Taking Care of Yourself When Parenting Harder to Parent Kids

Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

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3d ago 37:52

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Do you sometimes feel that self-care is an impossible goal when you are parenting kids who have experienced trauma? There isn’t enough time in the day to do it all, much less take care of yourself. Or is there? Join us to talk about how to find time to take care of yourself. We will talk with Angelica Jones, MSW, Program Director of Intercountry Services and the Intensive Service Foster Care Recruiter and Trainer at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services.

In this episode, we discuss:

“Selfcare” or “take care of yourself” are overused but still vitally important terms for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents.
Why do all parents but especially parents of kids who’ve experienced trauma need to practice self-care?
What is secondary trauma?
Why are kids who’ve experience neglect, abuse and other childhood traumas harder to parent?
- Challenging Behaviors
- Learning disabilities
The busyness of foster and adoptive parenting.
- So many appointments (therapy, OT, tutoring, doctors, IEP meetings, social workers, birth family visits, etc.)
- Helping with education-homework struggles.
- Dealing with the emotional fallout from early life trauma.
What are some of the barriers to taking care of ourselves as adoptive, foster or kinship parents?
The importance of respite care and the barriers to parents using it.
Practical ideas for providing self-care.
Think small when thinking self-care.
Ask for help and accept it when offered. If someone offers to help, say “yes” and suggest something specific.
Parent Support groups

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Chapters

1. Taking Care of Yourself When Parenting Harder to Parent Kids (00:00:00)

2. Why is self-care important? (00:02:12)

3. What are some of the things that make parents of adoptive or harder-to-parent children so busy? (00:04:19)

4. What are some of the barriers that parents of harder-to-parent children experience? (00:06:49)

5. What are some practical ways parents can get help so they can make time for self-care? (00:09:20)

6. What’s the importance of physical self-care, such as exercise? (00:15:03)

7. What are some other ideas for getting alone time for self-care? (00:17:52)

8. Why do foster parents sometimes hesitate to utilize respite care? (00:25:59)

9. How stressful is parenting harder-to-parent kids on marriage and partnerships? (00:30:27)

10. How important is it to find a support group? (00:33:27)

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