Foster Parent Well

Priorities for the New Year

• Nicole T Barlow • Season 2 • Episode 30

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Every holiday season as a foster or adoptive parent is a rollercoaster of joy and chaos. I've been there, feeling the duality of laughter and meltdowns, and I'm here to share how embracing these mixed emotions can actually enrich our lives and families. In this episode, I reflect on the past year, celebrating the laughter, acknowledging the meltdowns, and setting intentions for a more balanced 2025. Let's talk about the power of saying yes to ourselves so we can better say yes to our children, teaching them the value of self-care by living it out ourselves.

Together, we'll explore practical ways to incorporate movement and strength training into hectic lives, and the importance of nutrition in maintaining energy and preventing burnout. From the simplicity of a daily walk to the impact of choosing whole foods, every small decision counts. As we step into the new year, we'll also focus on spiritual growth, setting priorities that align with wisdom and nurture our families with love and grace. Join me in a prayer of strength and guidance, and let’s enter 2025 with renewed faith, purpose, and a commitment to self-care that supports our parenting journeys.

2025 Priority Reset Guide:
https://stan.store/nicoletbarlow/p/get-the-priority-reset-guide-now

6 Week Coaching Group:
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=nicolebarlow

Register for Priorities Webinar on January 21st!
https://stan.store/nicoletbarlow/p/join-me-to-set-our-priorities--goals-for-2025 


Connect with me on Instagram: @Fosterparentwell
@nicoletbarlow https://www.instagram.com/nicoletbarlow/
Website: https://nicoletbarlow.com/

Nicole T Barlow:

Welcome to the Foster Parent Well podcast, where we have real candid, faith-filled conversations about all things foster care, adoption and trauma. I'm your host, nicole T Barlow. I'm a certified parent trainer, a certified health coach and an adoptive parent myself. This is a space where you can find support so that you can care for your kids with a steadfast faith, endurance and joy. I want you to foster parent well, so let's jump in. Well, hey there, friends, happy New Year. Welcome back to the Foster Parent Well podcast. It feels so good to be back with you after a little holiday break.

Nicole T Barlow:

I hope your Christmas season was filled with moments of joy, even if it came wrapped in the usual chaos that so often accompanies this time of year, doesn't it? I decided to take a couple of weeks off from the podcast to really focus on my family. My oldest was home from school he goes to school about seven hours away, so he really only comes home for the holidays and I really wanted to create some intentional days of togetherness. But you know how that goes. I had this grand vision family bonding, laughter, sweet memories and in some ways we did get that. One of the biggest hits was a Christmas trivia tic-tac-toe game. Y'all it got heated. We're a competitive bunch, for sure, and there might have been a few debates about who actually knew the most Christmas facts, but it was so fun and it gave us plenty of laughs. They have definitely requested that one again for next year, but also, of course, in true family fashion. Those four days of planned fun were also sprinkled in with lots of tears, meltdowns including several of my own and moments where I thought why do I even try? Right? Do you ever feel like that? But here's what I've learned Life as a foster or adoptive parent is always a mix of joy and hard and, honestly, that's okay. The hard doesn't have to cancel out the good. It just makes the good all the more meaningful. So how was your holiday? More fun or more tears or, like me, and a little bit of both, wherever you land. I'm just so glad you're here, because today is January 1st, and that means we're stepping into a brand new year together. So we're going to be talking about goals and priorities and what it looks like to make 2025 a year of intention and growth.

Nicole T Barlow:

Let's dive in. So it's the start of 2025, and, if you're anything like me, the new year comes with this mix of excitement and overwhelm. On one hand, there's something refreshing about a clean slate, right? I always have such high hopes when we get to start fresh. But on the other hand, as foster and adoptive parents, we're already juggling so much that adding new goals can feel like one more thing to manage, right? Like how do we fit one more thing in If I say I'm going to start doing all these new things? Well, what does that trump, right? Here's what I want you to hear.

Nicole T Barlow:

If we continue to put ourselves last, we're not going to get what we need in order to parent well. And let's be real, our kids need us at our best. They've been through so much and they're looking to us to be their safe place, their calm in the storm. But how do we do that if we're running on empty? This year? We need to shift that focus a little bit. It's time to put your oxygen mask on first. You know how? On an airplane, they tell you to do that to put your oxygen mask on before helping someone else.

Nicole T Barlow:

That's not selfish, it's necessary. You can't pour from an empty cup, and yet so often we do. We skip meals, we lose sleep, we let ourselves fall to the bottom of the priority list, but that just doesn't work. Think about it this way Most of us don't skip brushing our teeth or taking a quick shower. Well, sometimes we might, but on the busiest days those things happen because they're priorities. Yet some days you're rushing to do those things quicker. You may get it done in 60 seconds flat, but you still do it because it matters.

Nicole T Barlow:

The same principle applies for caring for yourself in other ways. If we make it a priority, it will happen, even if it's not perfect, even if it's not every single day. Because, yes, there are some days that I go without a shower because life is just too crazy. Right, there are some days where I order a pizza because the planned healthy meal that I had just isn't going to work in the midst of everything that's going on. So it's okay that everything doesn't happen perfectly, but we have to get our priorities straight so that they do happen most of the time.

Nicole T Barlow:

So before we talk about specific priorities, let's address the elephant in the room mindset. If we don't decide what matters most, life will decide for us. And guess what? Life's priorities are rarely aligned with what's truly important. Here's the truth that's hard to swallow Saying yes to something means saying no to something else. So if we're constantly saying yes to everybody else's needs, we're often saying no to our own, and that's not sustainable.

Nicole T Barlow:

It's not the example we want to set for our kids. We're trying to teach them that taking care of themselves is important, and the best way we can do that is to model that for them, to model what it looks like to care for ourselves, to care for our mental health, to care for our faith and our spiritual health, to care for our physical bodies. So prioritizing yourself, it doesn't mean neglecting your kids. It just means you're equipping yourself to be the parent that they need. And you guys, a lot of the things that we can do to care for ourselves can be done with our kids, which is modeling it for them. But it's about being proactive instead of reactive. When we're not intentional about our priorities, we're setting ourselves up to fail, not just for the day, but for the long haul. If we never get ahead of it, if we never set ourselves and self-care and our health as a priority, it's never going to just happen. Naturally, we have to be really, really intentional about those things. So let's break this down into some tangible priorities for the year. And y'all, not all of this is self-care and wellness stuff. Some of this is about investing in our kids, too, but these aren't about adding more to your plate. It's really about making intentional choices that are going to fill you up. They're going to help you parent better and they're going to make you feel better too.

Nicole T Barlow:

So the first thing is time with God. This is a non-negotiable you guys, as foster parents, we're on the front lines of some of the hardest battles, and we just cannot do it in our own strength. Time in God's word, in prayer and simply sitting in his presence is what equips us to keep going. We need that time. It is a necessity. When we rely on him, we're not just surviving, we're parenting with his grace, his wisdom, his peace, and maybe this looks like starting your morning with a quick devotional His peace. And maybe this looks like starting your morning with a quick devotional. Maybe it's listening to worship music while you're driving, or while you're taking a walk, or maybe you're praying while you're folding laundry. Whatever it looks like. You have to make this a priority. You have been set apart to be different, and the way that you approach life has to be different, because the things that you are doing are harder, they're different than the average person. You really need to be, first and foremost, equipped in his strength and his wisdom for your day.

Nicole T Barlow:

The second thing is spending time with safe people. So spending time with your spouse or your friends, other safe relationships where you are going to be relationally filled up. As much as we love our kids, they can't be the ones who meet our relational needs. Even if our kids didn't, hadn't experienced the trauma that most of them have, um, they still couldn't meet those needs. But, especially because our kids have previous trauma, they can't carry that weight of meeting our relational needs. So we need safe adults in our lives that can encourage us, that can listen to us, that can pour into us. And maybe it's a weekly date night with our spouse, or maybe we schedule a coffee to catch up with a friend, or maybe we schedule a coffee to catch up with a friend. I know I have a coffee scheduled with a friend this week and I am so, so excited about it because I know every moment that I spend with her I feel filled up, I feel encouraged. She encourages me in the Lord, she encourages me to seek Jesus, and it's just so nice to be in a safe space like that relationally.

Nicole T Barlow:

So make space for those connections. They are life-giving and, just like your kids need safe relationships, people they can depend on, people that are going to help support them, we need that in our lives too. We have to have those relationships that are pouring into us so that we can be that relational support for our kids. So then that leads me to the next one, and that's connecting with our kids. So connecting with our kids doesn't have to be elaborate. It may be reading a bedtime story and singing a song and praying at bedtime. It may mean baking cookies together or playing a quick game of Uno, but these moments of connection are what build trust and what strengthen that relationship. We also know that building this connection and this trust and attachment with our kids is what helps their brains heal.

Nicole T Barlow:

So this has to be a top priority for us. This has to be something that we set aside time to do each and every day, and I know I need to get much, much better at this, in that I spend time with my kids as a group, but I have not been as intentional lately about spending one-on-one time with my kids. When they were younger, I used to schedule five to 10 minutes every single day, like I would take an hour and I would just basically rotate from one kid to the next for five or 10 minutes in each room with each kid spending time one-on-one time connecting with that child, and I really need to get back to that. Just because my kids are older and I guess they're busy and they have their own things going on, it's not always as easy to schedule that time, but in this new year, that's one of the things I really want to do is to be much more intentional about having that daily one-on-one time with my kids. Next week we're diving into some fun ways to connect with your kids around food, so make sure you tune into that. My guest next week is awesome and really has some great ideas on how to build connection in that way. All right.

Nicole T Barlow:

Well, let's move on to self-care habits. Let's move on to self-care habits. So self-care good self-care y'all is not eating a pan of brownies or a bag of M&Ms and watching tv. Sometimes that can feel good and we need that downtime and that treat or whatever, but that's not really caring for for ourselves. Well, good self-care means that we have daily habits that care for our bodies. So it means things like hydration, drinking lots of water, nutrition, eating whole foods that are going to nourish our bodies, that are giving us the vitamins and minerals that we need every day us the vitamins and minerals that we need every day.

Nicole T Barlow:

Exercise, making sure that we're getting regular movement. And, you guys, it doesn't have to be big. In fact, for most foster and adoptive parents, you don't want some really strenuous workout routine. You don't want to spend hours and hours running unless your body is used to that, because that's going to put additional stress on your body and your body doesn't need any additional stress. I say that all the time, but we have to be really intentional about that. But we do need movement, our bodies need to move. So maybe it means going for a daily walk after dinner or, you know, I just got a mini trampoline that is in my room.

Nicole T Barlow:

My kids had little mini trampolines, you know, when they were smaller, but they were really like hard and stiff. I guess that was on purpose. This one is super bouncy and it's actually for me to be able to, you know, jump on for 5, 10, 15 minutes, 20 minutes sometimes, you know, to be able to get some exercise in when I am in a hurry. That's not my normal routine. I really emphasize strength training and, you know, building muscle, good muscle mass, through strength training and that's the way that I normally work out. But this extra little bit of a way to get movement in has been great and it has been great for my kids. I make my kids jump on it for a couple of minutes in the morning and it's great because it gets some of their energy out and helps them regulate as well. I can't wait till we get back to school and are able to use that trampoline, you know, inside during the school day when they need to get some of that out as well.

Nicole T Barlow:

Back to our good self-care habits Exercise, getting movement in, is very, very important. Just like it's important for our kids, it's important for us too. And then rest Rest is really important for us to be able to have the energy and for our bodies to have the time to restore and kind of rejuvenate so that we're ready to go each and every day. So we need to be very intentional about that, intentional about our bedtime routines and when we're going to bed at night. And sometimes you guys, like I said, you know saying yes to something means that we're saying no to something else. So saying yes to good sleep and going to bed at a decent hour may mean that, no, I'm not binge watching Grey's Anatomy or something of the sort. Right? Just important that we're thinking through those ahead of time, that we're kind of setting those standards ahead of time and these self-care habits are really going to affect our parenting.

Nicole T Barlow:

Did you know that even mild dehydration can make you feel irritable and foggy? Or eating a balanced meal can help you still stay regulated during stressful moments, and I don't know about you, but I need all the help that I can get to stay regulated and patient when things kind of get chaotic. So when we're taking care of our bodies, we are much better equipped to handle whatever the day throws at us. And we want that. We want to be good parents that are showing up, not reactionary but really proactive, thinking through each situation logically. And part of that self-care is good nutrition. Good nutrition really is foundational, starting with protein at every meal and eating at regular intervals. We teach this with our kids. Right Like when you go through trauma training. You understand that it helps for kids to eat every two hours because it helps them from getting dysregulated. Well, the same thing is true for us. Because of the environment that we live in, our bodies are more prone to go into that fight, flight or freeze response, and so if our blood sugar drops or if we get hungry, it signals to our body that we're that we need to be looking for food, we need to go into survival mode, and that's not what we want. We don't want our bodies to be stressed in that way.

Nicole T Barlow:

I believe in intermittent fasting. I think it can be helpful, but if you're already stressed, fasting for longer than 12 hours can really overwhelm your body sometimes when you're already in that stressed state. I always tell my clients, if you're having a stressful week and you intermittent fast, pull that back a little bit to make sure that you're doing that 12-hour eating window and 12-hour fasting window. But eating, even if you do practice intermittent fasting and if you don't know what that is, you can go back to one of my previous podcasts where I talk about ways to manage your health or whatever but if you do practice intermittent fasting, eating at regular intervals during your eating window will help teach your body that you are going to get food at a regular interval and so it will learn to trust that even if you're going 12 hours without eating y'all which most of that is sleeping anyway most of us naturally fast for 12 hours. But if you are eating at two to three hour intervals throughout the day, then your body learns to trust that the next meal is coming soon. Right, you teach it that it's going to be fed every two to three hours. But if you skip meals, if you go all day without eating and then you're starving right at five o'clock, your body is in a stressed mode. Your body is in a survival mode because it hasn't been fed regularly. So just like we wouldn't do that to our kids, we don't want to do that to ourselves either.

Nicole T Barlow:

Focus on whole foods and really limit your processed options. I know fast food can be tempting when you're busy, but it doesn't really fuel you in the way that your body needs. And actually processed foods and some of the seed oils and other things that are in processed foods can actually add stress to our bodies. So again, we don't need any additional stress. So really make that good nutrition and good self-care habits part of your priority list. It needs to be a priority. You need to think through how you're going to implement those things on a regular basis. You're not going to do this perfectly, and that's okay. Some of my clients, you know they just focus on water. And guess what, if that's all you do today? That's your one intentional choice that you're making. That's where you're starting. Great, I love it. Focus on water today, make sure that you're drinking enough water every single day and then, after a couple of weeks of that, try adding in something else.

Nicole T Barlow:

You don't have to shift everything all at once. I think that's one of the mistakes that we generally make on January 1st is like we want to completely turn the boat upside down, like we want to do everything differently this year, and so we try to do everything differently at once and we just can't keep up with it. So start with a couple of small habits. First, start with water, start with taking a walk or whatever, and then continue to add on as the year goes on. Don't beat yourself up if you don't do all of this. If you can't get everything in in a day, it's not a big deal. Just like you don't beat yourself of this if you can't get everything in in a day. It's not a big deal. Just like you don't beat yourself up if you miss a shower. Don't beat yourself up if you fall short in other areas.

Nicole T Barlow:

Grace is the key, both for yourself and for those around you. When we hold ourselves to perfection, lots of times, we project that on the people around us too. We want them to be perfect too, so we need to give ourselves grace, and then we will be more likely to give them grace too. It's not about perfection. It's about making progress, small, consistent steps. They will add up over time. So celebrate the wins, no matter how small they seem, and let the setbacks teach you, not define you.

Nicole T Barlow:

Before we wrap up, I want to share something that I'm really excited about. My six-week coaching program starts back this month, and it's specifically for foster, adoptive, kinship and special needs parents. What makes my coaching unique is that it's tailored for parents like you. Your stressors are different and your health plan should reflect that. Plus, our group creates a sense of camaraderie that goes beyond health and wellness. We talk about faith, kids, marriage and all the things that make up this beautiful, challenging life, and because we're all in similar situations, we can all be there to support and encourage one another.

Nicole T Barlow:

I use the Faster Way to Fat Loss platform because it's built around sustainable, healthy habits and not quick fixes. It's really about eating real food, drinking water and building muscle, and I know you guys that sounds so simple, but it can be hard for us to know how to do it how much to eat, how much to work out, what should we be lifting, what exercises we should do. So this gives us a plan of action and you have accountability, both from me and from people in our group. Part of the reason I partner with them also is because of the technology and support that they offer. So they give daily workouts and everything is done through this amazing app that makes everything so seamless for my clients. I do tailor the program just a bit. Your lifestyle may look a little different, and so the way that you care for your body really needs to take that into consideration. So I give you a lot of education on how trauma impacts your body and specific ways to support it. If that's something that you may be interested in, I'll put a link in the show notes.

Nicole T Barlow:

January spots fill up really quickly because everybody's motivated in January, so I'm actually offering two different sessions in January. Usually, I just offer a six-week session every month, but in January we're doing two different sessions. One starts January 6th and the other one starts January 27th. I do have a discount code for the January 6th session, but it's only good for the next two days. So if you do want that discount code, message me on Instagram at Nicole T Barlow, and I'll be sure to send it over to you. But again, that discount code expires on January 2nd, so make sure you do that quickly and I'll put a registration link in the show notes if you're interested in signing up for either of those sessions.

Nicole T Barlow:

Well, friends, as we step into the new year, my prayer is really that you'll feel God's strength and grace in every step. Happy new year. My prayer is really that you'll feel God's strength and grace in every step. Happy new year. I'll see you next week. As we really wrap up, let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I'm so thankful for this new year. Lord, thank you have brought around me in 2024. I'm so excited about what 2025 holds. Lord, let us enter into this new year with hope, with promise and looking to you every step of the way. Lord, help us to set our priorities. Give us wisdom and discernment about what order things should go. We know, first and foremost, our relationship with you is the most important. We cannot do anything apart from you. God, strengthen us as we head into this new year and allow us to continue to parent our kids and to build up our families in the love and grace of your son Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name, amen, thank you.