Foster Parent Well
Foster Parent Well is the go-to podcast for foster and adoptive parents who are navigating the complexities of parenting children with trauma while trying to stay sane in the process. Hosted by Nicole T Barlow, a foster and adoptive mom of six, parent trainer, and wellness coach, this podcast is where faith, resilience, and practical strategies come together.
If you're feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, or just plain exhausted from the daily realities of foster care and adoption—you're not alone. Here, we have real conversations about the hard stuff: attachment struggles, secondary trauma, parenting beyond behaviors, and the deep emotional weight of loving kids from hard places. But we also talk about you—your health, your nervous system, your faith, and the small, sustainable ways you can care for yourself so you can keep showing up for your kids.
Expect practical tips, faith-based encouragement, expert insights, and zero sugarcoating—just real, honest talk about what it takes to foster well, adopt well, and most importantly, stay well in the process.
Because parenting kids with trauma is a marathon, not a sprint—and you were never meant to run it alone.
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Foster Parent Well
The Things We Don't Say Out Loud in Foster Care and Adoption
The latest episode explores the multifaceted challenges of foster care and adoption, inviting listeners to engage with the often unspoken truths of this journey. By addressing hard topics with compassion, the episode emphasizes the importance of validating the experiences of caregivers and children alike while encouraging open conversations.
• Validating the difficulty of foster care without diminishing its beauty
• Acknowledging the impact of trauma on children in care
• Recognizing the complexities of bonding with foster children
• Balancing the goals of reunification with concerns for child safety
• Navigating conflicting feelings during goodbyes
• Identifying the difference between primary and secondary trauma in caregivers
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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 Barlow.
Speaker 1:And before we dive into deep stuff today, can we just talk about the weather for a second? I feel like the weather talk has been on repeat around here lately. But seriously, what is happening? Last week, I was convinced that we had finally made it. The sun was shining, it was warm enough to ditch the jackets and my kids actually got outside without me begging them to go burn off some energy. And then, bam, it's like January has shown up again, uninvited. I'm so over the cold. You guys, my kids need to get outside, I need to get outside, but here we are bundled up again, drinking warm drinks and dreaming of the day where we can feel the sunshine again. I am really praying that this is like the last week of cold, so maybe you could pray for that too. I'm sure that a lot of you are in the same boat and you just want your kids to be able to go outside and enjoy some warm weather.
Speaker 1:Now, speaking of things that feel like they should be one way but end up being another, let's talk about the complexities of foster care and adoption. Over the next couple of podcasts, we're going to be digging into some harder things. Honestly, guys, I am a little nervous about this because we're really going to be diving deep. Foster care and adoption are full of hard things that so many times we are scared to say. We don't want to offend anyone, we don't want others to miss out on seeing beautiful things. Because we talk about the hard, because there is so much beauty, this journey really is a gift, but this journey is also full of contradictions, isn't it? We step into it with these open hearts, with willing hands, with hopeful expectations, and many times we find that things are way messier than we ever imagined. And many times we find that things are way messier than we ever imagined.
Speaker 1:There are so many thoughts that we have as foster and adoptive parents that we don't say out loud. We don't say them because we're afraid of judgment or because we feel like they're too heavy, or because we don't want to seem ungrateful or unloving or like we're struggling more than we should be, but bottling up this hard stuff doesn't make it go away. It doesn't actually help us feel seen or supported or healthy, and it certainly doesn't help prepare the next generation of foster and adoptive parents for what they're walking into. So we have to find a way to say the hard things with grace. We need to create a space to honor everyone in the adoption triad, while also being honest about the impact of trauma and loss. Because, spoiler alert, adoption is not a Disney fairy tale, it's not neat and tidy and it's not happily ever after for anyone involved. So today we're going to talk through some of those taboo thoughts, the ones that swirl in our minds but rarely make it past our lips, and we're going to try to do it with honesty, compassion and respect for the realities of this journey. And I'm going to start with a biggie.
Speaker 1:Foster care is hard. Now that might not seem like a big deal to say, but trust me, depending on who you're talking to, it can trigger a strong reaction. Former or current foster youth may feel dismissed or like their lives are being reduced to this hardship. Caseworkers and foster parents may wonder that if we talk too much about how hard it is, then fewer people will step up and well-meaning friends and family may try to encourage us by telling us we can always step away if it's too much. Y'all. That's not super encouraging, is it? But here's the thing Hard doesn't mean bad For former or current foster youth. Hearing foster parents say that this journey is hard it can sometimes feel personal, like they might hear I was a burden. But that's not what we're saying at all.
Speaker 1:Foster care is hard because trauma is hard and you guys, it's hardest on the kids. It's hard to step into situations that are messy and painful. It's hard to parent children who have experienced deep loss and it's hard to watch kids suffer through something they never should have had to endure. Acknowledging the difficulty of foster care doesn't diminish the worth or the beauty of the kids in care. It simply acknowledges the impact of what they've been through.
Speaker 1:Foster care is hard because it exists due to brokenness. It's hard because children are experiencing separation from everything they've ever known and no matter how necessary that separation may be, it still comes with so much pain. It's hard because healing is not linear and trauma just doesn't follow this predictable timeline. It's hard because love alone is not enough to erase the effects of neglect, abuse or instability. And on top of that, foster care is hard for the adults involved too. There's uncertainty and emotional exhaustion and an ongoing need to navigate a system that doesn't always function the way that we wish that it would. It's full of goodbyes, and some of that just feels unjust, some of that doesn't feel right, and some of that just leaves us wrestling with conflicting emotions. And yet, despite all of this, there is beauty. There's beauty in watching a child heal. There's beauty in seeing them build after years of fear. There's beauty knowing that, for however long they are in our care, we have the opportunity to be a safe and loving presence in their lives. But acknowledging the beauty doesn't mean that we ignore the struggle.
Speaker 1:As a society, we don't like to sit in discomfort. We like neat solutions and happy endings, and when we hear someone say foster care is hard, our instinct is often to either downplay it or to encourage them to step away. We might say things like well, you signed up for this. Or if it's too much, maybe it's just not the right fit. But hard things can be the right things. Just because something challenges us doesn't mean that we should walk away. The best things in life. Think about it. Parenting, marriage, meaningful work they all come with challenges. The key is learning how to sit with the difficulty. They all come with challenges. The key is learning how to sit with the difficulty, how to navigate it with support and how to remind ourselves that we're doing something valuable, even when it's exhausting. So why does this matter? Why do we need to be honest about the hard parts?
Speaker 1:First, for those that are just stepping into foster care, we owe them a clear picture. If we're only talking about heartwarming reunifications and beautiful adoptions and the moments of healing, we set people up for disillusionment. We need to prepare them for the reality of trauma so they aren't blindsided when the honeymoon period fades and then they're left navigating intense behaviors. And then they're left navigating intense behaviors. They may see emotional dysregulation or maybe they don't know how to handle grief. But the second thing is is we need to acknowledge the depth of what kids go through. If we gloss over the difficulty of foster care, we minimize the pain that these children experience. They don't need us to sugarcoat their reality. They need us to validate it. They need us to say yes, what you've been through is unfair. And yes, healing is hard, but you are not alone in this. So we need to start saying things like foster care is hard.
Speaker 1:Okay, this next one is kind of a big one, you guys. It says I don't always feel the same bond with my foster child as I do my other kids. Oof, this one is a tough one, isn't it? We go into foster care and adoption hoping for these deep connections, but the truth is, bonding doesn't always happen the way we expect it and it's not a reflection of how much we love our children. It's a reflection of how attachment works. So attachment is a biological and neurological process. It's not just a fuzzy feeling. It's built over time through consistent, safe nurturing interactions. So when children experience early trauma, neglect or multiple caregivers, their ability to form secure attachments may be disrupted. And on our end, when we don't have that same early bonding experience like pregnancy, infancy or early childhood attachment, it can feel different. And that doesn't make us bad parents. It makes us human.
Speaker 1:When a child has a wall up and they are resistant to attachment and to trust because maybe their previous trauma or loss, or maybe just because we are a new person that hasn't earned that trust. Yet the way that they seek care and affection may seem guarded y'all because it is. Those attempts to seek care may seem awkward or sometimes not genuine because that trust and the feeling isn't fully there yet. And when a child has a guard up yet is seeking connection, it signals to our brain that we need to be on guard. Our brain says this person may not truly be authentic and vulnerable, which signals that we may need to have a guard up. All of this is happening, you guys, without a conscious thought. It's just going on in the background. But what we may feel is that it's more difficult to give nurture and affection because when our guard is up, our brain is telling us to be careful.
Speaker 1:Their wall being up isn't a signal that they don't like us or that they're just trying to be manipulative, or whatever it means. Their brain is working. Their brain is working to protect them. That's what it's there for and it's a reminder to us that this isn't the way that it was meant to be. They were meant to be bonding with a mom that held them in the womb, not a stranger that just stepped in. Held them in the womb, not a stranger that just stepped in. It may take more energy and intentionality, but it takes more energy for them to trust us too.
Speaker 1:So what do we do? We lean in, we lean into this bonding process. Even when it feels slow, we engage an intentional connection. Feels slow, we engage an intentional connection. And we remind ourselves that attachment isn't just a feeling, it's a commitment. It means we need to use our logical brains as adults to remind us that the only way to give this child what they need is to consistently meet their needs, both physical and relational, and to pull them near. And we need to give ourselves and our kids grace in this whole journey, Understanding that this statement that I don't feel the same way doesn't make you a bad person. And they probably don't feel the same way about you as they do their biological parent, and that doesn't make them a bad person. Like it's just our brains working to learn to trust one another. Okay, taboo thought. Number three I feel torn between wanting to support reunification and wanting to keep them safe. So we can be for reunification and restoration and still feel unsure sometimes.
Speaker 1:The point of foster care. The primary goal of foster care is reunification. It is to return a child to their biological family, if that can be safe, but foster care is both, and we can both want what's best for the biological family and also want to protect the children in our care, and sometimes those desires seem like they're in conflict. This tension is normal, you guys. It exists because the system is complicated, the people involved are human and trauma makes everything messy. The reality is that some kids are reunified into beautifully restored families and others return to situations that make us worry. Families and others return to situations that make us worry, and we carry the weight of both of those.
Speaker 1:The key here is holding space for both truths Families can heal and that not every situation is safe. So we can advocate for what's best without villainizing birth families. Y'all birth families need our respect. They need us to give them dignity, regardless of if we are advocating for children to go home or not which, by the way, is not ultimately our decision right. But we can give them respect, we can give them dignity and also advocate for the child to be safe. And we can grieve when reunification happens. We can grieve and still believe in redemption. So all of these things, all of these hard truths, can be true at the same time. Ultimately, god is sovereign and we can trust that His plan never fails. But working through this may take some wrestling with the Lord to get to that place of pure trust y'all. And even in the times where I think I've gotten to a place of really pure, genuine trust, ultimately I'm still in a place where I'm saying I believe Lord, help my unbelief right. All right, taboo thought number four Goodbyes are heartbreaking, but sometimes they're also a relief.
Speaker 1:This one might sting a little, but let's be real. There are some times when saying goodbye is gut-wrenching and then there are other times when it's well, a little bit of a relief. When we foster kids with significant trauma, behaviors or needs, it can take a toll on us physically, emotionally and mentally and sometimes, when the case closes, there's a deep sense of grief and an undeniable wave of relief Y'all there's just sometimes it feels good to get out of that tension. That doesn't mean we don't love them. It doesn't mean we weren't fully invested. It just means we are human and that's okay. It can also help us understand what some of our kids are processing. There are many times when they just want to go home. It doesn't mean that they don't care for us, but sometimes being in care takes its toll on them the grief, the loss, the unknown, and they just want to be with their family. So we can use that feeling that we feel sometimes to be able to try to relate to our kids from time to time. All right, last one taboo thought, number five Sometimes what we are facing as parents is not secondary trauma but primary trauma.
Speaker 1:This one's a big deal. We often talk about secondary trauma, the stress and emotional burden we carry as caregivers when we step into somebody else's trauma, but sometimes what we are experiencing is actually primary trauma. When we're yelled at, when we're hit, cursed at, rejected day after day, it affects us deeply. It's not just witnessing trauma, it's experiencing it, and we need to acknowledge that so that we can heal. I know that everybody says that we shouldn't take it personally, but you guys, while I understand the sentiment and there is a space for that many times that statement, though, is just not helpful. You are going to take it personally. We would never tell a woman that is being treated this way by their spouse. Just don't take it personally, or just give that person compassion. They just need more compassion, and our brains don't always realize that the treatment is coming from a child. Our brains just feel danger. Our brains are just reacting to the trauma and, yes, we can decompress and remind ourselves of our child's history and that we can continue to show up for them and remind ourselves that it's not really about us. But also we have to acknowledge that sometimes it is primary trauma that we're experiencing. Primary trauma that we're experiencing. We're going to dig into this a little bit more next week, but we need to think through how we can talk about this and still give honor to our kids. There has to be a way to give them compassion but, at the same time, not minimize what the results of trauma on a child's brain actually looks like.
Speaker 1:In a home we had a child that was physically violent pretty regularly and when she first started getting violent, I spoke a lot of compassion y'all which is not a bad thing, but I didn't set boundaries for myself and I didn't see the impact of only speaking compassion about this violence. See my other kids. What they were learning was to be compassionate about abuse. They were learning to excuse violence because of trauma. I watched them a couple of times be mistreated by their peers and they just allowed it out of compassion and y'all this mistreatment sometimes was physical and they just allowed it out of compassion and y'all this mistreatment sometimes was physical and they just allowed it out of compassion and they just kind of excused what was going on. And that's not okay either. So we have to see this space as both we can be compassionate but still hold boundaries and speak truth.
Speaker 1:This is a hard thing to balance and I haven't totally figured it out yet, but I know that in this space we have to be able to start figuring this out. We have to figure out how to talk about this stuff and give our kids the compassion that they deserve. And give our kids the compassion that they deserve. I think therapy, support groups, nervous system regulation strategies like nutrition, movement, mindfulness, y'all they aren't just for our kids, they're for us too. We are going to have to process. If we have experienced primary trauma in our homes, we are going to have to process through some of those things.
Speaker 1:Foster care and adoption are hard. They are beautiful, it is redemptive, it is meaningful, but it's also really messy, it can be painful and it is most always complicated. If we want to do this well, we have to be able to have real conversations. You guys, we have to hold a space for truth, while honoring the dignity of everyone in the process. So today I just wanted to remind you you are not alone. Your thoughts, feelings and struggles they don't make you a bad parent. They make you human. Feelings and struggles, they don't make you a bad parent. They make you human. Let's keep talking, let's keep supporting one another and let's navigate this journey with grace. Thanks for hanging out with me today. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend who needs to hear it and if you haven't yet, leave a review so we can keep having these important conversations. I'm going to pray for us as we wrap up, but until next time, take care of yourself so that you can keep showing up for the kids who need you most.
Speaker 1:Heavenly Father, you are good, you are sovereign. Help us to trust you in this process, lord, and give us wisdom. Holy Spirit, give us discernment as we seek to have these hard and difficult conversations, as we seek to say these hard and difficult things to one another. But do it with grace, lord. Do it in a way that respects and gives dignity to everybody involved, because we are all made in the image of God. We are all valuable and worthy of dignity, Lord, just because we were made in your image. God, help us to exude grace and light as we enter these challenging situations. Lord, we love you. We trust you In Jesus' name. Amen, thank you.