Helping Siblings Separated by Adoption or Foster Care - Weekend Wisdom
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
12/21/24
•6m
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Question: How can I support siblings who have been separated by foster care or adoption? How can I help them build long-term secure attachments?
Resources:
- Sibling Relationships (Resource page)
- Working as Part of the Foster Care Team (Resource page)
- Creating a Family Online Facebook Group
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
Helping Our Kids Heal From Sexual Abuse
December 18, 2024
•54m
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Children who have been sexually abused can heal. Join our conversation with Dr. Eliana Gil to learn how. Dr. Gil is the founder of the Gil Institute for Trauma Recovery. She specializes in the assessment and treatment of trauma in children, especially those who have been sexually abused. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, and a Registered Art Therapist.
In this episode, we cover:
- What type of abuse is considered “sexual abuse”?
- Parents often don’t know before fostering or adopting or taking in their grandchild that the child has experienced sexual abuse. What behaviors might indicate that a child has been abused sexually?
- What kids are at greatest risk for being sexually abused?
- Brief refresher on typical psycho-sexual development in children without abuse and how sexual abuse can alter this.
- How does the impact of the abuse differ on the child depending on their relationship to the abuser?
- Children can and do heal from sexual abuse.
- What are the long-term impacts of having been sexually abused?
- Not all kids who were sexually abused become sexual abusers. Is there research on this? How common is this?
- Guilt because they may have enjoyed part of the experience—physically or the attention.
- The presence of a supportive adult who believes the child can make a difference in how a child recovers.
- How should a parent respond if a child discloses sexual abuse?
- How can parents help children heal from sexual abuse?
- What protective factors in children or families make recovery more likely?
- What are some practical tools and talking points to assist a child in the re-learning of healthy boundaries and expressions of healthy affection?
- How to find a therapist to help a child heal from sexual abuse?
- What safeguards should a family have in place when accepting placement of a child who may have been sexually abused? How to protect other children in the home?
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
Next Episode
Therapeutic Parenting: Strategies and Solutions
December 25, 2024
•64m
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We talk today with Sarah Naish, the CEO of the Center of Excellence in Child Trauma and founder of the National Association of Therapeutic Parents. She is the author of The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting and The A-Z of Survival Strategies for Therapeutic Parents. She is the adoptive mom to a sibling group of 5 who are now adults and she has fostered over 40 kids.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why are some kids harder to parent and why especially are kids who have experienced trauma, including prenatal trauma, often harder to parent?
- Understanding the cause of the behavior is the root of parenting harder to parent kids.
- Establish the basics to make their lives predictable so they can feel safe and grow and heal. The elements for establishing this base:
- Routines
- Establish yourself as a safe base-empathetic and nurturing but in control
- Respond to the child, not to the child’s demand
- Be honest about their story, contact, etc. – be factual, but don’t fill in the gaps
- Establish strong, clear boundaries- what to do when these boundaries are crossed?
- Use natural or life consequences
- Our kids may not recognize cause and effect.
- Early trauma, including prenatal exposure, can hinder a child’s ability to recognize cause and effect
- Our kids may be developmentally younger than their chronological years which also impacts understanding.
- Natural consequences help children recognize that they can make an impact on the world-helps them make sense of the world
- Combine natural consequences with nurturance.
- Our kids may not recognize cause and effect.
- How to handle incidents when they happen. PARENTS model.
- Pause-to allow you to respond with intention not emotion.
- Assess-is anyone in danger or serious damage.
- Reflection-quick reflection to identify the trigger.
- Empathize rather than ask questions
- use empathetic commentary-
- respond to their feelings rather than the behavior.
- Nurture-examples of nurturing in the heat of the moment.
- Think about next action to take.
- What strategies might I use to resolve this? Do you need to do anything else?
- How can we avoid this situation in the future?
- Self-care
- Other parenting strategies for harder to parent kids. Other tools for your toolkit.
- Identify your triggers.
- Set realistic expectations.
- Use silliness or playfulness.
- Remove the audience.
- Help kids show they are sorry rather than demand they say they are sorry.
- The phone strategy.
- Watch what the child is doing rather than what she is saying.
- Payback time.
- Admit it when you made a mistake.
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
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