This week before Father’s Day is a good time to look at the importance of stepfathers and foster fathers in families. It’s very easy to overlook the important role that father figures play in children’s lives. Stepmothers get a national day, but stepfathers don’t. We need to remember…
As summer starts, many of us start thinking about a family vacation. Meshing schedules for blended families can be challenging, not to mention asking all of the kids to get along. Our family loves to travel, and we have often taken a collection of younger relatives and friends along with us on many trips. Here are some techniques that…
In my last post, I discussed why we need to let our kids emotionally bounce off us. In this post, I discuss how to do that. Here are some important principles that I have learned for dealing with kids in the moment…
One essential and hard-to learn skill is knowing how to respond when our kids are angry, unhappy, having a meltdown, or simply reject us. Children who have suffered trauma are particularly liable to react in all of these ways. The best thing we can do as parents of those children is…
The Journal of Pediatrics recently published an article arguing persuasively that a major cause of the current epidemic in childhood anxiety and depression is that we supervise our children too much. With the best of intentions, the authors argue, we are depriving our children of important opportunities to become self-confident and independent…
As the school year ends, many of us will face the conundrum of high school graduates who don’t plan to continue in school or college graduates who come back home while they search for a career. On the one hand, most graduates are legal adults, with the right to manage their own lives. On the other hand, few young adults in…
When raising other people’s children, it’s easy to start hating Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day. It’s a bit like being single on Valentine’s Day. All of the attention goes to biological parents, and foster parents or stepparents are left on their own. Fortunately, there are some helpful ways we can prepare ourselves to avoid disappointment…
As we consider foster parenting this month, one rarely-discussed problem is how lonely the challenge can be. Raising another person’s child carries unique obligations. Your friends who have not dealt with the complex needs of foster children and…
One story that has been all over the Internet recently is the 7th-grader who safely stopped a school bus after his bus driver passed out. Some background that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention are the skills that may have come into play when he needed them…
Today is “National Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day,” and a good time to think about what we can teach our kids about work skills. Schools can teach them content, but we may be the only people who can teach them the attitudes and soft skills they need. There are several important steps we can take to let…
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing foster parents is finding help for our kids’ mental health challenges. One study estimates that up to 80% of children in foster care have mental health issues. The American Academy of Pediatrics says, “Mental and behavioral health is the largest unmet health need for children…
Schedules are crowded these days, and most of our kids have their days structured from bedtime to bedtime. It’s easy to forget the power of just hanging out together. I had a strong reminder of that point recently. These days, my husband and I are taking a break from foster care in favor of mentoring young…