Articles
Healing from Trauma/Neglect/Abuse
Easing A Child’s Fears When You Meet for the First Time
Typically, when you welcome a child to your home to support their family through a challenging season, you already have a relationship with the child. You may not know them well, but you are not wholly unfamiliar with each other. However, occasionally, raising another...
Maintaining Sibling Connections
Siblings get separated for many reasons when they must leave their parents to live with a family member. While most professionals recommend that siblings stay together if they cannot live at home, separation still happens. How can you support your grandchildren’s...
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...
Impacts of Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol and Drugs
5 Practical Tips to Help a Child Learn Organizational Skills
A child who had prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol or struggles with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often struggles to get and stay organized. You probably feel like there is too much chaos getting them out the door to school every morning. That...
Explaining Prenatal Alcohol or Drug Exposure to Your Grandchild
Are you raising a grandchild (or niece or cousin) whom you suspect was prenatally exposed to alcohol or drugs? Do they have a confirmed diagnosis? You may wonder when and how to explain prenatal exposure to them. Avoiding the topic can lead to shame, confusion, and...
Prenatal Exposure: Myths vs. Facts
When you are raising a family member’s child, you might feel overwhelmed by the amount of information – including faulty information - you hear about prenatal substance exposure. To be sure, it’s a steep learning curve to understand the impacts of alcohol on a...
Challenging Behaviors
Helping Kids with ADHD Boost Their Mental Health
Many of the children you are raising have experienced painful losses or abuse. Others were exposed during pregnancy to alcohol or drugs. Still, others have both of those challenges in their history and are living with the impacts today. Those impacts may show up in...
Maintaining Your Connection While Helping a Child Learn How to Manage Anger
Anger is a normal human emotion, but it can be scary for many of us to express or manage. When a child grows up with unsafe expressions of anger, or when they are no taught appropriate ways to work through their angry feelings, they may bubble over and act out anger...
Staying Calm to Help a Child Regain Their Calm
When your grandchild or nephew spirals out of control or has a temper tantrum, it's easy to lose your cool and join the chaos, isn't it? After all, as Dr. Bruce Perry frequently says, "dysregulation is contagious!" So how can you stay calm, share your sense of calm,...
ADHD
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Disrupting Birth Order
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Helping A Child Heal from Sexual Abuse
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School Issues for Foster & Kinship Kids
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Technology/Internet and Our Kids
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Self-Care for Kinship and Foster Parents
Tips to Help Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
When you are a grandparent suddenly raising your grandchildren, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the changes and needs you must consider. You might also be an aunt or family friend raising young children from your extended family or tribal community. Many factors can...
Do You Have A Supportive Safety Net?
Are you a grandmother or aunt raising a loved one's child? Do you have several kids regularly in and out of your home for the love, nurture, and stability you offer? Partnering with others in your community to care for these young people is a privilege and honor....
Stop and Assess: How are YOU Doing?
Caring for a relative's child, whether for a long weekend or an extended season, can be rewarding and fulfilling. However, suppose you aren't used to supporting a child impacted by loss, neglect, or prenatal substance exposure. In that case, it can also be bewildering...
Relationship with Child’s Parent
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Working Together For the Good of the Child In Your Care
The Benefits of Raising a Grandchild or Other Young Loved One
When you first took in your grandkids (or other loved one), you may have done it because it was “the right thing to do.” The kids didn’t do anything to deserve this, and family cares for family. But it still feels hard. It might help to focus on the significant...
Practical Ways to Set Your Grandchild Up for Success
It's challenging to raise your grandchild (or other loved one) in today's world. Your grandchild’s early life experiences can make your role in their life feel overwhelming. The impacts of their trauma or prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol can create many obstacles...
Welcoming a Relative Child When You Have Children Already in the Home
Adding a child to your family changes how you function in your home. Frequently, the kids already living in your home feel these changes most profoundly. This article will refer to them as "resident children." Tips to Prepare Resident Children Whether you are offering...
Raising Adolescents (tweens/teens)
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Supporting Healthy Relationships/Attachment
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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.