Articles
Healing from Trauma/Neglect/Abuse
Helping Children and Teens Handle the Stress of Change
Change is a stressor that most humans need support to navigate. Your grandchild, niece, or cousin likely needs more than the average level of support. After all, they have experienced trauma, loss, and chaos at a young age before they’ve developed healthy coping...
8 Ways to Strengthen Attachment with Your Grandchild
When you are parenting a relative’s child, the process of building a healthy attachment might be more challenging than you expected it to be. Their history of chaos, loss, or trauma can leave them unable or unwilling to trust. However, creating a healthy attachment...
What is Parentification and What Can You Do About it?
When you welcome a group of siblings into your home after they have been removed from their birth family, one frequently takes on the role of substitute parent. The oldest child, typically the eldest girl, feels responsible for her younger siblings' well-being. In...
Impacts of Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol and Drugs
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...
Talking to Your Grandchild About a Parent’s Drug or Substance Abuse
Your grandchild (or other loved one’s child) came to you with the weight of scary or challenging experiences. Your priority is to help this child feel safe, loved, and supported. This site, your extended family, and professionals in your community are surrounding you...
Helping Your Grandchild Avoid Substance Abuse
The time your grandchild spends in your care, in the nurturing, stable environment of your home, can be a powerful force that protects them from risky behaviors like underage drinking or drug use. You know that you cannot erase the experiences this child had before...
Challenging Behaviors
Understanding Why Kids Lie and Steal
All kids tell lies or take something that doesn’t belong to them at some point in their childhood. But some children lie and steal often! As their caregiver, it’s stressful to live with these behaviors. You worry about the future and you want the behaviors to stop...
Helping Kids Move More to Improve Behavior
The coming of spring is a beautiful transition from winter's darker, gloomier days. Your grandchild might have struggled over the winter months with cabin fever. Feeling antsy and acting out from their restlessness is not uncommon for kids, significantly if they were...
Creating Schedules and Routines for Kids
Staying on task or keeping a regular routine can be challenging for any child. However, if your grandchild or loved one's child has been impacted by loss, neglect, or exposure to substances during their mother's pregnancy, that challenge is more significant. For kids...
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
Advocating for Your Grandchild at School
If you’re raising a grandchild, do you know when and how to speak up for them at school? Maybe your grandchild (or nephew or niece) struggles academically or often gets in trouble for challenging behaviors. This can make it especially hard to talk with their teachers....
Tips to Set Up Your Grandchild for Success in School
Your grandchild's (or niece's or nephew's) school experience will likely be very different from yours in some ways and similar in others. Some of us have happy school memories, like a favorite teacher, childhood best friend, or a fun field trip. Others have unhappy...
Technology/Internet and Our Kids
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Self-Care for Kinship and Foster Parents
Planning for Self-Care that You Can Maintain
As you learn more about how loss and grief impact your grandchildren (or nieces and nephews), hopefully, you are also learning the importance of taking care of yourself. When stepping in to care for vulnerable kids or family members in crisis, you may also be feeling...
4 Quick Tips for Protecting Your Marriage or Partnership
Marriage or life partnership is hard work. Balancing your needs as an individual with the needs of your relationship requires attention to your schedules and developing habits to carve out the time to nurture this connection. When raising a grandchild, niece, or...
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...
Relationship with Child’s Parent
Helping Family Visits Go Well
When raising grandchildren (or nieces or nephews), visits with their parents can feel stressful and sticky. There is a history between you and your adult child or family member. Big feelings usually come rushing up for everyone. The challenge is how to help the child...
9 Tips for Working with the Child’s Parents
When your grandchild, nephew, or family friend is living with you, you will need to work with the child’s parents to some extent to raise this child. If child welfare is involved, they will let you know what they expect and what is allowed. If child welfare is not...
Working Together For the Good of the Child In Your Care
The 5 Be’s of Welcoming an Older Child to Your Home
When welcoming an older child to your home, it can be challenging to strike a balance. You don’t want to come on too strong and overwhelm them. You also don’t want to be too relaxed or laid back because you want them to feel welcome and safe. You can do several things...
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...
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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.