foster or stepchildren the essential trait of self reliance. It’s a…
“I can’t and I don’t have to,” my foster daughter announced. “I have a diagnosis, so I don’t have to do all of my homework if I don’t want to. I’m no good at school, and that’s just the way it is. Your nagging isn’t going to change anything…
In my last post, I discussed some important techniques that we can use at home to help our kids find more success in school. In this post, I’ll discuss three more important principles for helping our kids who show symptoms of anxiety or excessive worry about either school or life in general. As with all parts of…
As we head into the back-to-school season, we need to remember that for many of our kids, particularly foster children, school is a place of failure and added trauma. Not all of our kids are suited for academics, and we may not be helping them by forcing them into that mold. For older kids who struggle with school…
A pattern that shows up very often in studies of resilience is a high correlation between resilience and self-esteem. It would be very easy to conclude that, if we help children develop self-esteem, we can also increase their resilience. It’s a small leap from that conclusion to trying to rise our kids’ self-esteem with positive…
Anyone who spends enough time looking at the effects of trauma on child development easily could conclude that our children are doomed. Current research in child welfare connects trauma to everything from obesity to significant increases in anxiety and depression. Fortunately, there is a growing recognition in the…
One of my youth organization clients once had a three-year-old child sneak out of the facility, cross a busy road, and visit a toy store. Fortunately, he was not hurt, and the store owner called my client to come get him. I helped my client figure out where their system had failed and where it needed to be shored up…
One of the best ways to teach teenagers the life skills they will need as adults is to help them get a summer job. One of the silver linings of the current Great Resignation is that more employers than ever are willing to consider hiring teenagers. Now is a good time to help our teens take advantage of the job market…
With school graduations coming up or already behind us, one topic that I often hear is how to teach teenagers to be independent. It can be frustrating knowing that our children will soon be legally independent, but wondering if they will have the skills they need in time to be functionally independent. It can be…
One well-known problem in the child welfare field is that children who suffer abuse are at much higher risk of being victims of violence later in life. For parents of abuse victims, it is extremely important to empower our children and help them avoid becoming repeat…
In my last post, I talked about the importance of being mentors to our kids. Tomorrow is Tolkien Reading Day, and Tolkien’s works are a good reminder of the power of stories in our lives. The Lord of the Rings has become a cultural touchstone for many reasons, but primarily because it is a superbly crafted story…
A pattern that shows up very often in studies of resilience is a high correlation between resilience and self-esteem. It would be very easy to conclude that, if we help children develop self-esteem, we can also increase their resilience. These studies, however, only measure correlation, not causation. Furthermore, other…