Reader Response- Discipline Tips for Foster Parents. Part 1/3.

Hello Everyone,

This is Michelle.  A couple weeks ago Kristin wrote a great article responding to the reader question:  “I was wondering what the best techniques for discipline are and if they differ from a child that does not have a disability or exceptionality?”

While the information she gave can really apply to all children, I wanted to also write from the specific point of view of how foster parents can effectively discipline.  I’m actually going to post three blogs on this subject.  This first post will be on some effective preventative strategies, the second will be on specific discipline strategies, and the third  will be on what the research says regarding involving the child’s biological parent in discipline (as well as some foster parenting strategies when the ultimate goal is parent-child reunification).

In regards to the reader question, I think the best techniques for discipline are the same for “normal” children and children who have special needs- it’s just especially important to parent children with special needs more mindfully.

One of the things that stood out to me the most in my child development classes in regards to discipline is the idea that you really can pick your battles.  There are times to teach a child how to handle a stressful situation, but there are also times to recognize what situations are stressful for children and see if you can modify those situations.  Again, this is useful with any child but I think it’s especially important for children who often feel that they don’t have a lot of control of their world.  There are several ways to accomplish this:

1.     Establish a routine and stick to it.  People appreciate knowing what’s going to happen in their day, it gives us a sense of control.  So, if you’ve planned something, follow through.  If you want to do something new, give your child advance warning so they know what to expect before they’re being loaded into the car.

2.     Include the child in setting rules and consequences, then follow through.  When you let the child help in this step, they’re more likely to understand why they’re expected to do certain things and it gives you an opportunity to decide together what fair consequences are.  Many children in foster care who have experienced neglect or abuse may not have experience with what a consequence really is.  Even in many healthy homes, a parent may choose a consequence that has nothing to do with the behavior.  An example of this would be:

You didn’t clean your room so you don’t get any dessert.

What does cleaning have to do with dessert?  Children better understand rules when the consequences are related and explained.  An example of this would be:

When your room is messy it’s easier for things to get lost or broken, so we can’t play with more toys until the room is cleaned.

If you already have family rules, make sure you explain what these rules are and why they’re important.

3.     Try to observe what situations are difficult for your child and see where you may be able to make changes.  For example, my nephew will not brush his teeth with “spicy” (minty) toothpaste.  Rather than fighting about it, my sister has chosen to by fruit or bubblegum flavored toothpaste.  While not all problems are this simple, I think many every day hassles can be- it may be worth it to let your child wear mismatched socks or to wash the pink plate because that’s the only one your child wants to eat off of even though it’s dirty (maybe have the child wash it!).  There are times you have to say no, but it’s valuable to say yes whenever you can because it shows your child that you value their desires as well as their needs.

 

These steps won’t eliminate hard times, but they can help families manage the daily inconveniences and have a happier home.  In my next post I’ll talk more about specific strategies and consequences to help foster children adjust to a new environment. Thanks for reading!

Siegler, R., Deloache, J., Eisenberg N. (2006). How Children Develop. (2^nd ed.).  New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Felker, E.H. (1975). Foster Parenting Young Children: Guidelines from a Foster Parent. New York, NY: Child Welfare League of America.

Play Therapy

Hello readers, thanks for taking your time on our blog- children are so great.  This is Michelle and I want to share some information about a book that I read recently.

Any child who has been taken out of their home and placed with a new family has experienced a “crisis”.  Leaving a home, a family, a neighborhood, a school is a hard experience for a child even when it is in their best interest- and a child who is taken out of their home has probably also experienced neglect or abuse.  Because of this, almost all foster parents are expected to take their child to counseling.

  One method of counseling that has been extremely helpful for young children has been “Play Therapy”, a therapy where the therapist or counselor engages in different methods of play (painting, puppets, sandbox, etc.) to help the child to express feelings and work through hard experiences.  When adults go for counseling, the therapist can usually learn about their needs by talking with them, but children are less willing (and cognitively able) to explain what they went through.  I’d heard that play therapy was excellent but didn’t know a lot about it, so I went to the library.

At the library I checked out Play Therapy with Children in Crisis: Individual, Group, and Family Treatment.  The first part of the book gives a “theoretical overview”.  So it talks about what is a crisis, what is play therapy, and how play therapy can be effective.  The rest of the book looks at general themes and specific case studies of children in crisis.  The book covers a lot of different kinds of crisis experiences, but the chapters are broken up in such a way that you can hone in on what’s relevant for you.  For example, a few of the chapters that seem especially relevant for foster parents are:

            

            Child Exposure to Parental Violence

            Parental Abuse and Subsequent Foster Home Placement

Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Child Sexual Abuse and Exposure to Domestic Violence.

This book is primarily written for therapists and students, so it isn’t a “how to” book for foster parents, but it’s full of great information based on a lot of research. I would recommend this book to foster parents because:

1.     It can teach you a little more about why your child benefits from going to counseling and why they do some of the activities that they do

2.     It can encourage you to actively work with the counselor to stay aware of needs and better meet the needs of your child

3.     It can help deepen your understanding for what your child has experienced.

I think it’s this last point that really matters.  I’m amazed at how understanding can help increase our patience and love.  I’m also afraid that some potential foster parents get nervous when a child needs counseling but it really is excellent that we live in a time when we’ve found a way to help these young children open up and work through their experiences.

Let me know if you have any questions or stories where you've interacted with play therapy before. Thanks for reading!

Webb, N.B. (2007). Play therapy with children in crisis: Individual, group, and family treatment. (3^rd ed.).  New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Can't we all just get along?

Importance of Positive Relationship between Foster Parents and Case Workers

I find it a little bit satisfying when research supports things that seem like common sense.  I realize that often, this is the case, but it’s still nice.  Rodger, Cumming and Leschied’s research found that most foster parents are “motivated by wanting to be loving parents to children and saving children from harm.”  This isn’t surprising, but is very encouraging.  Parents go into foster care because of “altruistic and internal motivations to foster” (Rodger, Cumming, Leschied, 2006).  

 However, many parents who begin to foster find that the challenge is overwhelming.  A helpful thing from this research is the identification of three aspects that increased foster parents’ satisfaction: teamwork, communication, and confidence in relation to both the child welfare agency and its professionals. 

I found this surprising.  But then, I haven’t fostered a child.  As I continued reading it made a lot of sense though.  It helped to think of Brofenbrenner’s ecological model. 

This model represents the idea that our development is influenced by several different “systems” at several different levels.  There’s the self, or the child, in the middle (our gender, age, genes, etc), next is our most immediate relationships, and it spreads to broad influences such as laws, customs, and social class.  Every level has an impact on our, or the child’s, development.

Within the context of the ecological model, it’s not surprising that one of the most frustrating things for foster parents is, “not being recognized as part of the professional team or having expertise, as well as not being heard as an advocate for the child”. (Rodger, Cumming, Leschied, 2006).   Child welfare agencies become very prominent in a foster child’s life, but if it’s too prominent it may make parenting more difficult for the foster parent.  A welfare service would normally be a part of the exosystem, but with foster care it often comes into the mesosystem- which may step on parents’ toes.

This article shows how important it is for foster parents to not only prepare to open their homes to the children they’re caring for, but to also prepare to work closely with the foster agency and learn to communicate well so that both parties see each other as helpful resources.

Michelle

Susan Rodger, Anne Cummings, Alan W. Leschied, Who is caring for our most vulnerable children?: The motivation to foster in child welfare, Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 30, Issue 10, October 2006, Pages 1129-1142, ISSN 0145-2134, 10.1016/j.chiabu.2006.04.005. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213406002080)

Coparenting and Fostercare/Adoption

 Research has found that children have some basic, universal requirements that they require to thrive.  Things like medical services and a good diet are necessary for survival, but there are other essentials that children need to adequately develop both physically and psychologically.  Brofenbrenner explains that this is especially important for "children of families who have been exposed to biological, economic, and social stress".  I think it's safe to say that while all children experience some level of stress, if a child is in the fostercare system, they've probably experienced more than their fair share of every kind of stress. 

One of thing that Brofenbrenner finds that significantly helps children is when, besides the primary caregiver, there's another adult who "assists, and encourages, spells off, gives status to, and expresses admiration and affection for the person caring for and engaging in joint activity with the child".  Children need to see healthy, supportive relationships demonstrated for them and to also have more than one adult invested in them.  I like that while typically a child's primary caregiver is a mother and the coparent is the father, there's also room for flexibility- a single mom with a good support system, same-sex couples, stay at home dad, or grandparents.  This is something that has been found to be important to all children.

Another study found that this is specifically true for parents of foster children.  It's really important that when a couple chooses to foster a child, that they're both on board.   Because of this, I really like the following website:

http://adoptivedads.org/

While most blogs on parenting are written by women, this is a forum for fathers of either foster children or adopted children to write about their experiences.  Because parenting a child who has a special need- regardless of the kind of need- usually requires that one parent really dedicates themselves to the children, sometimes we don't look as closely at the second parent- but they are an integral part of the family as a whole.

-Michelle

Brofenbrenner, U. (1994).  “Who cares for the children” in Nuba, H., Searson, M., and Sheiman, D. L. (EDs.), Resources for early childhood: A handbook. New York: Garland, 113-129 (edited paper from an individual address to UNESCO, Paris, 7 September 1989).

Linares, L. O., Rhodes, J. and Montalto, D. (2010), Perceptions of Coparenting in Foster Care. Family Process, 49: 530–542. doi: 10.1111/j.1545-5300.2010.01338.x