Thoughts on Being a Mom Never Called Mom and the Importance of Trust-Based Parenting

I’ve been called many things by the kids I’ve raised: Mama Nina, Nina, Anna, Miss Anna—but I’ve never had the title “Mom” because in the fostering world, and in our family growing up, that title is one of contention.  Growing up, it was taboo to speak of me doing the job of a mom, because it would hurt my Mom.

But to me, the title means nothing because I know something that other parents either don’t know or are able to take for granted: it’s the trust your kids place in you that matters, not what they call you.  It’s all in how they say your name that matters and the love in their eyes when they look at you.  My favorite pictures of my siblings and all of my foster kiddos are the ones where I’m behind the camera. They’re looking at me and it is that special smile that I never seem to see in pictures that others take of them—and that is more than enough.

First, a little history if you don’t already know my story.  I’ve been parenting off and on since I was 6 years old.  I raised several of my siblings (5) until I left for college at 19.  You may also know that my husband and I became guardians to my youngest brother in 2013 and had another brother live with us for a year.  For the past 13 months, we fostered 5 young boys (2 for a short time, 3 for 13 months) that we had hoped to adopt.  And last month, they were reunited with family.

Currently, the house is quiet.  The quietest it’s been since 2012…and I’m okay with it.  People keep asking me how I’m doing through the grieving process. I’m appreciating a break after a super stressful year, but this separation from the children that I’ve cared for and love deeply is not a new experience. The difference being, I can talk about it this time. 

You see, I felt exactly the same way when I left my siblings at home and went away to college.  I imagine it’s how people feel when they are empty-nesters…only they generally know their children are safe…but there was no such guarantee for my siblings.  And who could I share this with?  What other college student would understand?  I was 19, felt like a complete pretender at college anyway (because I’d homeschooled myself in the moments I wasn’t teaching my siblings or working and had huge gaping holes in my academics), and I worried constantly about my kids that weren’t mine.  One of my brothers, refused to eat for the first 3 days after I left and cried himself to sleep each night, asking if I was going to come home soon.  That was heart-wrenching.  So I did what I could to keep the attachment alive: I called every few days, wrote letters, and purposefully bombed choir/chamber auditions that first year just so that I wouldn’t have to go on tour and could go home instead.  

So letting go of these kiddos this time around, felt no different.  It was still hard, but the mettle of my heart has been tested before and I know its strength because really, I’m heavily relying on Christ’s boundless strength.

So why am I saying all of this?  Well, I suppose that I fully realized this year what I’d intuitively known since I was a kid: my 7 brothers, 1 sister and I grew up with all of the same issues that foster kids/orphans have.  I got to see it all play out before my eyes each day as my husband and I fostered. I hope that the experiences of my own past can help each child that comes through our home and perhaps other parents.

I’d like to share some important things that we learned along the way.  Some of them, we learned from books (I’ll put links at the bottom).  Many of them I drew on from my own experiences.  Others, we learned from the classes that we took in preparation for fostering licensing.  Many of these will apply whether you have your own biological kids, foster kids, adopted kids, or even no kids at all.

Please know that this is simply to share a condensed version of the most important things that we’ve learned–not everything. And this is certainly not to brag or say that we know it all.  It’s also not to put down my own parents (whom I love very much and I know tried their best with what they knew at the time–what I think all parents desire to do), but to share pieces of my own story–“the why” behind what I’ve learned. Parents need to help each other in whatever ways we can through sharing what we’ve learned.  I’m hoping that this will give encouragement, maybe prompt new ideas.

A few things to keep in mind…

1) The best thing you can do for your kids is to work through your own issues.  Face them, name them, practice daily defying those demons from your past because if you don’t face them of your own volition, your kids will unwittingly force you to.  This is the most important thing I learned from foster-parenting classes, but it’s something all parents should know.

2) Building trust is everything.  This is the gist of most parenting books.

3) Parenting traumatized kids is like living in a backwards world.  When you naturally think you should punish, that might be the best time to do love and grace instead.  You learn to do the opposite of your instincts fairly often.  The more your child trusts you, the worse their behaviors will become because they will be testing to see how much you really love them.

For You, the Parent

Know your personal priorities

What do you need to do for yourself to help you be a good parent?  For me, I need alone time each day or I will not be even remotely close to being a good mom.  Ethan needs a way to decompress after work (a good workout). 

Know your family priorities  

Our top priorities were these: Felt Safety, Love, Learned Self-Reliance, Family means teamwork, and Empathy.  And all of these were really just avenues to build Trust.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

This goes hand-in-hand with knowing your priorities.  One of my priorities is to get kids places on time.  As a kid, I always dreaded Sunday mornings.  My parents would argue all morning and kids would be wrangled into clothes we didn’t like or didn’t fit and everyone would pile into the two cars, angry and harried.  As a teenager, I remember reading that someone decided to dress her children in their church clothes Saturday night, and although the clothes were wrinkled, it made for less stressful Sunday mornings.  Wrinkles mattered to my mom, so we never did that back then, but I tucked it away for later use. So this past year, with three very ADHD kids, we had no choice but to dress the night before to get to school on time.  Sure their clothes were wrinkled, their shoes might be on the wrong feet, but they were on-time for school.  This made Friday and Saturday’s our fun pajama nights.

Another of my priorities is also having a sanitary house (it doesn’t have to be spotless).  So, combined with getting ADHD kids out the door on time, we take shoes off at the front door.  We never spent a second looking for lost shoes, there was less cleaning for me to do, and we got out the door on time.

Another priority of mine is to teach kids that although I enjoy being with them and playing with them, it is not my job to entertain them.  So, to go along with my personal priority of alone time, each day, we have a quiet time.  At first, this was 10 minutes and eventually, we were able to build to an hour where each person could play by himself quietly.  

Be Flexible on all the non-priorities and let your yes be yes and no, no

To build trust, always say yes whenever possible, and draw hard lines for your no’s.  For people like me, I’m always looking for a way to say yes.  I am very good with structure and creating routines but not always as flexible as I could be.  For people who are the opposite of me (naturally more unstructured like my husband), look for places to draw the line. One thing that kids learn after a little while is, if I say maybe or “Let me think about that,” it truly means I’ll do just that and neither of us know what the answer will be yet.  Whatever you say, say what you mean and stick with it.  Speaking of which…

Be consistent

Kiddos from hard places crave structure and consistency.  They love knowing what is expected.  At the same time, because it’s a new experience, they will have tons of meltdowns and tantrums, testing those boundaries, but ultimately find comfort in them.  Never say something that you don’t plan on following through on 100%.  Whether you promise a day a the park or that they will not get dessert.  Help them to see that you are trustworthy.  If you say, I’ll pick you up from school at 3:30, you better be there every time you say it.  

Explain the Why (when appropriate)

Life doesn’t always go as planned (if you’re a foster parent, you can bank on nothing going as planned).  Kids are always watching, so if you don’t accept failure with grace and dignity, odds are, your kiddos won’t either.  If you promised a day at the park but a thunderstorm made it impossible, tell them why you can’t go, maybe express your disappointment so that they too feel free to express theirs and show them how to move on to a plan B.  Maybe they can give you input about what that plan B looks like.  Kids feel pretty good when they’re in-the-know. 

Time-ins, Redos and Making it Right

As my priest once told me during confession, “Guilt is good because it tells you that you did a bad thing and you can make it right.  Shame is bad because it tell you that you are bad and there is no grace in that.”  Shame is a huge burden that all kids from hard places carry.  It permeates every aspect of life for them.  They all carry around the message that they are not good enough.  So it a parent’s job to help them learn right from wrong without shaming.  Separate who they are from what they did.  When kiddos mess up, move away from the “scene of the crime,” and wait with them until they’re calm (depending on the kid and their level of dysregulation, this may mean an hour).  Waiting until their calm gives you the time to calm down too (you may need it just as much as they do).  Then, talk, step-by-step about what happened, how they were feeling while making their bad choice and how they could do it correctly. Our standard thing (with many variations) was to say, “You made a bad choice, but that doesn’t make you a bad kid.”  We would hug, and then ask, “What can you do to make it right?”  Eventually, they were able to come up with some great ideas.  Sometimes it was hugging the kid they hurt, or sharing a favorite toy, etc…Kids love making things right because that makes them feel successful.  Once the plan is in place, we take them back to the “scene of the crime” and they demonstrate the right thing to do and practice making it right.  It’s really a beautiful thing to witness.

When Things Go Bad, Be the Mature One and Forgive without strings attached

You’re going to be tempted to hold grudges, to forgive with strings attached, but when you forgive, try your best to let it go forever.  Especially when a kid has a pattern of a particular bad behavior, you might find yourself wanting to bring up their bad behavior the next time a similar situation rolls around, but don’t let yourself.  It’s one thing to tell them that you’ve noticed a pattern, but don’t tell them you expect them to fail again.  

Apologize without Buts…

A sincere apology is so important.  My parents didn’t really do apologies–it wasn’t a part of culture back then either.  The few times they did, there were always buts attached.  “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but if you hadn’t ______, I wouldn’t have done that.”  As a kid, this made it worse because the message was, “I’m sorry, but it’s your fault.”

What Kids need from us: Safety/Control/Love

“Never underestimate the power of the mundane to a traumatized child.”  I forget who said that, but it is so true.  It is those little details that matter to traumatized kiddos.  So here are some parts of the mundane that matter.

Routine

A routine is a great way to give kiddos that feeling of safety.  Letting them know what is coming next (having a calendar with pictures, making a routine chart, and talking through things before they happen) can mitigate many meltdowns.  Once established in the routines (this may take months), allow them to begin choosing the order of portions of the routine (should we clean up toys first or go brush teeth first?). This gives them a feeling of acting as a team that they most likely will have never had before and gives them that sense of control they so desperately want.  As a child and teen, I craved structure in our dysfunctional, chaotic household.  I saw that some of my younger siblings wanted the same thing, so I started to create routines and I saw how well they worked to smooth life for all of us.  

Food Security

Food is a big struggle for many kids, but especially those from hard places.  Food is very connected to feeling loved and safe and feeling in control.  Get to know their favorite foods right away and incorporate them into the menu (small and mundane but super important!).  It’s more than likely pb&j, Cheezits, fast food, and pizza, but over time, you can start slowly adding things to their diet and finding new favorites. Because food insecurity is typical, have a fruit bowl or healthy snacks ready whenever “needed.”  The first six months, we offer a little snack every 2 hours.  Letting them help make meals is a great way to get them to try new things and again, to feel in control.  We have a garden and letting them work alongside us to plant, tend, and harvest the produce, got them to eat fruits and vegetables that they previously refused to try.  At each meal together, we made sure to always assure them that there was plenty of food and that no one else would eat it if that child needed to leave the table or use the restroom.  Some of these things I learned from books.  Some of them I already knew from growing up with food insecurities. We were a poor family with 11 people and not always enough food for those that ate last—the people who prepared it (mostly me and my mom).

Choices

By giving limited acceptable choices (for kids 7 and under, 2 choices is sufficient and I only offer things I find acceptable), you are empowering the kiddo to feel like a teammate and to be in control of his or her own choices.  If this is new to them, they might find it difficult to choose (they will pick something not offered, or they will refuse to choose), but as long as you, the adult, stick to your guns, they will usually choose.  If they don’t, let them know that you will make the choice for them.  Examples of mundane choices would be two choices for toothpaste, and did they want bubbles or no bubbles at bath time, did they want pretzels or chips with their pb&j?  Simple things like that helped them feel like they had a certain say over their own lives.

Teamwork 

The concept of family being a team is definitely foreign to most kids from hard places.  My husband likes to describe my side of the family as Lord of the Flies.  And it’s true.  When you grow up surviving, you learn to trust no one and family means a bunch of people living in the same place, but truly, it’s every man for himself. That’s why the messaging and modeling of teamwork from the very start is so important.  This can be as simple as how you and your spouse interact with each other.  If your kiddo has a chronic problem, collaborate with them on a solution to show them how helping each other as teammates works.

Empathy/Play 

  Although this is the one that develops last, the foundation for it should be from the very beginning.  And that begins with play.  Play is your most powerful tool as a parent to kids from hard places.  As I’ve alluded to before, none of the kids from hard places have come to us knowing how to play. I cannot stress how important it is for traumatized kids to learn to play and you will have to teach them how to do it.  Play helps them to learn independence, self-regulation, self-reliance, how to share, get along with others, compromise, and most importantly, develops empathy.  

There are 3 basic types of play.  

1) Prescribed play.  That is playing a board game, building Lego with instructions.  At least for us, this is the type of play that developed last.  For our kiddos from hard places, there is too much pressure (losing, failing, doing it incorrectly).

2) Directed play.  You, as the adult are the one essentially modeling for your kids what play looks like.  This is the type of play that we cultivated for months on-end before they learned how to play independently, using their own imaginations.  You as the adult will be bored out of your mind at times, so you have to find a way to keep yourself interested.  I am imaginative, so making up stories and games is my favorite type of play.  At night, I love to read books and tell stories.  When we play, there is always a storyline. Some of the kiddos love to make creative artwork, so at one point, we made wanted posters and stalked around the yard in hats and nerf guns in hand, playing bounty hunters.   

3) Self-Directed play. This is when they can build with blocks on their own, make up their own stories, and find pleasure in it.  

Appropriate Touch and Eye Contact

Many kids from hard places have a strange relationship with touch and eye contact.  Whether they’ve encountered neglect, sexual, physical, or even psychological abuse, being aware of your own body language is extremely important.  Many kids from hard places have PTSD, so practicing self-awareness is imperative.  If they don’t make much eye contact, make sure that when they do, your face is welcoming: a softness in your eyes, a gentle smile on your face.  If they have a problem with being touched, take what they offer and offer it back with a tad bit more.  For example, if they want to hold your hand, take their hand, and maybe hold it in two hands for a moment while making quick eye contact with a smile.  Sometimes, kids from hard places won’t use appropriate touch, so make sure that you let them know when it’s not appropriate and model something that is a better choice.

Speak truth to them through their attachments

Kids from hard places aren’t always capable of accepting kind words directly.  Sometimes, you have to talk through objects that they are attached to. This might be a stuffed animal, this might be a real animal. I might say, “I sure do like how Jimmy is so kind to his brothers today.  He’s doing a great job sharing” (talking to the stuffed animal).  Or if I’m using our dog as the attachment piece, I’ll say things to the child like, “Look at that tail wagging.  She loves you so much, Jimmy.”

Model Gratefulness

This is one thing that my family always struggled with and one thing that all of our foster kiddos have struggled with: only seeing the bad.  There is tons of research out now that shows why that is.  When bad things happen, we tend to focus on them, replay them, as a predictive way to protect ourselves the next time (this is a primal instinct).  Unfortunately, this also means that we are training our brain to only see the negative.  Thankfully, the brain is malleable and can be rewired through practicing gratefulness and looking for the good.  So to do this, each night at dinner, we would go around and ask each person about their day.  They could tell up to 3 things that were great about the day and one hard thing.  For months, one kiddo couldn’t think of a single good thing, but he had a never-ending list of bad things.  So sometimes, Ethan and I would add simple things like “I got to eat my favorite food today” or “It was sunny” or something simple for him to catch onto.  After a while, that kiddo not only found 3 things he was happy about, but had to be limited to 10 to give others time.  The point?  Noticing the good, makes you a happier person.

Hopefully, some of the things that we’ve learned can help you and your family as well. Blessings on your journey (whatever that may be!).

Sources:

The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family by Dr. Karyn Purvis

Better Behavior for Ages 2-10: Small Miracles that Work Like Magic by Tara Egan

The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart M. Brown Jr.

Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld