Kids need a safe place to share feelings, vent, and release stress. If your kids are challenged by another summer that may not feel normal you can continue to connect with them by listening to their struggles. This increases a sense of support in difficult times.
It takes a lot of work to rewire the brain for safety and to challenge past circumstances.
This woman was so filled with shame. If shame were a color it would pour out of her eyes, staining her cheeks. I sat across from her letting my eyes fill as well. I could normalize her experience — not just because I am a trained therapist — but because I have thought those very same things too. If you are reading this, please help me to NORMALIZE MENTAL HEALTH.
Children want to feel that they are part of a family — that they belong just as much as any other family member biologically related or not. They want to feel included as if they were always meant to be there, not as if they are lucky to be there.
Kids do not know how to communicate their experience. They do not know how to explain the survival strategies that have become normal for them, but are so obviously wrong in this new home. It can be exhausting to navigate.
We have an opportunity during this strange time to paint a new picture of what coping with stress looks like for children in foster care who are often the victims of trauma, abuse, and neglect.
I can’t explain how many clients have sat in my office as we’ve asked ourselves what kind of world we are currently living in. Fear, anxiety, worry, and confusion tend to be the first emotional responses seen and felt by those I meet with every day.
