An essential component to forging a solid relationship with our stepchildren is to spend quality time with them. There as many theories of how and when and what to do as there are researchers, therapists, and dictionaries. For this post…
Taking care of other people’s children requires a lot of sacrifice, and our stepchildren often don’t recognize our efforts for quite a while. But, just like biological children, if we hang in there long enough, our children eventually will develop the…
This week before Father’s Day is a good time to look at the importance of stepfathers and foster fathers in families. If our children have biological fathers involved in their lives, we need to do what we can to encourage that relationship…
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…
I recently found an article about an intriguing study at Emory University finding that children who knew more about their family history show higher levels of well-being. I cannot locate the original 2010 study, and while I have found related…
A recent study from Sweden raises serious questions about how foster care impacts children. Most studies of the foster system suffer from the problem that children placed in foster care are unlike non-placed children in so many ways that…
Parenting children of divorce or other childhood traumas is daunting, but the good news is that positive experiences can help neutralize bad ones. A recently-published study looked at almost 500 children over 10 years, starting in their…
One topic that I have been pondering lately is how families manage adversity and teach their children to be resilient…
In my last post, I discussed the 20+ years of research on the possible effects of adverse childhood experiences…
A pattern that shows up very often in studies of resilience is a high correlation between resilience and self-esteem…
One of the most active areas of mental health studies these days is the effect of adverse childhood experience…
Numerous mental health studies suggest that one of the best ways to help children develop resilience and recover…