This Thursday is National Middle Child Day, a good time to think about the children in our families who tend to get overlooked. Now, I don’t know that middle children really do get overlooked. Dr. Alfred Adler’s famous theory about birth order…
Finding good educational accommodations for children with trauma requires thinking outside the usual box. The techniques that teachers and administrators are used to implementing often do not help our kids. We have to explain that trauma can cause children to feel unsafe and to be on…
The school year will start soon, or already has started. Children with trauma have a very hard time fitting into routines, and we need to be prepared to advocate for them with whatever schools they attend. I have never recommended being a helicopter parent, but…
Gifted children pose a unique challenge for foster parents. By definition, they have suffered the trauma of losing their biological family, and that trauma may have led to other emotional or developmental problems. Add giftedness to that mix, and we have to…
In continued honor of National Siblings Day, I want to talk for a bit about one of the biggest losses that our foster children face, which is losing track of their siblings. It is hard to find statistics, but I have seen estimates that anywhere from one-half to two-thirds of…
I ran across an outstanding article that describes how children can form actual, real memories of things that they never witnessed. In this article, the memories were benign and positive (activities with a deceased grandfather), but the…
It’s Tolkien Reading Day, set for today because in The Lord of the Rings, the heroes managed to overthrow the villain on March 25. In allowing his characters to triumph, however, Tolkien underscores another continuing theme in his books…
This week we celebrate Tolkien Reading Day. I have been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work since I discovered it in college. I started The Lord of the Rings, like many projects, because the guy I was infatuated with at the time liked the book…
Another major factor in helping children develop resilience is helping them make connections with other people. We are social animals and are hardwired to be part of a community. Many studies have noted the importance of support…
November and December can be stressful times for blended families. The Norman Rockwell holiday ideal surrounds us, and our favorite traditions inevitably clash with someone else’s. What is supposed to be a season of gratitude and…
In this season of COVID and demonstrations, I have been struck by the continual insistence on treating people as victims of “the system.” I first encountered this philosophy when I was in law school, where I learned about Critical Race Theory.
Over the past few months, I have been pondering the power of personal narratives. It is inevitable that people will view events through the prism of their individual experiences. My minority friends read stories of black men killed by police…