Articles
Healing from Trauma/Neglect/Abuse
Recognizing Signs of Depression and Anxiety in School-Aged Children
Sometimes, the children in your care may feel sad or worried because of leaving their familiar setting, their parents’ struggles, or relationships at home, school, or with friends. Those feelings can be quite developmentally normal. But when sadness or worry lasts a...
Practical Tips for Supporting a Relative Caregiving Family
When a relative child comes into care unexpectedly, whether you’re an auntie, uncle, cousin, grandparent, or other relative, it can turn life upside down. In Cherokee families, stepping in for children is not new. We have always believed children belong to the whole...
Tips for Welcoming a Tween or Teen Relative to Your Home
When your tween or teen relative can no longer live safely with their parents, moving to a relative’s home can bring many mixed feelings. They may feel relief, fear, anger, or guilt. The feelings are mixed for you, too: uncertainty, hope, or even overwhelm. All of...
Impacts of Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol and Drugs
5 Ways to Help a Child with Sensory Challenges
Many of the grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and other kids you care for have been through hard things, such as neglect, abuse, loss, or exposure to alcohol or drugs before birth. These early experiences can shape how a child’s brain and body respond to the world...
Do You Need Help with Your Relative Child’s Tantrums, Rages, and Meltdowns?
Does this sound familiar? Your grandchild starts yelling, crying, or storming off in the middle of the grocery store. Your heart starts racing, and you feel like all eyes are on you! Do you need better tools to handle your grandchild's or other relative child’s...
Maintaining a Relationship with Your Relative Child’s Parents
When a parent struggles with substance use, it can shake the whole family. Often, grandparents, aunts, or uncles step in to raise the child. This is a loving and brave choice, but it is also painful. You may feel sadness, anger, or guilt as you take on this role. You...
Challenging Behaviors
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...
Recognizing Signs of Depression and Anxiety in School-Aged Children
Sometimes, the children in your care may feel sad or worried because of leaving their familiar setting, their parents’ struggles, or relationships at home, school, or with friends. Those feelings can be quite developmentally normal. But when sadness or worry lasts a...
Tackling Backtalk, Sassiness, and Verbal Disrespect in Your Home
Raising a relative’s child is an opportunity to lead them toward healing and to give them access to your family’s culture, history, values, and love. Because you care deeply, it can hurt when a child talks back, uses a sharp tone, or responds with sass. You may feel...
ADHD
5 Ways to Help a Child with Sensory Challenges
Many of the grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and other kids you care for have been through hard things, such as neglect, abuse, loss, or exposure to alcohol or drugs before birth. These early experiences can shape how a child’s brain and body respond to the world...
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...
Disrupting Birth Order
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Helping A Child Heal from Sexual Abuse
Helping a Child Cope with the Impacts of Sexual Abuse
When a child is sexually abused or assaulted, one of the most damaging impacts of that traumatic experience is shame. The weight of shame and self-blame can lead to years of negative self-talk, depression, anxiety, self-esteem struggles, and more. These impacts make...
3 Ways to Help a Child Heal from Sexual Abuse
It is painful to consider that your grandchild (niece, cousin, or friend) was sexually abused. You might fear the path ahead and worry if they will ever overcome the pain and stigma of the abuse. The good news is that kids can and do heal from this type of abuse if...
School Issues for Foster & Kinship Kids
What Do I Do? My Grandchild Refuses to Go To School Every Morning!
What is School Refusal? Many kids will complain about headaches or stomach-aches to try and stay home from school and watch cartoons. You might have even faked a tummy ache as a child to spend the day at home! When a child is trying to avoid a one-time event like a...
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...
Technology/Internet and Our Kids
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...
Tips for Safe Technology and Internet Use for Tweens and Teens
Are you raising a grandchild (or nephew or cousin) who spends countless hours scrolling on their phone? Do you know what they’re doing on their tablets, laptops, or cell phones? How do we navigate the issues of internet safety, social media culture, and screen time...
Self-Care for Kinship and Foster Parents
Five Gentle New Year Intentions for Relative Caregivers
The new year offers a fresh start. You can take time to slow down, breathe, and remember what matters most. When you are raising a grandchild, niece, nephew, or other relative’s child, you already know how much love and energy this takes. These children have been...
Planning for the What-Ifs: Caring for Your Grandchild’s Future is Self-Care
Raising a grandchild, niece, nephew, or another relative’s child is one of the most loving things you can do for that child. However, planning for their future is also a significant act of self-care. By making a plan for the well-being of this child whom you love so...
Self-Care & Raising Relative Children: Taking Care of Your Body, for Them and You”
When you’re raising grandchildren or another relative’s children, it’s easy to put your own needs last. There’s always something else to do—another meal to make, a school form to sign, a ride to give. But here’s the truth: taking care of your physical health isn’t...
Relationship with Child’s Parent
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...
Supporting Your Grandchild’s Parents to Succeed
Helping raise your grandchild, nephew, or other relative gives you a unique opportunity to offer nurture and support to the child's parents. The parents may feel shame or guilt about not being able to parent this child. And it's not unusual for your pre-existing...
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...
Raising Adolescents (tweens/teens)
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...
Have Some Winter Fun and Build Connection with Your Relative Tween or Teen
Do you ever catch yourself singing “Rockin’ around the Christmas tree…” and halfway through realize your tween or teen grandchild is doing their own version behind you, complete with lip-syncing, eye-rolling, but they’re secretly smiling too? That little burst of...
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...
Supporting Healthy Relationships/Attachment
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...
Caring for Kids While Strengthening Your Financial Future
Money may not be your favorite topic. But when you welcome a relative child into your home, sometimes with little notice, finances quickly become a daily focus. From school supplies to gas for appointments to food for hungry tweens and teens, the costs add up. 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...
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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.