If your blended family or foster care placement are new, the holidays can be quite challenging. Not only do you have the awkward getting-to-know-you phase, but you have everyone’s holiday expectations layered on top of that. Here are some ideas that may help you navigate through the…
Holidays can be a difficult time, especially for foster or stepchildren. No matter how wonderful we are, their world is out of joint. They feel, whether consciously or not, that if the world worked the way it should, they would be with their biological family and would not know us. They may have…
As we look past Thanksgiving toward Christmas, we’ll face one controversy that crops up every holiday season, i.e., what to do about kids’ presents to their biological parents. As a foster parent, I never questioned that I needed to help my children strengthen whatever relationship they had with…
Many foster parents are able to eventually adopt their foster children. It’s a wonderful way to add to your family, and it’s an important step toward stability for a child. But as wonderful as adoption can be, it’s not a magic wand that resolves all of a child’s trauma. If…
Most advice to foster parents and stepparents, including mine, focuses on the challenges of parenting those kids. There’s good reason for that emphasis, as the job can be daunting. I’ve often said that raising other people’s children (cough) is the most challenging…
The fall & winter holidays always are difficult times for foster and blended families. Very few of us can manage peaceful meals with our kids’ extended biological families, and trying to plan all of the expected celebrations can be incredibly stressful. We have to balance competing needs of
One of our extended family emailed me last week, asking about our family plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was surprised, since I was still working on my plans for October. I hadn’t even thought about later months, much less made plans. At first I…
When I speak or appear on podcasts, one common question I hear is, “How do I decide if I want to become a foster parent?” It’s an understandable and very good question. The pull to provide a family to children who need one is strong, but parenting traumatized…
I have been reading through a federal review of Missouri’s foster care agency. The headlines are alarming, proclaiming that Missouri lost track of many children in its system. When I read the review, however, it became clear that the vast majority of the missing “children” actually are teenage…
“No,” my foster daughter patiently explained. “I can go to college without getting good grades. I can write a killer essay about how my dad deserted us, my mom is a drug addict, and now I live with you old people who don’t understand me. I have more than enough victim points to make up for…
When I was a young adult, I got a letter from an old schoolmate apologizing for some of her behavior during our school days. The letter surprised me, mainly because I had no memory of the incidents that she described. I realized that I probably had been the victim of her bullying, but it didn’t…
One common theme in advice about how to respond to a child who is bullying another is to concentrate on teaching empathy. That task is easier said than done, and it can be particularly hard with a child who has suffered trauma. If you find yourself in that situation with one of your children…