Foster the People

I encounter foster parents quite a bit in my line of work. Of all the categories into which people can be sifted, I believe that foster providers have one of the bummest deals around.

I tend to approach them as fellow professionals, who are just doing a job like the rest of us. I am thus buying into one of the most common myths about foster care, which is that it’s something you do for money. In fact, pretty much any other pursuit, including selling lemonade and becoming a philosopher, is more profitable. Foster care is asking everything from a provider that one expects from a biological parent, only on time and with precise documentation.

Foster parents, I salute you.

Turns out, as I found on a little stroll through the search engines, there are quite a few myths about foster care out there. Some of them are probably preventing folks from becoming foster providers. That’s really too bad, ‘cuz we need ’em.

Here are some.


From this blog:

“MYTH: Most children in foster care are teenagers.

REALITY: The median age of children in foster care in the U.S. is eight. Almost 50% are over age 10, and an estimated 70% have siblings in foster care.”

Are older kids more “difficult?” Not necessarily. It means they are more likely to have had multiple foster placements and can sure use a stable home. There are a lot of resources and services available to assist with older kids and teens. Plus, no diapers!


MYTH: I have to stay at home to be a foster parent.

Umm, this is the 21st Century. People work. A foster parent is a regular human, and parenting is hard no matter what. You are allowed to live your life and drive kids to as many sports practices as you want. You can also get a babysitter (Solo comes out May 25th!).


From this site:

MYTH: Foster parents need to be parents themselves, and not too old.

You don’t need to have (or have had) biological children in order to be a foster parent. All you need is to want to parent. As a verb.


If you are in the least bit interested, there are a lot of resources out there. Here are some specific to Oregon. We have an overwhelming need in this state right now. You might find you’re more able, and ready, than you think.


A Parent’s Search for Meaning










Between the Brick Wall and the Jellyfish

As we experience the rise of authoritarian regimes around the world, please read carefully as I suggest that what we need is more authoritative ones.

That suffix makes all the difference, even according to Google’s dictionary function : an authoritarian is one who goes around “favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom.” One who is authoritative, on the other hand, is “commanding and self-confident; likely to be respected and obeyed.”

These are also, as you may know, two of the three parenting styles identified by psychologist Diana Baumrind back in the 1960s.

As venerable as they are, Baumrind’s observations are still widely cited in research today. They break down as follows:

The Authoritarian, or Brick Wall, parent works from a model of rules and convictions to which the child is expected to conform. Because children (much like adults) are all different and have changing needs and temperaments, this does not tend to work very well. Therefore, the Authoritarian parent is compelled to use punishment and force to make it happen. This parent wants obedience and respect, and while the application of “power over” others can generate the former, at least in the short term, the future relationship will hold disillusionment, resentment and possibly trauma.

The Permissive parent, therefore, moves as far from this model as possible, at the cost of providing too little structure and guidance. The child’s response to this Jellyfish parent is that she hungers for limits and healthy boundaries and has no one able to guide them through the vicissitudes of growing up. This is problematic enough; in addition, though, when the chips are down the Jellyfish will often snap, in a panic, into Brick Wall mode.

The healthy middle way is undertaken by the Authoritative parent. Unlike the Permissive parent he has clear rules and limits and is willing to hold them; unlike the Authoritarian, she is sensitive to the cues and adaptive to the needs of the child as they present themselves. The Authoritarian provides choices when appropriate and sets limits when needed. He also “encourages verbal give and take, shares with the child the reasoning behind her policy, and solicits his objections when he refuses to conform. Both autonomous self-will and disciplined conformity are valued.”

The Authoritative parent is like a spine: firm, strong and upright, yet flexible. I urge you to stand with other vertebrate parents in their important work.


The Case of The Pillow

Here’s something that happened.


















The Intake













Some Class







Starting this week, they are offering three separate classes.

On Wednesday:


Thursdays feature two classes:





Hope to see you there!



Being a parent can be…absorbing. So much so, in fact, that it’s possible to lose track of the things that make up a non-parenting life. Case in point: today I am home with the kids while my wife left to spend the afternoon with her friend, who had managed to find someone to watch her own. Our kids were genuinely puzzled by what was happening. “Where did Mom go?”

“To hang out with her friend.”

“But…what are they doing?”

“I don’t know. Going to lunch. Going to a bookstore. Whatever they want to do, I guess.”



Clearly we don’t spend enough time with our friends. Outside of church or other family-related functions, it just doesn’t happen. For our first several years as parents, it was just hard to manage. One is busy, what with the children and all. It’s hard to spend time with other adults who aren’t also parents. Eventually, it got easier, but I guess it just hadn’t occurred to us until recently. And we’re both relatively (and happily) antisocial anyway. Evenings in this house are a flurry of knitting and book-reading.

And yet…friends! They’re kind of important, aren’t they? From a parenting standpoint, it’s good to model this kind of social interaction (as became clear when my daughters were baffled by the idea of adults hanging out together away from children).

But there’s more! Last night we had accepted a long-standing invitation for dinner at the home of some people we knew from church. It was fun. I forgot. Other people: fun! On the way home, the 12 year-old pointed out what a different sort of household this was, with an open invitation to whomever needed a place to go. People in and out all the time. Long dinner table, guest bedrooms. Stay as long as you like. Definitely different from our rather more insular household (plus, short dinner table, no spare anything).

But again, good to model the interactions. And good for kids to know about other kinds of family.

Sounds like a project! In the new year, I resolve to have some friends. Wish me luck.



Try This One Weird Trick When You Parent!

I have always been amused by those cheap and vaguely disreputable looking ads that appear at the bottom of the screen on websites. You know, the ones that exhort you to try this “one weird trick” to solve various problems. I’m not sure how effective those ads are, but one can assume that if they didn’t work (for the marketers, that is, if not for the curious clicker) they wouldn’t be there. I have never been intrigued enough to actually click on them (have you?), but fortunately at least one journalist was paid to do so.

Parenting, as you know, rarely lends itself to easy or singular answers (in other words, to “one weird trick”). But sometimes there is a simple solution. I’m going to present not one, fellow parent, not two, but three weird tricks that will actually get results with your kids.

Try this one weird trick to make your kids smarter!

Here it is, without even a dodgy video you can’t skip or pause: get some books. That’s right, according to science, there is a strong correlation between having books in the home and kids’ future academic achievement. That’s it! Of course the assumption is that these books get read at some point. But most important is simply to own them and make them available. Kids who grow up in a home with books will learn to value them and the skills needed to unlock them.

Want to know what your kids are thinking? Try this one weird trick!

This one I got from a parent I worked with a few years ago, who told me her amazing secret: she makes sure that when her daughter and friends are going somewhere, she is the driver. Evidently the act of driving clouds awareness, in the tween/teen brain, of the presence of the parent. Give it 8 or 10 blocks, and those kids will start talking as if there are no adults present. You will learn everything, and they won’t know that you know it! This may actually be true. I don’t know; I’m not science. But research does support the practice of talking to your kids in the car. The casual, pressure-free environment eliminates the need for eye contact and facilitates communication.

This one weird trick will keep your kids from doing drugs!

Eat dinner together! Several studies over the last 10-15 years have demonstrated that kids who eat meals with their family are significantly less likely to engage in drug use or other risky behaviors. As I looked into this weird trick, I found that its veracity has been challenged by recent research. It just goes to show that magic is always more complicated than we think (see Harry Potter). But even if you can’t sit together for meals, you can find some other opportunity to connect regularly with your kids and nurture trust and communication.

There, now you’ve got it all figured out. Parents, send no money!


The Wheel

In Nurturing Parenting, as I’ve mentioned, there is an emphasis on parents being able to recognize and meet our own needs so that we can do the same for our children. Hopefully by now this is a familiar concept (though I can attest that it doesn’t get any easier with repetition).

There’s more. In the class, we talk about the several areas in which we (as parents, humans, etc) have needs. They are categorized as follows:

Physical. Self explanatory, I would hope. Includes all the things you imagine keep you alive; things that feel good, ya da ya da.

Emotional. Knowing the feelings, feeling the feelings, expressing them in an appropriate and legal way.

Social. Interacting with people; making connections; communicating. I suck at this.

Intellectual. Learning things, developing skills. If reading books covered it, I would win this pie piece. Just don’t ask me how to change a tire.

All of the above tend to have a lot of buy-in with our parents. No disputing their importance or their practical value. But from there it gets a little tricky.

Creative. Some people wonder out loud why this is a category. The most common story is this (perhaps you’ve heard it. Perhaps you’ve said it!): “I can’t do any of that creative stuff.” Or, “I can’t even draw stick figures.” Or, “Trust me, you don’t want to hear me sing.” This is where I start whacking people with (rhetorical) rolled up newspapers.

First of all, none of that is true. It’s just that you don’t think it’s important enough to do it. Or to practice. Then, I point out all the ways in which you probably are meeting (or attempting to meet) your creative needs. What about that story you told at work about your last fishing trip? What about that casserole thing you made last Thursday?

Spiritual. Again, a lot of people have trouble with this one. Sometimes it’s for the same reason that stuff about a higher power in the Twelve-Step programs can bother folks. Look, the takeaway is that whatever higher power it is that you land on, it’s important that it’s not you. The same rule applies to meeting your needs. Your mom and your dad couldn’t do it for you, and you can’t do it by yourself. The spiritual need is the need to plug into something other than our ego. “I go to church” is the automatic answer, and probably that helps.

But what about going fishin’? I am being completely serious. Solitude works to meet this need. So does silence. Taking a walk, outside, without your cell phone, can check all the boxes. Easy peasy. Except it never is.

So it has to become important.

Crucially, this array of needs is not a hierarchy; some are not more important than others. Rather, it’s a wheel. It needs some inflation all around in order to turn properly.

Which of these needs are you meeting on a regular basis? Which need some work? Most importantly, which don’t you want to think about?

Start with those.

Take care!




(Small) People Who Need People

How do we know, beyond a doubt, that humans are social animals?

1.) Archaeological evidence of milkshakes with two straws.

2.) Can’t read anything without sharing it on Facebook.

3.) Babies have “critical windows” for development during which parts of the brain need to be stimulated through interaction with others.

The first two are self-evident, but the third answer I  learned from our Nurturing Parenting class. What does it mean, though?

As I understand it (and keep in mind that I’m not an expert, but I play one on this blog), infant’s brains have an optimal period–anywhere between 6 months, in the case of vision, and four years, for logic and math skills–in which to make crucial connections that will carry them through the rest of their lives.

That’s one of those double-edged sword things. Clearly the stakes are pretty high, as children that don’t get what they need in the first few years–affection, interaction, a sense of stability and safety, opportunities to move and learn–will not have the skills they need to function as adults. That’s a bit scary.

To be clear, just because those connections aren’t formed in the brain during those critical windows doesn’t mean that it’s too late. What it does mean is that it will take a lot of work. And probably long-term (as in lifelong) support. See what I mean about being dependent on others? There’s just no way around it.

But this presents a great opportunity. Parents have a vision of the sort of people their children will be as adults (even if that vision is not always articulated, or even consciously crafted). Most often what we come up with is that we want our adult kids to be confident, capable, creative and well-rounded.

Those attributes don’t have to be shaped in school, or daycare, or summer camp, or anywhere outside the family. If we give them what they need when they need it (we’re talking birth to age four), they’ll be good to go.

The rest is just writing checks.