I’ve written earlier about how challenging it can be to step into a child’s already-existing story, which is what we stepparents and foster parents do. One of the best principles I’ve found for making that transition work to any degree is to learn how to pick your battles. We don’t need to correct every mistake that our children make (assuming that the actions really are mistakes) or join every argument. Most times…
My last blog post explained how we need to concentrate on nurture ahead of structure for our kids. However, structure is important. If our children don’t have a sense of strong structure in our family, they won’t have enough emotional security to grow and learn. Balancing that need to provide both nurture and structure has usually led me to the principle of letting my kids suffer the logical consequences of their decisions. That technique both keeps my fingerprints off the consequences and lets kids learn in the way that they learn best…
Being a stepparent or foster parent is a challenging task for many reasons, but the highest hurdle may be knowing how and when to provide strong structure for our children. There is no doubt that structure and predictability are important foundations for families. However, there are many reasons we need to make nurture a higher priority for our relationships than enforcing structure…
I often hear questions from single people who are interest in being foster parents, but who are worried about whether a single parent can realistically foster. My experience is that single parents can be excellent foster parents. I started out as a single foster mom, and then after I married, I again fostered with my husband…
I am a sucker for off-beat holidays, and yesterday was National Make Your Bed Day. It reminded me of Admiral McRaven’s 2014 commencement speech advising UT Austin graduates how to change the world. His first piece of advice was…
I’ve been thinking through the study I mentioned earlier this week, as well as previous research showing that children generally need less adult involvement in their decisions. Yet we are heading into a season where our instincts and current culture will take us in the opposite direction…
Last week, I discussed how to help our kids develop problem-solving skills. This week, I want to dig a little deeper into one of the principles I mentioned, specifically letting our kids learn from failure. Letting our children risk failure is one of the most difficult and most necessary ways to help our kids develop resilience. The principle is just as important, or perhaps even more important, for kids who have suffered childhood trauma.
As the school year starts, we know that our children will face numerous challenges. School can be particularly difficult for children who have suffered from traumatic events, and the structure and social interactions there can be just another source of chronic stress. It is tempting to try to help our kids by laying out a blueprint that we know will make life easier for them, such as…
The new school year is looming for our kids, and we need to help them get ready for it. School usually is a place of failure and stress for children who have suffered a traumatic event. Whether the trauma is from a car accident, a natural disaster, or something as targeted as sexual abuse, young people with trauma usually struggle with school. Fortunately, there are some things we can do to help them find success that will build their self-esteem and resilience as they navigate this school year…
One of the most important things we can do when parenting children who suffered trauma is find a good therapist for them. As part of that task, we need to find a good fit between our child, the therapist, and the type of therapy. A new study gives us some new data to consider in finding that fit…
Like most foster, step-, or adoptive parents, one of my biggest challenges has been knowing how to respond to my children’s bone-deep sense that I was not supposed to be in their lives. Children are hard-wired to want a biological parent, and only biological parents, as the foundation of their families. There’s…
A recently-published neuroscience study indicates that our brains interpret current events by accessing memories of prior happenings. Previous research had shown the replay effect in spatial navigation, but this study indicates that replay also underlies our ability to make sense of narratives…