Articles
Healing from Trauma/Neglect/Abuse
Helping Kids Heal and Grow: The Power of Positive Childhood Experiences
If you’ve been reading articles on this site for a while now, you probably know about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). These are tough or scary things a child goes through—like abuse, neglect, or losing a parent. According to the Centers for Disease Control,...
Keeping Tweens and Teens Busy During Summer Break
Most kids look forward to summer break. The school year is over, the days are long, and there's more time to relax, be outside, and have fun. But after a while, you will likely hear “I’m so bored” or see signs of their restlessness. Many kids who have experienced...
Be a Positive Influence on Your Grandchildren’s Body Image
Raising a tween or teen grandchild (nephew, niece, cousin, or sibling) today is challenging. You are already helping them navigate typical milestones like developing identity, learning healthy independence, and building adult life skills, and big emotions and hormones...
Impacts of Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol and Drugs
How to Support a Child with Executive Function Delays
You may hear from your grandchild's teacher or your nephew's pediatrician about their "executive function skills," you might wonder, "What exactly does that mean?" Executive function is the set of neurological processes that helps us organize and supervise our...
Helping Your Tween or Teen Develop Their Whole Person
Does your tween or teen grandchild (nephew or cousin) act sullen, angry, illogical, and overly emotional? Do they engage in risky behaviors you never dealt with when raising your kids? You may struggle to understand this young person or feel connected to them because...
Helping Tweens and Teens Manage Money
When a child’s developing brain is impacted by exposure to drugs and alcohol during pregnancy, early loss, neglect, or other trauma, they may struggle to understand money. Learning the value of money and how to manage it can also be an overwhelming task for kids with...
Challenging Behaviors
Outdoor Activities with Your Relative Child To Build Crucial Skills
Across the state, Spring is springing up everywhere! Sending the kids outside to play relieves many grandparents and family caregivers. After all, many of us would agree that Winter means too much time inside for our kids, on screens, in their rooms, or getting on...
How to Support a Child with Executive Function Delays
You may hear from your grandchild's teacher or your nephew's pediatrician about their "executive function skills," you might wonder, "What exactly does that mean?" Executive function is the set of neurological processes that helps us organize and supervise our...
Welcoming a New Child to Your Home
When you agree to open your home to a relative child, you are agreeing to so much more than providing a clean, safe bed and regular meals. You are agreeing to offer them an emotionally and physically safe place to heal from the challenges they encountered before...
ADHD
Helping Your Grandchild with ADHD Succeed at Home
Raising a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be challenging, but with the right strategies and support, you can help your grandchild (or niece, nephew, or other relative) manage responsibilities at home effectively. These practical tips can...
How to Support a Child with Executive Function Delays
You may hear from your grandchild's teacher or your nephew's pediatrician about their "executive function skills," you might wonder, "What exactly does that mean?" Executive function is the set of neurological processes that helps us organize and supervise our...
Raising Capable Kids
Raising a child with ADHD, autism, or other neurodiversity can be a new challenge for many grandparents, aunts, or uncles who don't understand the child's diagnosis. However, whether this child has a diagnosis, disability, or other brain-based difference, it’s...
Disrupting Birth Order
Rules of Thumb When Raising a Relative’s Child Disrupts Birth Order
Blending a family of your children with a grandchild, niece, or nephew can involve raising children out of birth order. Your nephew may be older than your oldest child, or your granddaughter may now be the middle child of the kids living in your home. Do you wonder...
Welcoming a Sibling Group to Your Home
You and the members of your family have significant changes ahead to consider. Your grandchildren (or nieces and nephews or siblings) are coming to live with you for a while because their parents cannot keep them safe right now. However, it's critical to remember that...
Preparing Children in the Home for Adding a Relative’s Child
Welcoming another child to your home, whether a grandchild, cousin or other loved one, can change how you relate to each other. It can create significant stress for all the children. There are practical suggestions you can try to help everyone in the family settles...
Helping A Child Heal from Sexual Abuse
Truths Every Child Needs to Hear
When a child has experienced abuse, neglect, or loss, they often take those events into their hearts and minds and then believe things about themselves that are untrue. They frequently feel guilt or shame as if the abuse or chaotic conditions of their life are their...
Helping Manage Inappropriate Behaviors for Children with Prenatal Substance Exposure – Part 2
As we discussed in Part 1 of this article series, it’s common for children with exposure to drugs and alcohol during pregnancy to struggle with inappropriate sexual behaviors. Whether the child acts out in sexually uncomfortable ways or has been a victim of unwanted,...
Helping Manage Inappropriate Behaviors for Children with Prenatal Substance Exposure – Part 1
It’s common for children who were exposed to drugs and alcohol during pregnancy to struggle with inappropriate behaviors. One of the most challenging behaviors you might see in your grandchild is inappropriate sexual behavior. Another painful issue is that children...
School Issues for Foster & Kinship Kids
Finishing the School Year Strong
As the school year winds down, it's easy for kids to check out from their school routines. Spring breezes tempt them, and there's nothing quite as enticing as hours of outdoor time with friends. Keeping your grandchild, niece, or cousin engaged and current with...
When a Student Refuses to Comply with School Supports – Part 2
When a child has learning challenges, they may receive special support and services through an IEP (individualized educational plan) or 505 plan. These accommodations and resources are unique to this child's learning style or struggles. They can be a combination of...
When a Student Refuses to Comply with School Supports – Part 1
When a child struggles in school, they often receive special support and services through an IEP (individualized educational plan) or 505 plan. These accommodations and resources are unique to this child's learning style or struggles. They can be a combination of...
Technology/Internet and Our Kids
Helping Tweens and Teens Use Screens Safely
Raising a tween or teen today means dealing with phones, social media, and online safety. If your grandchild or a young relative has come to live with you, and you haven’t had to manage screen time before, it can feel overwhelming. When you educate yourself and...
Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves Online and on Social Media
Your grandchildren are growing up in an era unlike any you’ve witnessed before. Technology is as familiar to them as breathing – they’ve never known a time when tablets, iPads, phones, and laptops were not accessible every day. Schools have come to rely heavily upon...
13 Common-Sense Rules for Internet Use in Your Home
The internet is a fantastic tool for research, entertainment, and connection. Children are getting phones, laptops, and tablets at younger and younger ages. The ease of access to the internet, literally in our back pockets, can make parts of our lives incredibly easy...
Self-Care for Kinship and Foster Parents
Taking Care of Your Grandchild’s Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
Raising your grandchild, niece, nephew, or other young relative can be a blessing. However, it can also be challenging to navigate. When a child lives apart from their parent—especially due to addiction or substance use—it can create deep emotional stress for everyone...
Tips to Help You Plan Regular Self-Care
Raising your relative’s child is a sacred responsibility and a loving act that gives this child a safe space to land when their parents cannot care for them right now. Whether you're a grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, or chosen family, you can make a lasting impact...
Why Self-Care Matters When Raising a Relative’s Child
In many tribal communities, raising children is a shared responsibility. Aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and even close family friends who step in when parents cannot show extraordinary love, commitment, and community in action. You likely are reading this...
Relationship with Child’s Parent
Taking Care of Your Grandchild’s Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
Raising your grandchild, niece, nephew, or other young relative can be a blessing. However, it can also be challenging to navigate. When a child lives apart from their parent—especially due to addiction or substance use—it can create deep emotional stress for everyone...
How to Build Your Family’s Resilience
We all want the children we love to be able to face hard times and cope with them successfully. The ability to “bounce back” from life’s challenges can be part of a child’s naturally wired temperament. However, other kids may need help learning how to develop their...
Working with Your Grandchild’s Parents is Good for All of You!
Welcoming a grandchild, nephew, or cousin to your home while their parents seek treatment or get back on their feet can be a rewarding and fulfilling experience. After all, you are giving this child a safe space to land when their parents need time to get back on...
Working Together For the Good of the Child In Your Care
Taking Care of Your Grandchild’s Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
Raising your grandchild, niece, nephew, or other young relative can be a blessing. However, it can also be challenging to navigate. When a child lives apart from their parent—especially due to addiction or substance use—it can create deep emotional stress for everyone...
Keeping Tweens and Teens Busy During Summer Break
Most kids look forward to summer break. The school year is over, the days are long, and there's more time to relax, be outside, and have fun. But after a while, you will likely hear “I’m so bored” or see signs of their restlessness. Many kids who have experienced...
When Your Relative Child’s Parents Struggle with Addiction, Mental Health, or Intellectual Disabilities
Raising a relative child is likely not something you planned for this stage of your life. Your relatives (adult children, cousins, siblings) struggle to manage parenting independently, and stepping in to support them feels like the right thing for everyone who loves...
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This website was supported with funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families’ Children’s Bureau through the Improving Child Welfare Through Investing in Family grant #HHS-2021-ACF-ACYF-CW-1921. The purpose of this grant is to provide an array of kinship preparation services and ongoing kinship supports, and provide shared parenting to build trusting relationships between all out-of-home caregivers and parents of children/youth in foster care to ensure parents and families remain actively involved in normal child-rearing activities.
This website is supported by Grant Number 90CW1149 (HHS-2021-ACF-ACYF-CW-1921) from the Children’s Bureau within the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Neither the Administration for Children and Families nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse this website (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided). The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Administration for Children and Families and the Children’s Bureau.