Did your child experience trauma or loss before they came to you? Do you want to help them heal? Join our conversation with Dr. Amanda Baden, a Professor and the Doctoral Program Director at Montclair State University in the graduate counseling program and a licensed psychologist in private practice in Manhattan. She is an adult adoptee from Hong Kong and an adoptive parent of a daughter from China. In this episode, we cover: What is trauma? What types of events/things create trauma? Why are trauma, abuse, and neglect so harmful to children? Is neglect a form of trauma? How trauma impacts ch ..read more

Have you wondered if you could be the right place for an LGBTQ+ youth or child to land? Join us to talk about how to be an affirming and supportive home for LGBTQ+ youth. Or guest will be Angela Weeks, the Director of the National SOGIE Center at the Institute for Innovation and Implementation. Under the Center, she directs the Center of Excellence for LGBTQ+ Behavioral Health Equity and the National Quality Improvement Center on Tailored Services, Placement Stability, and Permanency for LGBTQ2S Children and Youth in Foster Care. In this episode, we cover: Why are these young people over rep ..read more

How do you handle a birth parent showing up to a meeting with the child stoned or drunk? What do you do when a birth parent often breaks promises to the child? Join us to talk about nine sticky situations that adoptive parents often find themselves in. Our guest is Lori Holden, the author of The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole. In this episode, we cover: What do we mean by openness and why is openness or some form of a relationship considered best for adopted kids? Difficult/Sticky Situation #1: Birth Parent Addiction to drugs or alcohol. How to handle th ..read more

When should your child get a smartphone? What can you do if your child spends too much time playing video games? How can we protect our kids from the downsides of social media? Join us to talk about parenting and technology with Krista Boan, co-founder of the nonprofit Screen Sanity. In this episode, we cover: Digital Health:  Screen Sanity’s 5 Rules of Thumb. Ride, practice, drive” approach for device and app introduction. How to handle a foster, adoptive, or kinship placement of a child that has already gone down that slippery slope of too much screen time and tech. How do you establ ..read more

Kari Dady joins us to talk about applying the guiding principles of Trust-Based Relational Intervention® to typical parenting situations. Kari Dady is a Regional Training & Consultation Specialist with the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development. She is also an adoptive mom who uses the TBRI® approach daily in her family. In this episode, we cover: What is parental attachment style, and how does it influence how we parent? How does trauma affect the developing child?  What are some of the different types of trauma that impact a child? What are the core principles of Trust-Based ..read more

Do you have a child that is more—louder, more energetic, more argumentative, more everything? Intense children can be harder to raise, but their intensity is a gift as well as a parenting challenge. We talk with Howard Glasser, creator of the Nurtured Heart Approach to parenting. He is the author of Transforming the Difficult Child and Transforming the Intense Child Workbook. In this episode, we cover: What do you consider to be an intense child? My child was “more”—more loud, more energy—their reaction to most things was simply more. They go from 5 mph to 60mph in about a second. How to rai ..read more

Do you worry that your decision to foster or adopt will hurt the kids you are already raising? Check out this podcast with Dr. Jana Hunsley, an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of Texas at Dallas, trauma therapist, TBRI® Practitioner, and founder of Project 1025. In this episode, we cover: Fostering What are some of the common impacts of fostering on children already in the family? Both potentially negative and positive. What does your research show on how significant and how often children already in the home are negatively impacted by fostering? Should you Include kids ..read more

Have mealtimes become a battleground in your house, is your child a picky eater, or do you have a child who eats too much? We provide lots of tips in our conversations with Dr. Katja Rowell, a family doctor and author of Love Me, Feed Me, 2nd edition, and Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating. She has a special interest in supporting foster and adoptive parents. In this episode, we cover: What are some of the typical food issues for adopted or foster kids, especially those who have experienced trauma? How does trauma impact feeding? Responsive eating leaves space to recognize what the ..read more

Are you planning on claiming the Adoption Tax Credit when you file your taxes this year? If so, this is the podcast for you! We talk with two of the top experts in the US on the Adoption Tax Credit: Becky Wilmoth, an Enrolled Agent and Adoption Tax Credit Specialist with Bill’s Tax Service, and Josh Kroll, the Adoption Subsidy Resource Center coordinator at the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC). In this episode, we cover: What is the Adoption Tax Credit for adoption being claimed on 2022 federal taxes? How to advocate for refundability? What is a “credit” and how does it d ..read more

Are you thinking about adopting this year? You don't want to miss this discussion of how to adopt and current trends in private infant adoption, foster care adoption, and international adoption. Our guests are Chris Peszka, MSW, Regional and District Supervisor at Adoptions From The Heart Adoption Agency, and Robin Sizemore, Executive Director of Hopscotch Adoptions. In this episode, we cover:  Domestic infant private adoption in the US What is the process? What are the reasons that pregnant moms are placing their child? Open adoption Expectant parent choice Special needs of children a ..read more