A Guide to Raising Your Grandchild

Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

04/05/23

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56m

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We talk about raising your grandkids with Christine Adamec, coauthor with Dr. Andrew Adesman, of The Grandfamily Guidebook. She and her husband have been raising their teenage grandson since his infancy.
In this episode, we cover:

Why are grandparent led families increasing?
What are some common emotions that grandparents and other kin experience when they realize that they need to step in and raise their grandchildren or other kin?
What type of decisions should you make about legal custody or permanency? How to protect your grandchild? How to enroll them in school? How to be able to get medical and mental health care for them? How to prevent the child’s parents from removing the child from your home? Becoming a foster parent? A will?
What are some of the strains that grandparents can experience with their children (the parents of their grandchildren)?
How to navigate the relationship with your adult child?
Explaining the situation to the child? (“Why am I living with you and not my parents?”)
Raising kids that likely experience trauma, including prenatal exposure.
Adjusting to parenting in this new time.
Some of the joys of raising your grandchild.

Resources:

AARP has a Benefits QuickLINK tool to find out if you or your grandchild may qualify for 15 public benefits — 10 for adults and families and five for children.
Creating a Family podcast: Helping Parents & Kids Manage Phones, Internet, & Gaming

This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Previous Episode

Parenting Adopted Teens and Young Adults

March 29, 2023

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57m

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How does parenting an adopted teen differ from parenting teens that come to us through birth? What are some of the unique challenges adopted teens or young adults face? Check out our interview with Katie Naftzger, an LCSW, Korean adoptee, and the author of “Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years.”

In this episode, we cover:

Why is parenting an “adopted” teen any different from parenting a child who comes to you by birth?
What issues related to adoption come to the front during the teen years?
What issues that relate to early neglect or abuse, or loss come to the fore in adolescence?
In your book, “Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years,” you talk about adoptive or foster parents taking a learning stance when working with teens. What is a learning stance?
Many of our kids have experienced early life adversity and carry the scars of this early trauma. Parents often naturally feel bad for their teens because of this. How can these feelings of pity interfere with the healthy parenting of teens? When to step in and help and when to let our teens figure out how to handle things on their own?
Some adoptive parents adopt out of a feeling of needing to save the child. How does the savior narrative impact parenting teens?
Birth family issues:
- Birth parents search
- Handling hard birth parent situations
- Identity formation-nature vs. nurture
- Navigating an open adoption with teens
Identity formation as a transracial adoptee.
Transitioning into adulthood.
We hear that adopted teens are more likely to have mental health issues and more likely to commit suicide. How do adoptive parents support their adopted teens?

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily

Support the show

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Next Episode

Talking with Children About Adoption at Different Ages

April 12, 2023

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61m

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Do you wonder how to talk to your child about adoption? What if they don't seem interested? How do you talk about some of the hard stuff? This episode explores talking with children about adoption at different ages with Mari Itzkowitz, with the Center for Adoption Support and Education (CASE). She is an adoption-competent therapist and leader of the CASE Training Team, providing training and education to professionals and parents.
In this episode, we cover:

How does an adoptee’s understanding of adoption differ by age?
- Infants
- Toddlers & Preschoolers
- School Age
- Tweens
- Teens
- Young Adults
- Older Adults
How to talk about adoption at different ages?
Should you wait for the child to ask questions before you tell them about their adoption story?
What if your child or youth shows little or no interest in their adoption story?
How does openness or lack of openness impact a child’s understanding of adoption?
Should adoptive parents bring up the idea of searching for birth family?
How does transracial adoption impact a child’s understanding of adoption?
Our focus is often on birth mothers. How can you talk about adoption and the role of the birth father with young children who do not understand the concept of sex?
What to say when you know very little about the birth parents? How to handle hard birth parent stories? Should you tell a child that they were conceived by rape or that their birth mother is in jail or birth father suffers from addiction? At what age should you share this information?

Additional Resources: