Articles
Healing from Trauma/Neglect/Abuse
What If My Relative Child Doesn’t Seem to Love Me?
There is a question many relative caregivers quietly carry: "What if this child doesn't love me?" Maybe you've felt it when the child in your care pulls away from a hug. Maybe they seem distant, angry, or uninterested in spending time with you. Maybe they talk about...
When a Child Is Being Bullied: Support and Guidance for Caregivers
It is hard to watch a child you love get hurt by other children. Many caregivers feel worried, angry, sad, or helpless when they learn a child is being bullied. Some children tell adults right away. Others stay quiet because they feel embarrassed, afraid, or unsure if...
Why Is My Relative Child Hiding Food? What It Means and How to Help
You might notice something that feels confusing, or even a little worrying. Food is tucked into a backpack. Snacks are hidden in a bedroom. Wrappers are stashed under the bed. If you’re raising a grandchild, niece, nephew, or another relative, you might find yourself...
Impacts of Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol and Drugs
Tips to Help You Raise a Child with Prenatal Exposure to Drugs and Alcohol
Across the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, family has always stepped forward for family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, and cousins often take on the role of caregiver so children can stay connected to their people, their stories, and their land. That...
Helping Kids Avoid Marijuana and Vaping
Raising kids has never been simple — and today’s world brings some challenges many caregivers didn’t face growing up. Marijuana and vaping are easier to hide, easier to get, and often seen by young people as “not a big deal.” Don’t Underestimate Your Influence If you...
Handling the Holidays When Life Feels Overwhelming
If it feels like the kids start acting up the minute the decorations go up—you're not imagining it. The holidays can bring out big emotions in everyone, especially children who’ve been through hard times. Whether you’re raising your grandchild, niece, nephew, or...
Challenging Behaviors
When a Child Is Being Bullied: Support and Guidance for Caregivers
It is hard to watch a child you love get hurt by other children. Many caregivers feel worried, angry, sad, or helpless when they learn a child is being bullied. Some children tell adults right away. Others stay quiet because they feel embarrassed, afraid, or unsure if...
Why Is My Relative Child Hiding Food? What It Means and How to Help
You might notice something that feels confusing, or even a little worrying. Food is tucked into a backpack. Snacks are hidden in a bedroom. Wrappers are stashed under the bed. If you’re raising a grandchild, niece, nephew, or another relative, you might find yourself...
How to Build Self-Care Practices that Support Self-Regulation
Caring for your relative’s children—especially children who have been through hard things—takes a lot of energy, patience, and heart. Many caregivers are told, “Take care of yourself.” But what does that really mean? Self-care is not about pampering yourself with...
ADHD
When Kids Can’t Sleep
Sleep struggles are common among families raising grandchildren, nephews and nieces, or other relatives. When a child wakes often or comes into your room every night, everyone feels it. Lack of sleep can affect everyone: moods focus behavior patience at home family...
At-Home Strategies to Support Your Relative Child with ADHD
If you’re caring for a grandchild, niece, or nephew who has ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), you know it comes with challenges and rewards. Being a relative caregiver in this community means you bring deep roots, caring traditions, and strong support...
Handling the Holidays When Life Feels Overwhelming
If it feels like the kids start acting up the minute the decorations go up—you're not imagining it. The holidays can bring out big emotions in everyone, especially children who’ve been through hard times. Whether you’re raising your grandchild, niece, nephew, or...
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
Working Together with Schools: Support for Kinship Caregivers
Many children in this tribal community are being raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, or other relatives. These kinship caregivers provide love, safety, and connection to culture during difficult times. However, you may also be facing challenges that...
Preparing Your Relative Youth for Adulthood: Learning Work and Life Skills
When your grandchild or another young relative says they don’t want to go to college, you might feel a mix of emotions, such as worry, confusion, sadness, or even relief. Whatever you think, it’s okay. You’ve already carried a big load helping them get this far. Their...
Preparing Your Relative Youth for Adulthood: College or Vocational School
When your grandchild or another young relative starts talking about life after high school, it can feel both exciting and overwhelming. You’ve already helped them through so much, like school projects, doctor visits, hard days, and big dreams. Now it’s time to help...
Technology/Internet and Our Kids
How to Talk to Teens About Screens
When you’re raising a relative’s teen in your home, especially when that teen couldn’t live safely in their parents’ home, you may face unique challenges. One of the big ones today is screens: phones, tablets, gaming, social media. It can feel like you’re fighting a...
A Guide to Managing Screen Time When Raising a Relative Child
Raising your niece, nephew, or grandchild in this tribal community is an act of great love, strength, and intentionality. Your relative child may have faced early challenges before joining your household, like being exposed during pregnancy to drugs and alcohol, or...
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...
Self-Care for Kinship and Foster Parents
When One Caregiver Carries Too Much
Many families find that one adult becomes the "go-to" caregiver for difficult moments. Whether it's bedtime, school struggles, big emotions, or behavior challenges, one person often ends up carrying most of the responsibility. Over time, that can leave everyone...
Learning to Be Kind to Yourself: Understanding Self-Compassion
If you’re raising a relative’s child, you are likely used to putting others first. You show up. You solve problems. You keep going, even on hard days. But there is something many caregivers struggle with: being kind to themselves. Does that feel familiar? What Is...
Understanding Secondary Trauma Stress
Raising your relative’s child, whether that’s a grandchild, niece, nephew, or younger sibling, is a powerful choice. You are choosing to keep your family connected. You are choosing to show up with love. But sometimes, the weight of what this child or teen has been...
Relationship with Child’s Parent
How to Talk to Your Relative Child About the Hard Parts of Their Story
When you step up to help raise a child from your family, you already share a history, relationships, and deep connections. In many Native communities, children are often cared for by a circle of relatives who help guide and protect them. However, when a child cannot...
Welcoming a Child to Your Home as a Relative Caregiver
When a child in your extended family can’t live with their parents, it often falls to someone like you—a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or cousin—to step in and offer the safety, love, and stability they need. Bringing this child into your home is a powerful act of 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...
Working Together For the Good of the Child In Your Care
When One Caregiver Carries Too Much
Many families find that one adult becomes the "go-to" caregiver for difficult moments. Whether it's bedtime, school struggles, big emotions, or behavior challenges, one person often ends up carrying most of the responsibility. Over time, that can leave everyone...
How Do I Know What My Family Needs? Where Do I Go for Help?
Many kinship caregivers step in to raise a relative's child with little to no notice. One day, you are a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or older sibling. And the next, you are raising a child full-time. You may not have had time to prepare. You may still be figuring things...
Stronger Together: The Role Men Play in Raising Relative Children
When a child needs family to step in, many relatives answer that call with love. In many homes, the women (grandmothers, aunts, and older sisters) do much of the daily care. But children also need men in their lives. Fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, and other...
Raising Adolescents (tweens/teens)
When a Child Is Being Bullied: Support and Guidance for Caregivers
It is hard to watch a child you love get hurt by other children. Many caregivers feel worried, angry, sad, or helpless when they learn a child is being bullied. Some children tell adults right away. Others stay quiet because they feel embarrassed, afraid, or unsure if...
Helping Kids Avoid Marijuana and Vaping
Raising kids has never been simple — and today’s world brings some challenges many caregivers didn’t face growing up. Marijuana and vaping are easier to hide, easier to get, and often seen by young people as “not a big deal.” Don’t Underestimate Your Influence If you...
Recognizing Signs of Depression and Anxiety in Tweens and Teens
Raising a tween or teen relative in your home can feel very different from caring for a younger child. Bodies are changing, emotions can feel bigger, and independence starts to matter more. For relative caregivers — grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, or...
Supporting Healthy Relationships/Attachment
When One Caregiver Carries Too Much
Many families find that one adult becomes the "go-to" caregiver for difficult moments. Whether it's bedtime, school struggles, big emotions, or behavior challenges, one person often ends up carrying most of the responsibility. Over time, that can leave everyone...
What If My Relative Child Doesn’t Seem to Love Me?
There is a question many relative caregivers quietly carry: "What if this child doesn't love me?" Maybe you've felt it when the child in your care pulls away from a hug. Maybe they seem distant, angry, or uninterested in spending time with you. Maybe they talk about...
When a Child Is Being Bullied: Support and Guidance for Caregivers
It is hard to watch a child you love get hurt by other children. Many caregivers feel worried, angry, sad, or helpless when they learn a child is being bullied. Some children tell adults right away. Others stay quiet because they feel embarrassed, afraid, or unsure if...
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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.