One of my favorite things we do as a family is eat dinner together every night. And by together I mean everyone (including babies) sitting around the table sharing food and each other's company. There was a time when we would sit on the couch and the kids would "picnic" on the floor while watching [...]
Category: Parenting
The IDEAL Response
One of the great advantages we all have is the wealth of research based resources available to us. A place we have gone to many times for these resources is Empowered to Connect. In this video Dr. Karyn Purvis discusses the IDEAL response we need to have to our kids. Immediate - If you want to [...]
Let’s Try that Again!
"Let's try that again" is a phrase heard daily at our house. With 6 kids in our home, we are always looking for simple ways to correct our children's unwanted behaviors without always seeming like we are correcting them. One great tool we use is to simply have our kids redo a behavior. It is [...]
Where is the Trust?
Have you ever had one of those moments when you needed to trust someone? Have you ever just needed someone to trust you? Trust is both beautiful and scary. Beautiful because there is peace and joy in having a relationship where trust is freely extended and received. Scary because for relationships to grow there will [...]
A Change of Plans
Often people will ask me when I knew I wanted to be a foster parent. They are usually quite surprised when I respond with...never! In fact, if you had asked me 10 years ago if I could/would ever be a foster parent I would have told you, "NO WAY!" I would get too attached. Adoption [...]
5 Keys to Better Relationships
I want better relationships, don't you? Sometimes I feel like I spend more time thinking (or writing) about changing the way I interact with people than I actually spend changing the way I interact with people. I think some of you can relate. Change needs two things...ideas followed by actions. Our example of the balance [...]
Don’t Speak
If your childhood was anything like mine you would have heard the phrase "You need to earn my respect" many times. It seems like most of the people I speak to had similar experiences growing up. But as my own kids have grown I have had to fight the urge to just go with what [...]
My Daddy is Only a Picture
Ahh June, the month we celebrate father's day. I started thinking about what it means to be a dad and I realized that most of the foster placements we've had over the years had one thing in common; they grew up in a home without a father. I don't know what the percentage of kids [...]
Take me to the Other Side
Sometimes we feel like we have to be superhuman. You know what I mean, you can't say no to anything, it always has to be yes. Soccer, baseball, football, tennis, dance, gymnastics, play dates, etc. added to the therapies, appointments and all the rest. If you're like us you feel like saying no is a [...]
Can I Say a Bad Word?
One of the interesting things about fostering is that some of the kids who come to us have, shall we say, "spicy" vocabularies. They know and use words that our kids don't know and use. They know and use words that we don't use. They know and use words that 4 year olds shouldn't know [...]