Blog: Other People's Children®

In this second post on using logical consequences with kids, I want to discuss some more important principles of using the technique. These principles help us use logical consequences in a way that’s loving, practical, and sets our kids up for success...

As we continue to talk this month about using logical consequences with our kids, I want to focus on some very important principles of how to use them. If we don’t use consequences wisely and lovingly, particularly with kids who have suffered trauma, we can unwittingly compound the damage...

Returning to our theme this month of logical consequences, I want to talk about one very important principle — logical consequences only work with a lot of nurture and love. It’s easy to concentrate on the high structure part of letting kids learn from the consequences of their actions. At the same time, we can’t forget that our focus is on letting our kids learn — and they will learn best when we are there to empathize and help them learn. Logical consequences is all about both...

Today is National Siblings Day, and a good opportunity for foster parents to remember how important it is to keep our kids connected to their siblings. Not many people can foster an entire family of children. When we can parent only one or a few children in a family, or some siblings remain with biological family, we need to take on the added responsibility of helping our kids stay in touch with their brothers and sisters.‍‍..

Sometimes when raising other people’s children, it’s difficult to tell whether we are having any impact at all. Our kids often seem so mired in the aftermath of their trauma that we can’t see how to help them move forward. A recent study gives us hope that our simply being a supportive presence in our kids’ lives can make a profound difference...

In my last post, I talked about how we define and think through logical consequences. In this post, I want to discuss why logical consequences work well for kids who have experienced trauma. There are several profound benefits that make logical consequences better than either lectures or unconnected penalties that we often try to use with our kids...

For the next few blog posts, I want to talk about one of the most important techniques I’ve found for helping children who have suffered trauma, which is using the logical consequences of their behavior. In some cases, we simply need to stand aside and let them learn from the consequences, such as getting a bad grade after waiting until the last minute to complete a project. Other times, we need to actually engineer a glimpse (a safe glimpse) of how the world works. In my next posts, I’ll discuss principles for using logical consequences, but first we need to establish exactly what I’m talking about...

Our theme this month is making a commitment to our foster or stepchildren and setting healthy boundaries for them. But we always have to keep in mind that trauma can skew our kids’ reactions to our best efforts. Children who have experienced trauma generally respond to boundaries differently than those who haven’t. It’s crucial for us to understand these trauma responses while we are trying to protect our kids and provide structure...

Today is Tolkien Reading Day. It’s a good excuse for me to revisit my favorite author and think about what his writings and various fairy stories can teach us about this month’s theme of commitment...

As I discussed in my last post, commitment is the cornerstone of parenting in foster and blended families. However, healthy commitments can never be unlimited. We should love our kids unconditionally, but healthy commitments are never unconditional. We must establish healthy boundaries in order to protect and grow our relationships with our children...

When stepping into the role of a foster parent or stepparent, you may hear that all you need to do is love your kids. Love is wonderful and essential, but it is not enough. Love alone won’t sustain your challenging relationships with children who have suffered trauma. Commitment — unwavering, realistic, and bone-deep commitment — is the only foundation for building a healthy relationship...

An excellent article from Nature magazine explores the research showing that children benefit from risky play. Mental health professionals are discovering that children allowed to stretch their limits in uncertain and adventurous play benefit both physically and emotionally. Those opportunities allow them to develop coordination and spatial awareness, but also confidence and resilience. A study from Norway that spearheaded the field found that adolescents who spent less time in positive thrill-seeking — such as outdoor adventure — were more likely to take negative risks such as shoplifting. A more recent study from Britain found that during the COVID-19 lockdown, children who spent more time in risky play had fewer mental health problems...

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a sucker for made-up holidays, and this week is no different. Tomorrow is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day, and it prompted me to start thinking about what fairy tales can tell us about foster and blended families. I’ve written before about what fairy tales can tell us about being the mentor rather than the villain in our kids’ stories. Today I want to look at some of the other lessons that fairy tales can teach us about raising other people’s children...

A new international study has found a direct link between quality parent-child relationships and children’s sense of well-being later in life. The research consisted of surveys of more than 200,000 adults living in 21 different countries. It shares the inherent weaknesses of all self-reported data, but the sheer volume of people involved makes it worth paying attention to...

An important principle in setting priorities for your foster or blended family is understanding how to balance everyone’s unique needs. Younger children, for example, need more of our time than older children. Children who have suffered trauma have more complex needs than children who haven’t gone through those experiences. In addition to the usual work commitments, school requirements, and extracurricular activities, we have to find time and energy to encourage emotional healing and building trust. To meet all of those demands, we need to remember some important principles...

This week of Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember raising other people’s children requires us to prioritize our marriage after self-stewardship but ahead of our children. As parents, we know that we need to put our children’s needs ahead of our own. We should not put them ahead of our marriages...

When talking about how to set priorities, I always start with core values and self-care (actually self-stewardship) as the foundation. The reason I put those two at the bottom of the pyramid is that we can’t adequately care for our families unless we first put in place the resources that we will need to draw from...

Well, it's a limited-run series, but still a podcast. join me and my co-author, Tom Rawlings, as we discuss principles of child safety policies and our new book, Protecting Other People's Children. The series is titled "Cultivating a Culture of Safety," and...

Being a foster parent or stepparent comes with unique challenges, but it also offers profound opportunities. One of the most critical lessons in this journey is understanding how to set priorities to create a solid foundation for your family. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post about why I think certain priorities come before others. Today, I want to give an overview and explain why I believe children should be last, instead of first in the order of family priorities...

Next Sunday is Groundhog Day, a holiday that, because of one of my favorite movies, has become forever linked with repeating the same day over and over. That’s a familiar sensation, whether we are foster parents, step-parents, or biological parents. Parenting often feels like a revolving door of reminders: "Say please," "Don’t forget to wash your hands," "We don’t hit when we’re angry." No matter how many times...

A study of Dutch school children indicates that participation in team sports correlates with increased executive function in children. The study followed 880 Dutch children from 2006 through 2017. The researchers used meters to measure physical activity in children at ages 5 to 6 and questionnaires to assess sports participation in children ages 10 to 11. The study then had parents complete a questionnaire that measures executive function. “Executive function” is a phrase that encompasses thinking skills that children need to organize facts, remember details, make decisions, and stay focused.

I like to describe raising other people’s children as learning how to fit into the stories that our children tell themselves. We humans are story-telling animals. For thousands of years, we have used stories to learn and make sense of our reality. Our children have done the same thing from their earliest days. They have a narrative of their life, and when we enter it, they have to figure out where we fit...

I had a great time talking to Mac-Arthur Pierre-Louis on his LMI Podcast. We discussed how to...

Helping our kids process the loss of a biological family and new family dynamics can challenge even the most patient caregiver. Here’s how we can respond in ways that can build a healthy blended family or at least not torpedo whatever fledgling relationships we have with the children we are parenting...

In my last blog post, I discussed the unavoidable reality that our journey as a foster or stepparent begins in a child’s loss. Our children will spend a lot of time grappling with their desire for an intact biological family. In our relationships, we’ll see a few common patterns in how they process their loss...

When we create a new stepfamily or become foster parents, we like to think of the transition as a fresh start for our children, a new chance for stability, love, and belonging. And we can certainly build strong relationships with our children, no matter when we join their history. But we can't overlook the profound reality that our new family starts with a loss for our children. We will see this loss play in different ways in our individual situations, but there are some common themes that we are likely to see...

The blog is back! When I took a break last spring, I didn’t intend to be gone for so long. But my projects mushroomed, and I’ve just now managed to get my schedule under control. My apologies, and I hope that the archived posts have been helpful while I’ve been preoccupied...

Our new understanding of childhood trauma is wonderful in many ways, but I’ve also seen some disturbing downsides. As we try to help our child trauma survivors overcome the effects of their experiences, it is essential to avoid the twin evils of (1) making a child’s traumatic event the central focus of their life, and (2) believing that they cannot overcome the effects of that trauma...

When I first started foster parenting more than 30 years ago, no one had heard of trauma-focused techniques. Now, the phrase is everywhere. In fact, it’s become so popular that it’s hard to know what the word “trauma” means these days. The first step in parenting children who have suffered trauma is to know what we’re talking about...

One vexing part of parenting is watching our kids make decisions that we know will turn out badly for them. Children who have suffered trauma seem to be particularly prone to making problematic decisions. How do we respond when our children insist on making life decisions that we simply cannot support? Below are some thoughts about how to keep lines of communication open with our children when we can’t agree with their decisions.

We’ve discussed principles for parenting kids who reject you, but sometimes that rejection can be so deep that any sort of healthy relationship is impossible. What do you do when your relationship with your foster child or stepchild starts feeling toxic? How can you live with that child and still preserve a healthy blended family? There are no simple solutions, but there are some principles that can help you get through the challenges of parenting a child who insists on a toxic relationship...

Once we’ve thought through what treating our kids the same means, we have to know how to communicate to them that we care about them equally. It’s particularly difficult when we are trying to blend step-siblings or transition a foster child into our home. The non-biological children are extremely sensitive to favoritism, and often see it when we don’t think it exists. They also tend to interpret any different treatment as unfairly letting someone else get away with breaking the rules. So we need to figure out how to communicate to our kids that they are a part of the family just as every other child in our home. As with most parenting challenges, there are few hard and fast rules, but there are some important principles that can guide us...

One mantra we hear as foster and stepparents is to treat all of our kids the same. It’s also much easier said than done. Stepchildren and foster children often will accuse us of treating our biological children as our “favorite.” It’s not a complaint we can counter with words. We have to live it out and let our kids see that we love them equally. But first, we have to look at ourselves and understand how to think about the problem...

It's easy to talk about building good relationships with foster and stepchildren, but what if you don't like your kids? It's very difficult to find the motivation to build a close relationship, or even a marginally good relationship, with someone whom you don't like. This dilemma is a more common situation that we want to admit, but we shouldn't be surprised when it happens. I was fortunate in that my stepchildren were generally delightful, but I have parented foster children that I had to struggle to like and care about. While I never found a magic solution, I was able to find several principles that helped us move toward a more positive relationship...

One of the biggest challenges to parenting other people’s children is establishing a good relationship with them. One important foundation in forging a healthy relationship is to give our children plenty of space. I like to think of that space in terms of emotional space, physical space, and a space of their own, all of which I have found to be essential to any solid family relationships. This month, as we discuss principles for our relationships with our children, let’s start with how to give them that space...

One question that I have heard recently is whether schools can provide educational records to stepparents. The answer is, “Sometimes.”Different states have different rules, but almost all public schools and any private schools...

Depression among young people has become a serious problem, particularly during and after the COVID lockdowns. The problem is compounded for children who have suffered trauma, and those of us parenting those kids need as many tools in our toolkits as possible. There’s good news for our kids, a recent survey of international studies found that exercise can be one of the most effective treatments for alleviating depression...

One recommendation that stepparents hear frequently is “don’t overstep your bounds,” or “stay in your lane.” It’s an important principle to remember, but it can be frustrating because it’s rarely clear where your lane is. Furthermore, as your relationship with your family deepens, and especially as your children get older, that lane changes. So how do we as Plan B parents figure out where our lane is at any given time? This week, let’s discuss some principles for figuring out where we fit into our unusual and challenging families...

Today is Singles Awareness Day, an unofficial holiday apparently designed to counteract the emphasis this week on Valentine’s Day. I’ve never been a big fan of the holiday, even as a single person, because it always seemed to me to have an artificial “make lemonade out of lemons” vibe. But it’s a good time to revisit a common question I hear, which is whether and how single people can be foster parents. I can say with no hesitation that it’s a challenging task, but raising other people’s children as a single person can be a wonderful and profound experience...

Given that Valentine’s Day is coming up, this week is a natural time to focus on appreciating our spouses. But sometimes we don’t feel very appreciative, particularly during the difficult journey of parenting a blended or foster family. One of my closest friends once confided, “I need a Valentine’s card this year that says, ‘I love you, even though you are absolutely completely wrong about our last argument.’” Many married couples can sympathize with that sentiment...

One of the most important ways to avoid conflict and strengthen your marriage in a foster or blended family is to agree on clear boundaries with your child’s biological parents. Establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries is essential for all of you. Boundaries support healthy relationships between your children and their birth parents, give your family members security and structure, and help avoid conflict in your marriage. In this blog post, I’ll explore why we set boundaries and which ones to set...

An important, even essential, part of protecting your marriage in a blended or foster family is to be certain that you and your spouse have agreed on ground rules in several common problem areas. Managing (and minimizing) these conflicts requires clear communication and solid agreement between the adults in the family. In this blog post, we'll explore the most common areas of potential conflict where parents need to be on the same page in order to cultivate resilient family relationships and get through difficult times...

Last month, we discussed why self-care is an important foundation for a strong family. This month we’ll discuss why our next most important priority needs to be our marriages. Those of us with foster and bonus children need to make having a successful marriage a top priority, even ahead of our children. This principle goes against our instincts and our current child-centered culture, but it is the right thing for our families on many levels...

A recent study is a great reminder that those of us raising other people’s children can have a strong positive impact on our children. The study followed over 2000 young individuals for more than 15 years, examining their perceptions of family and mentor relationships, self-reported stress levels, and diagnosed depression and anxiety...

One of the most important things those of us raising other people’s children can do for ourselves is set clear boundaries of how we expect to be treated. Setting boundaries within foster or blended families can be difficult, but it’s an essential part of mutual respect and a healthy relationship with our family members. Furthermore, setting and enforcing personal boundaries can be an excellent way to model for our children the self-respect that they need in order to grow into resilient and happy adults...

I had a great discussion on the Parents Navigating the Teen Years podcast. The host, Ed Gerety, and I talked about how to not take things personally from our kids, give them space to adjust to their reality, and help them recover from trauma. Join us...

One of the most important things foster and stepparents can do to take care of themselves is to build a strong network of supportive adults, including good mentors. Up to 50% of foster parents quit within the first year. According to some estimates, more than 2/3 of second marriages fail, and one big reason may be the difficulties of blending two families. If we are going to have any hope of keeping our relationships with our kids together, we need wise friends to help us navigate the minefields. So make it one of your self-care priorities this year to find your people...

Stuart Sax invited me to be on his broadcast, Someone You Should Know, and we had a wonderful time talking about foster care and stepparenting. We discussed...

I love offbeat special days, and noticed that this Sunday is National Sunday Supper Day. Isabel Laessig founded it as a way to bring families together for a time of discussion and building relationships. According to the Family Dinner Project, family dinners boost self-esteem and resilience, while lowering the risks of depression and substance abuse in children. It definitely is worth trying to find a time for regular dinners in your family to see if the time can help strengthen your relationships...

One important, and very hard, self care skill for foster parents and stepparents is giving ourselves the same compassion that we give to our kids. Parenting any child is difficult, but stepping into a child’s ongoing story has its own unique set of stressors. Raising other people’s children is difficult, and we will not do it perfectly. Getting through the difficult times will require us to learn the art of self-compassion...

Heading past the holiday season into the new year is a good time for parents to strengthen an essential skill for caring for our blended and foster families, specifically taking care of ourselves. Self-care sounds like the opposite of self-sacrifice, but it’s actually an important foundation for that trait. Here are five important reasons to use self-care as an important tool in our parenting skill set this year...

I discovered a wonderful podcast, Survivors - Stories of Hope Live On, when host Amanda Blackwood invited me to talk about parenting children who have suffered trauma. Start your year by joining us...

Earlier this month, my TED colleague, Tom Rawlings, and I spoke at the Christian Legal Society national conference about ways that local churches can help solve the foster crisis. We emphasized the fact that, while not everyone can be a front-line foster parent, community groups such as places of worship and service organizations can provide a lot of back-up support for foster parents. One relatively easy lift would be to offer “Parents Nights Out” for foster families...

I’ve been talking recently to older teens who are struggling to find their identity. It’s a common question for that age group, trying to figure out where they fit in the world. I’ve been struck by the common thread in most of the advice they’ve repeated to me, specifically that they need to figure out who they are before they can have a healthy relationship or accomplish goals in life. I think that advice is exactly backwards. In my experience, young adults find their strongest identity in serving and caring for other people. In other words...

This week is Free Speech Week, celebrating our country’s unique rights to express our opinion. Perhaps because I’m a lawyer, or perhaps because I’m just argumentative, I think the right to freely discuss ideas is an essential foundation of a free society. Unfortunately, much of our society uses that freedom to yell angrily at each other, and schools seem to actively encourage students to demonize some opinions.. It is more important than ever that we parents teach our children how to respectfully discuss their point of view with people who have a different opinion...

I've been traveling out of the country, so I'm republishing one of my more popular blogs in honor of National Bullying Month. I'll be back later this week with fresh content. Another problem that we can face with traumatized children is that they can become the bully in a given situation. Children who have...

I have been traveling out of the country, so I am republishing one of my more popular blog posts in honor of National Bullying Month. October is National Bullying Prevention month, so we will hear a lot about the topic over the next few weeks. If we parent children who have suffered trauma, our children are at high risk of being bullied. Their trauma...

I have been traveling out of the country, so this week I'm re-publishing one of my more popular blog posts in honor of National Bullying Month: Bullying is an ongoing problem for many of our kids, and with the focus of October as National Bullying Prevention Month, we’ll see a lot of suggestions about how to prevent bullying. Contrary to what many parents (and children) think, not every insult or disagreement is a bullying situation. Sometimes...

I’ve written earlier about how challenging it can be to step into a child’s already-existing story, which is what we stepparents and foster parents do. One of the best principles I’ve found for making that transition work to any degree is to learn how to pick your battles. We don’t need to correct every mistake that our children make (assuming that the actions really are mistakes) or join every argument. Most times...

A telephone survey of more than 4600 people in Great Britain offers an important data point for those of us parenting children who have suffered trauma. The survey asked people about their history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and various health factors, both before and during the pandemic. The survey found that...

My last blog post explained how we need to concentrate on nurture ahead of structure for our kids. However, structure is important. If our children don’t have a sense of strong structure in our family, they won’t have enough emotional security to grow and learn. Balancing that need to provide both nurture and structure has usually led me to the principle of letting my kids suffer the logical consequences of their decisions. That technique both keeps my fingerprints off the consequences and lets kids learn in the way that they learn best...

Being a stepparent or foster parent is a challenging task for many reasons, but the highest hurdle may be knowing how and when to provide strong structure for our children. There is no doubt that structure and predictability are important foundations for families. However, there are many reasons we need to make nurture a higher priority for our relationships than enforcing structure...

I’ll be speaking at the Christian Legal Society National Conference in Boston about how churches can support foster families. If you are in the area on October 7, 2023, please come by and join the conversation.

I often hear questions from single people who are interest in being foster parents, but who are worried about whether a single parent can realistically foster. My experience is that single parents can be excellent foster parents. I started out as a single foster mom, and then after I married, I again fostered with my husband...

Most of us who worry about online grooming of our children think of strangers lurking in the shadows reaching out to our children. This prevailing narrative matches the earlier "stranger danger" model of in-person abuse. However, a recent meta-analysis, which reviewed 32 studies covering thousands of minors, suggests that, just like in-person abuse, we need to help our children be aware of overtures from people they know. According to these researchers, most children know their online predators...

I am a sucker for off-beat holidays, and yesterday was National Make Your Bed Day. It reminded me of Admiral McRaven’s 2014 commencement speech advising UT Austin graduates how to change the world. His first piece of advice was...

An elementary school in Massachusetts has adopted a well-intentioned rule that serves as a cautionary tale for us as parents. The new rule advises students that any discussion of...

I had a wonderful time on The Money Nerve podcast discussing foster care and finances. Bob Wheeler "gets" foster care and had some outstanding insights. Listen to the conversation here and...

I’ve been thinking through the study I mentioned earlier this week, as well as previous research showing that children generally need less adult involvement in their decisions. Yet we are heading into a season where our instincts and current culture will take us in the opposite direction...

Modern parenting styles have increasingly revolved around safeguarding our children from potential risks and dangers. While this protective instinct is natural and well-intentioned, it may inadvertently hinder our children's ability to develop independence and self-reliance...

Last week, I discussed how to help our kids develop problem-solving skills. This week, I want to dig a little deeper into one of the principles I mentioned, specifically letting our kids learn from failure. Letting our children risk failure is one of the most difficult and most necessary ways to help our kids develop resilience. The principle is just as important, or perhaps even more important, for kids who have suffered childhood trauma.

Dr. Paul Reeves "Family Talk" show is replaying my interview. Catch us tomorrow, August 23, at 11:00 am here.

A fascinating study from Tanzania has some interesting possible lessons for parents. The study stemmed from entrepreneurship training by a group that wanted to figure out why the training wasn’t more effective. Researchers discovered through interviews that the problem...

As the school year starts, we know that our children will face numerous challenges. School can be particularly difficult for children who have suffered from traumatic events, and the structure and social interactions there can be just another source of chronic stress. It is tempting to try to help our kids by laying out a blueprint that we know will make life easier for them, such as...

I had a great time discussing foster care and resilience with Kevin McDonald of Positive Talk Radio...

The new school year is looming for our kids, and we need to help them get ready for it. School usually is a place of failure and stress for children who have suffered a traumatic event. Whether the trauma is from a car accident, a natural disaster, or something as targeted as sexual abuse, young people with trauma usually struggle with school. Fortunately, there are some things we can do to help them find success that will build their self-esteem and resilience as they navigate this school year...

One of the most important things we can do when parenting children who suffered trauma is find a good therapist for them. As part of that task, we need to find a good fit between our child, the therapist, and the type of therapy. A new study gives us some new data to consider in finding that fit...

Like most foster, step-, or adoptive parents, one of my biggest challenges has been knowing how to respond to my children's bone-deep sense that I was not supposed to be in their lives. Children are hard-wired to want a biological parent, and only biological parents, as the foundation of their families. There’s...

I had a great visit with Todd Murat of the Toddcast Show. It was one of the most wide-ranging interviews I've ever done, as we discussed how I got into foster care, his lack of solid family relationships, and how fortunate I was to have an ordinary upbringing. I saw...

I had an excellent time talking to Jocelyn Jones about her Christian counseling principles and parenting children who have suffered trauma...

I was happy to be on the Digital Voices broadcast with Beau Tiffany. We discussed the negative experiences that he and his foster brothers had in foster care, how most of them have had...

Have a wonderful Independence Day holiday today! If you have any free time, browse through some of my earlier posts about lowering stress in family vacations, using history to help our children...

Wayne Jones interviewed me on his Writing and Editing podcast recently. Listen to it here. We discussed...

A recently-published neuroscience study indicates that our brains interpret current events by accessing memories of prior happenings. Previous research had shown the replay effect in spatial navigation, but this study indicates that replay also underlies our ability to make sense of narratives...

This week before Father’s Day is a good time to look at the importance of stepfathers and foster fathers in families. It’s very easy to overlook the important role that father figures play in children’s lives. Stepmothers get a national day, but stepfathers don’t. We need to remember...

As summer starts, many of us start thinking about a family vacation. Meshing schedules for blended families can be challenging, not to mention asking all of the kids to get along. Our family loves to travel, and we have often taken a collection of younger relatives and friends along with us on many trips. Here are some techniques that...

Join me for the second part of my discussion with Dr. Paul Reeves at Parenting 101 Plus. Dr. Reeves is an educational consultant, longtime teacher and principal, and the author of “A Principal’s Family Principles.” We discussed unconditional commitments...

I had a great conversation with Dr. Paul Reeves at Parenting 101 Plus. Dr. Reeves is an educational consultant, longtime teacher and principal, and the author of “A Principal’s Family Principles.” We discussed...

I had a wonderful time on the D-Shift Podcast with Mardi Winder-Adams. We discussed the importance of being there for kids and always having their back - especially during times of divorce or when they are in foster care...

The last day of this month, which has focused on foster care, very appropriately is National Aging Out of Foster Care Awareness Day. It’s a day to consider the almost 23,000 kids who age out of foster care every year, many of whom have no safety net. They can’t go back to family for various reasons, and they haven’t connected to a foster family...

In my last post, I discussed why we need to let our kids emotionally bounce off us. In this post, I discuss how to do that. Here are some important principles that I have learned for dealing with kids in the moment...

One essential and hard-to learn skill is knowing how to respond when our kids are angry, unhappy, having a meltdown, or simply reject us. Children who have suffered trauma are particularly liable to react in all of these ways. The best thing we can do as parents of those children is...

The Journal of Pediatrics recently published an article arguing persuasively that a major cause of the current epidemic in childhood anxiety and depression is that we supervise our children too much. With the best of intentions, the authors argue, we are depriving our children of important opportunities to become self-confident and independent...

As the school year ends, many of us will face the conundrum of high school graduates who don’t plan to continue in school or college graduates who come back home while they search for a career. On the one hand, most graduates are legal adults, with the right to manage their own lives. On the other hand, few young adults in...

When raising other people’s children, it’s easy to start hating Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day. It’s a bit like being single on Valentine’s Day. All of the attention goes to biological parents, and foster parents or stepparents are left on their own. Fortunately, there are some helpful ways we can prepare ourselves to avoid disappointment...

As we consider foster parenting this month, one rarely-discussed problem is how lonely the challenge can be. Raising another person’s child carries unique obligations. Your friends who have not dealt with the complex needs of foster children and...

One story that has been all over the Internet recently is the 7th-grader who safely stopped a school bus after his bus driver passed out. Some background that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention are the skills that may have come into play when he needed them...

May is National Foster Care Month, and a good time for me to answer a question I hear a lot, namely why anyone should become a foster parent. Raising other people’s children is a challenging, often frustrating, task, but it also can be incredibly rewarding. This week...

Today is “National Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day,” and a good time to think about what we can teach our kids about work skills. Schools can teach them content, but we may be the only people who can teach them the attitudes and soft skills they need. There are several important steps we can take to let...

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing foster parents is finding help for our kids’ mental health challenges. One study estimates that up to 80% of children in foster care have mental health issues. The American Academy of Pediatrics says, “Mental and behavioral health is the largest unmet health need for children...