One struggle we all face, especially this time of year, is how to find the strength to keep up with all of our tasks. Sometimes the problems our kids face can seem insurmountable. The sheer magnitude of the trauma they have suffered, and sometimes what…
We’re headed into one of the most stressful times of the year for blended and foster families. Winter holidays can be a constant reminder for our kids that their world is off-kilter and different from what they want it to be. There’s nothing we can do to change our kids’ perception of the holidays, but we can take steps to
One common question I hear is whether people who work full time can be foster parents. The short answer is emphatically “yes.” You don’t even need flexible schedules or part-time work in order to foster full time. Those accommodations can be helpful, but they aren’t essential. I have spent my entire foster…
One essential part of self-care is setting clear boundaries of what we expect from each other. It can be hard to do that, especially when we know as foster or bonus parents that parenting our children requires some level of self-sacrifice. However, if we sacrifice too much of ourselves the relationships become toxic.
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…
One challenge in raising other people’s children is handling the sheer volume of difficult behavior and advice about how to deal with it. One of the best things we can do for ourselves and our children is to start limiting the number of issues that we try to control and…
We have just returned from a trip to Walt Disney World with a set of our kids and grandkids. Or as I like to refer to my family these days, some of my grandchildren and their domestic staff. (Priorities, you know). Of course, the trip reminded me that I no longer…
I often wonder what some of my now-adult children think about my blog posts, given that they lived through many of the mistakes that I have made. I imagine them rolling their eyes and saying, “It would have been nice if she had done that way back then.” And they are right. It would have been…
This week before Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember why those of us with bonus children need to make our marriages our top priority — even more of a priority than our children. As parents, we know that we need to put our…