Articles
Healing from Trauma/Neglect/Abuse
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...
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...
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...
Impacts of Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol and Drugs
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...
3 Essential Tips for Raising a Child with Brain Differences
Your grandchild with brain differences (like ADHD, prenatal substance exposure, autism, or learning differences) navigates the world differently than you do. Sometimes, those differences can make the days challenging for you all. However, if you can focus on these...
Challenging Behaviors
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...
How to Respond When a Child or Teen is Having a Meltdown
What do you do when your grandchild pitches a fit in Aisle 2 of the local grocery store? Or when your teenage niece screams at her sibling, slams doors, or kicks walls? It's a stressful moment for everyone, and your nerves are frayed while you figure out what to do....
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...
ADHD
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...
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...
Encouraging Curiosity in Children
“Why does the plant need water, Grandma?” “How does that plane stay up in the air?” “What do birds think about when they sleep?” Does your grandchild (nephew, niece, or cousin) ask these questions? Do you feel frustrated, overwhelmed, or stumped by the many questions...
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
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...
5 Tips for Advocating for Your Grandchild in Special Education Services
When raising a grandchild, cousin, or other loved one, you may need to navigate the special education services at their school. The world of IEPs and 504s, speech therapy, and reading support might make you feel like you need to learn another language. But pressing...
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
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...
Raising This Child Matters!
Occasionally, it’s good for your mental and emotional health to pause and consider what you are doing and why it matters. Kinship caregivers play a unique and vital role in a child’s healing and overall well-being. Do you stop to think about why and how to be sure you...
Understanding and Preventing Blocked Care
Raising a family member's child is a challenging responsibility. This child brings joy and laughter to your life. But they also struggle with the losses they've endured. Their behaviors may be challenging to manage. This child might have learning needs or emotional...
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
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...
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...
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...
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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.