[CORE Teen logo: the shape of a house sectioned off into triangles of different colors. Critical On-Going Resource Family Education]

[Nancy Stone] I think letting go was the biggest thing that I had to learn how to do is let go of my expectations.

[Heather Forbes] Trauma is very unpredictable. And so our kids become very unpredictable. 

[J. Stuart Ablon] Inflexibility plus inflexibility equals meltdown. 

[Donna Williams] And so I realized that there was going to have to be... There was gonna have to be some compromise.

[Lena Wilson] At times, you'll just have to say, "You know what, there's no words for this right now. And you need to give me a minute to get myself together so that we can have this conversation."

[Barb Clark] I had to start picking my battles and I had to start finding things to say yes to because there were so many things I have to say no to.

[Jennifer Rhodes] Just let me be me and help me get to what I need out of life, not what you want for me to have. 

[Melissa Peterson] I'm learning to let those things go that I want and letting what happens happen and actually I've gotten something better than I thought I'd get, it's just different.

(calming music)

[CORE Teen logo appears on screen: the shape of a house sectioned off into triangles of different colors. Each section has the title of one of the CORE Teen curriculum chapters: Transitions, Continued Connections, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression, Parental Regulation, Trauma-Informed Resource Parenting Part 1 and Part 2, Parental Adaptation, and Relationship Development. Screen zooms in on the "Parental Adaptation" title.]

[Narrator] This is CORE Teen, right time training for resource parents. In this episode, we'll look at the importance of parental adaptation in meeting the needs of adolescents and care. We'll gain insights from experts on how to help kids with behavioral challenges:

[J. Stuart Ablon] And we're gonna have to be the ones to say okay, let's figure out how we handle this by modeling and practicing flexibility.

[Narrator] We'll hear from veteran resource parents:

[Donna Williams] Foster parenting is something that you grow into.

[Narrator] And we'll listen to the voices of youth:

[Samantha Coleman Forton] Sometimes I just needed time. 

[Narrator] As we explore how resource parents can adapt and change to help young people change and grow. 

(music)

[Title Card: Parental Adaptation]

[Narrator] Most resource parents begin this healing journey with high hopes for changing a young person's life. But many times, the reality they encounter is very different from those early expectations. Successful resource parents recognize their own expectations and learn to let them go. 

[Card: Letting Go]

[Donna Williams: Resource Parent] When I first became a foster parent, I thought this child I'm going to raise this child exactly as I raised my children, okay? And I soon found out that that was not going to have a successful outcome.

[Nancy Stone: Resource Parent] With the children that have come through our home, there has been significant abuse and neglect. These are kids that have been deeply impacted and broken through trauma. I thought that with enough love and acceptance, they would be fine, that they would come out of it and that they would be fixed. 

[Jennifer Rhodes: Foster Care Alumna] You're not the first foster home we've been in and you are not the first foster parent to think that you're gonna fix me.

[Nancy Stone] The reality is while they are broken in some ways, they don't need to be fixed. They are who they are and my job truly was to empower them and encourage them and to love them.

[Samantha Coleman Forton: Foster Care Alumna] So trying to say that they're gonna forget their past or I'm gonna become their new parents or something like that, it's just unrealistic.

[Debbie Schugg: Resource Parent] But there's often an expectation that the child coming into our family at whatever age is going to just adapt to our family. To the culture of our family, to the rules and routines, to the expectations, to the traditions, to the humor, all of those kinds of things and I think the parents need to really think about what it would be like to be that child entering a new family.

[Kayla VanDyke, Foster Care Alumna: Youth Engagement Coordinator, North American Council on Adoptable Children] It wasn't easy, the rules are always different. Expectations are different. There's these minor cues about the culture that everyone just seems to get that when you fumble on. Oh, I accidentally let a curse word slip at the table, that was allowed at my last family, but now it's hugely punishable. I've ruined the entire night, everyone's super awkward. 

[Samantha Coleman Forton] And sometimes people have expectations. They expect you to be automatically comfortable there. They expect you to automatically be comfortable sitting down at meals with them.

[Vivianna Castillo-Royal: Foster Care Alumna]  So like they have family sit down dinners. I've never had that. So we had to sit there and we would talk. And at first I was kind of like why are we doing this? And I was like is someone in trouble or what?

[Debbie Schugg] And so if you think about a child coming into a home where everything is different and there's this expectation that they're gonna monitor their own moods for my convenience and for me to feel respected as a parent, I think that has to shift.

[Mina Pinckney: Resource Parent] You can not have them come in your home and expect them to adapt to your rules. Things that you may have raised your children on that you birthed, it's not gonna fly because these kids come with a lot of baggage. First of all, they got to know that they can trust you. That's the first thing. 

[Samantha Coleman Forton] Sometimes I just needed time. I just needed time to like adjust to this new place and the new rules and how their family worked.

[Donna Williams] I had to understand that I had to be willing to change and to grow with them. 

[Dondieneita Fleary-Simmons: Child Welfare Consultant] And we do get in the habit of just expecting people to adapt or even not just adapt to really thrive and say, "Woohoo, you're in a better situation now, you should be great. Everything's gonna be wonderful. You're moving into this home, you're gonna have your own bed and your own bedroom and nobody's gonna tell you what you have to eat that night for dinner." And that's what the young person expects except they don't know what that is cause they've never had that before.

[Vivianna Castillo-Royal]  When I first got into foster care, it was kind of like I didn't know what foster care was. And so it was kind of like oh, I'm gonna go stay with these people for 72 hours and then I'll go back home. And, well, obviously that didn't happen and so when I moved around, I would go into a new home and I was a really rebellious child. And so when I went in, I'm like all right, this is Ben and Susan. They're probably gonna hate me within the next week and then I'll move on again. And it just continued on with that pattern of being like I'm gonna be out of here as soon as possible and I would do everything I could to be out of there as soon as possible.

[Heather Forbes] I think there comes a time that once that child has been placed in the home for a while that you have to reassess and many times in that reassessment, you'll realize that your expectation of who this child is, the way that they behave, the way that they respond to you is actually really different from the reality that you're living on a day to day basis. And so when you have this sort of clash between the expectation versus the reality, that can be a very challenging time for parents and it's okay to say, "This isn't what I expected. This isn't the child I signed up for."

[Melissa Peterson] I wanted to parent and I ended up adopting a child who didn't want a parent. So for me, that was kind of my shattered dream I would say.

[Heather Forbes] And then grieve, allow yourself that process of grieving. It's a very hard process, you have to let go. 

[Melissa Peterson: Adoptive Parent, Certified Parent Coach] My expectations probably weren't as whimsical as many people's. And at the same time, I did have some expectations, I've had to grieve and let go of over the years. 

[Heather Forbes] When you can accept that this is just who this child is, 100% let go of everything that you had preconceived, that's where parents can move to a place of unconditional love.

[Narrator] Effective resource parents are predictable and consistent and at the same time, flexible. It's a balance that can be learned with practice. 

[Card: A New Paradigm for Parenting]

[Heather Forbes] Trauma is very unpredictable. And so our kids become very unpredictable. You may get up in the morning and you expect that things are gonna happen in ABC order. All of a sudden you realize oops, that's not happening. And if you keep trying to go to ABC cause that's what you plan and that's the structure and that's the agenda for the day, but your child is going off on X, Y, and Z, you got to jump over to X, Y, and Z. And you know what? You might need to put breakfast on hold. You might have to be late for work.

[Barb Clark: Resource Parent, Parent Support Specialist, NACAC] Oh, you've gotta be able to go with the flow and be flexible. We used to think we were gonna be a family like the Waltons and I'll sit around the dinner table and have a meal and talk about the day. Well, that doesn't really work very effectively with some of our kids just based on some of their behaviors and some of their challenges and needs. And so we had to let go of that. We had to be more flexible and be okay, "It's okay if one of them goes down and eat their dinner in front of the TV or whatever it is."

[Lena Wilson: Vice President, Child and Family, Samaritas]  As foster parents, we do the hardest job there is. Bring this child into your home, loving like they're your very own child, but you have to treat them differently than your very own child. You cannot do the same things with foster children because of the trauma that they went through.

[Caelan Soma: Director, National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children] You've got to go with what works. So many times, kids will sort of show you without talking about it and it's kind of like does the child have to sleep in pajamas or can they sleep in a t-shirt and a pair of pants if that's what's comfortable for them, that's okay.

[Heather Forbes] The family is going to have to make some changes based off the needs of the child. Now that's not something that's gonna happen forever but certainly as a child enters the home because this child has very little flexibility. If we really look at who has more flexibility, the family or the child? The obvious answer is that the family does. 

[J. Stuart Ablon: Director, Think:Kids, Massachussetts General Hospital; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School] An important equation to know is that inflexibility plus inflexibility equals meltdown. And so if you've got a kid who is inflexible, if you throw your own inflexibility out, it's got nowhere to go. And we can't expect a kid with a trauma history who struggles with flexibility to be the one to inject flexibility into that equation. So if we've got a clear structure for a kid, but it bumps up against their inflexibility and they're not meeting that structure in some way, then we're gonna have to be the ones to say okay, let's figure out how we handle this by modeling and practicing flexibility. 

[Lena Wilson] I think it's important for foster parents to understand going into this, you are gonna be uncomfortable. You are gonna feel like you don't... You're a fish out of water, you're not quite sure what you're doing. It's the most uncomfortable thing in the world because you've been a parent and why, why am I not successful at this? 

[Heather Forbes] Sometimes you have to let the child lead. And yes, you will always be the parent and you have to be in charge, but following their lead... Many times, they will lead you to the solution. 

[J. Stuart Ablon] I don't generally suggest that parents let things that are really important to them go for very long because that just builds resentment and you'll have a hard time handling that. I think parents need to be strategic. I think you can't work on everything all at once so if you've got 10 things that are important to you and the kid is struggling to do all of them, you can't work on them all at once. So I do think you need to drop some of them, not forever, but for now. Just maybe for a day or two days, a week until we get back to them. So you need to be strategic. 

[Nicole Pauling: Resource Parent] You need to step back, look at the big picture. What is the one thing you need to work on right now? What is the one thing you need to get through? What's the big thing? 

[Card: Parenting to the Need]

[Narrator] Adverse childhood experiences affect a young person's social, emotional and cognitive development. Attuned resource parents learn to decode behavior so they can respond to the child's developmental stage, not chronological age. 

[Nicole Pauling] First of all, I hate the word manipulation. Our children are not manipulative. Our children are survivors.

[J. Stuart Ablon] More often than not, what it is is they're grasping for some control in a world that has been outside of their control. Very chaotic and unpredictable, and they want some control and I don't blame them. When we talk about kids who want a lot of control and tantrum or explode or implode when things don't go their way, that sounds like every two year old I've ever met. We have a phrase for that in fact, we call it the "Terrible Twos." Why do we call it the terrible twos? Because kids at that age have a hard time being flexible, tolerating frustration, knowing how to problem solve. We don't take that personally when they're two because we know they're just bad at that stuff. And hopefully when they're four, they're gonna be better than when they were two and when they're eight, they're gonna be better when they were four and so on and so on and so on. The problem is that the kids that we're talking about, that resource parents bring into their homes, these are kids who have some delays in those skills. So you might be looking at a 14 year old, but they may have six year old skills.

[Debbie Schugg] You've got this 10-year-old, 12-year-old, 14-year-old, 17-year-old coming in. So we have an expectation that they have kind of a certain skillset in terms of their own emotional intelligence, understanding and identifying and expressing their emotions and also in terms of life skills. And a lot of our kids don't know about personal hygiene routines or don't know about basic things like how to wash dishes or if there's a sequence to it or those kinds of things and then that much more so in terms of how do we talk about emotions, what's safe to talk about, what do I do with the big emotions that I'm having?

[Heather Forbes] Because of our teenagers' histories of not having a really nice, solid, continual childhood experience of being in a family, the many of our kids may need to go backwards before they go forwards. And by that, I mean they may... You may have a 14-year-old that probably wants to play with Barbies, wants to play with Legos or Hot Wheels. 

[Barb Clark] My daughter who is now 18 just spent her first paycheck on a doll.

[Heather Forbes] And don't be afraid to allow your kids to regress. They missed it and they need it. They need to recoup what they have missed. 

[Barb Clark] As I sat and thought about it, I'm like wait, socially and emotionally, she really is about that age and so I had to be okay with the dolls.

[Heather Forbes] It's not about should, it's really more about where are they developmentally. 

[Card: When Values Clash]

[Narrator] Sometimes an adolescent's behaviors are at odds with the resource family's values. Likewise, a teen's decisions and beliefs may go against the grain. At times, a caregiving family may be uncomfortable with the teen's very identity. In these cases, it is still essential for the family to listen, suspend judgment and offer unwavering support. 

[Heather Forbes] Your family values are gonna be very different from where this child has come from, is a very important piece here because there's gonna be some conflict. It will trigger you. 

[Ronald Williams: Resource Parent] I'll start with the profanity that I just had something about profanity. And when I was growing up, my parents didn't allow profanity, but I began to realize that a lot of times, it's a way that the youth express themselves and it is not a positive or negative per se, it's just the way they express themselves. 

[Heather Forbes] As much as we don't want that language in our house, we have to first understand where that came from. Babies don't come out of the womb, you know, dropping the F bomb. So this is something that is a learned behavior and the environments that they are in. Behavior is a form of communication. And profanity is a very effective, from their perspective, form of communication. Now I will say this as a parent though, it's very hard to let it go. Especially if you have a blueprint of coming from a family where nobody ever swore, and if you did, I mean it was like the whole world was gonna stop revolving. So you have to let your old blueprint go. 

[Melissa Peterson] And I never swore before I met my daughter and the F bomb was her favorite word. I mean, she used it all the time, still does. It's a lot less than it used to be, but I was just like "Whoa," but I felt so there, like, "I'm gonna kill her, aahhh." 

[Heather Forbes] You're gonna spike up and you're gonna say don't you use that language in this house! Well now all of a sudden, you're in a conflictive relationship, which is actually something that they're used to. They're used to being in relationships where there's a lot of confrontation. And so to them, that's normal. That feels right.

[Melissa Peterson] I'm like "Oh," I'd have to remember when I get there, she's recreating something. It's not me.

[Lena Wilson] And it's nothing wrong. Yes, I'm upset right now, but the youth sees this is what upset looks like. I'm not yelling, I'm not screaming. I'm not swearing, I'm not... There's no physical violence that's involved. 

[Melissa Peterson] Take a deep breath. I'd literally, "I'm taking deep breaths right now." I'd be modeling.

[Donna Williams] I had to change my perspective, now, not change my value system of what I thought about lying or stealing or cussing, but to actually be able to work with it.

[Heather Forbes] It's a cultural transition. It's not just about values because that's part of the whole culture, but they're moving now into a family that is completely different from everything they've ever known and they are gonna fight you on it because it's hard to give up the things that are familiar to you. It's very hard, it doesn't mean that just because the change is a good change that it's easy, any type of change is gonna be hard for our kids. 

[Lena Wilson] The other thing is you have to know yourself as an individual. We all have triggers. There are gonna be some things that are gonna set us off that this youth is gonna do. The most difficult thing for us as individuals is to step back, see what's going on, check our own selves emotionally because it's gonna take us to a place very quickly, get ourselves into control so that we can also see what's going on around us and around this youth in this situation, and then approach it from that way. 

[Jerry Peterson: Executive Director, Ruth Ellis Center] The most fundamental quality that I think is critical for resource parents is the ability and the willingness to suspend judgment and to hear the truth that a young person brings forward. 

[Caitlin Ryan: Director, Family Acceptance Project, San Francisco State University] One of the most important things that parents and caregivers can do is to talk to their child about that child's experience. 

[Jerry Peterson] Even if it scares you, even if it makes you feel like, "What am I gonna do with this, I don't know how to respond to this," young people don't necessarily need you to respond. If you're able to sit quietly, ask questions, and simply let their responses be, you will build trust. They will feel safe just by you listening and providing that space.

[Caitlin Ryan] And you know what, that's a behavior that anybody can do even if they think that being gay or transgender is wrong, that it's against their religious values and beliefs, it's a basic building block of love and connectedness. 

[Promise Adams-Brown: Foster Care Alumna] Your reaction is everything. Your reaction to anything that occurs with their personal lives is actually very vital to whether they're gonna share anything else with you in general. All you gotta do is listen, basically. All you gotta do is listen and try to understand.

[Caitlin Ryan] It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to choose between your child and your values or your child and your faith. That there are so many ways that you can be there with your child, increase the level of intimacy and just imagine if the families that are so distressed when they learn that their child is LGBT and they say, "This isn't what we expected. It's wrong, it's against our values and beliefs. I don't think you can live here anymore." Imagine if they stopped and said "We didn't know anything about this. This is all new to us and we love you. We're gonna be there for you no matter what. We're gonna learn about this together as a family because you're so important to us."

[Card: One Challenge at a Time]

[Caelan Soma] This is hard work. It's hard work to parent, and it's even harder to be a resource parent because you're not parenting in ways that may have worked with other kids in the past, even other traumatized kids.

[Heather Forbes] So you have to let your old blueprint go and recognize that this is just a different child, they're coming in to your home with a different blueprint, with a different perspective. 

[Mina Pinckney] Learn how to adjust, that's a part of life. 

[Debbie Schugg] We want to be tuned into not what are our expectations for our kids, but what are their hopes for themselves? We got to make our choices. We got to choose our partner in life. We got to choose where we're living, what career we have, what pets we have, what we drive, all of those things. We don't get to decide that for our kids. We get to prepare them to decide for themselves.

[Mina Pinckney] You learn how to accept some things you can't control. That's a part of life. 

[Melissa Peterson] Recognizing that pretty early on that I couldn't control her, that I wasn't in charge, that I just had to go on this river. I had to ride when the rapids came and when it was calm, float along, whatever it might be. I think that was really helpful. So I think giving up the idea that I was gonna control her and stop her or make her do things or whatever. Once I gave that up, it was easier to parent. 

[Mina Pinckney] All these kids, even though they have a lot of bad things going on, they have a whole lot more good things. 

[Nancy Stone] It's their journey and my job is to love them along that journey. 

[Mina Pinckney] One challenge at a time, one challenge at a time. After that, they're okay. 

(calming music)

[Title Card: Parental Adaptation]


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