“I can’t and I don’t have to,” my foster daughter announced. “I have a diagnosis, so I don’t have to do all of my homework if I don’t want to. I’m no good at school, and that’s just the way it is. Your nagging isn’t going to change anything…
In my last post, I discussed some important techniques that we can use at home to help our kids find more success in school. In this post, I’ll discuss three more important principles for helping our kids who show symptoms of anxiety or excessive worry about either school or life in general. As with all parts of…
While we are working with the school to help our kids adjust, we can’t forget the rest of the time that our children spend with us. After all, while they spend a lot of time in school, they spend more time at home. That fact raises the question of what we can do to help our kids succeed in school. Some of our kids will…
In my last post, I talked about the importance of explaining trauma to our kids’ teachers and school administrators. Knowing what accommodation to ask for can be an essential part of a trauma-sensitive classroom. Here are some practical ideas for creative accommodations for kids who are dealing with the impact of…
I have heard this pattern countless times from foster parents and stepparents. It’s become almost a foregone conclusion that kids who have suffered childhood trauma will also struggle in school. When I first started working in foster care back in the day, the professionals and I had no idea how these responses…
As we head into the back-to-school season, we need to remember that for many of our kids, particularly foster children, school is a place of failure and added trauma. Not all of our kids are suited for academics, and we may not be helping them by forcing them into that mold. For older kids who struggle with school…
In my last post, I discussed why it’s important to let our kids know that we see them clearly and love them unconditionally. In this post, I’ll discuss four more of the best ways to let our kids know that, even if they make mistakes, we will keep loving them…
Shortly after our marriage, my husband gave me a ring that his mother had worn for many years. A few years later, I misplaced it. As I frantically searched for the safe place where I had put it (and promptly forgotten), my husband kept telling me that everything was OK.
I ran across a story about a very sad and dysfunctional stepfamily that illustrates the problem of repeating cycles of trauma. It’s from a famous Reddit forum, and the person posting was a 16-year-old who says that his stepmother requires him to cook for himself as he’s…
A pattern that shows up very often in studies of resilience is a high correlation between resilience and self-esteem. It would be very easy to conclude that, if we help children develop self-esteem, we can also increase their resilience. It’s a small leap from that conclusion to trying to rise our kids’ self-esteem with positive…
Anyone who spends enough time looking at the effects of trauma on child development easily could conclude that our children are doomed. Current research in child welfare connects trauma to everything from obesity to significant increases in anxiety and depression. Fortunately, there is a growing recognition in the…
One of my youth organization clients once had a three-year-old child sneak out of the facility, cross a busy road, and visit a toy store. Fortunately, he was not hurt, and the store owner called my client to come get him. I helped my client figure out where their system had failed and where it needed to be shored up…