In one month, we go live with “You Understand the Trauma. Now What?,” our free webinar for foster, adoptive, kinship, and stepparents.
We’ll cover what trauma actually does to a child’s development, emotions, and thinking. The behavior you’re seeing is usually not the real problem, and we’ll talk about why.
You’ll walk away with four concrete things you can try that same night.
Register here
One of the most frustrating aspects of parenting children with trauma is knowing whether they won’t make good choices or whether they can’t make them. The only answer I have found is that we rarely know which it is, so we have to approach every situation with humility and a large measure of grace….
When I had kids at home, the back-to-school season was the hardest time of year for me. Changing from the summer schedule to the structure of the school year was hard for all of us. In addition, I had to field all sorts of well-meaning advice from education experts about how to get my kids ready for school, set up a…
“Hey, Debbie.” The voice on the telephone was a little strained, but very familiar. Alicia had been placed with me when she was sixteen and had lasted about six months before she ran away for the final time. It had been almost a year since I had heard from her…
Finding good educational accommodations for children with trauma requires thinking outside the usual box. The techniques that teachers and administrators are used to implementing often do not help our kids. We have to explain that trauma can cause children to feel unsafe and to be on…
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act require youth-serving organizations to provide reasonable accommodations for disabilities, including developmental delays, behavioral disorders, and mental health problems. Putting that principle into practice can be very difficult, particularly…
None of us planned the path that led us into foster care, adoption, or a blended family. Many people call it a wrong turn. I call it Plan B parenting. There is an old aviation nickname that captures this better than any parenting book I…