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
Before You Correct in Trauma Parenting
What happens in that critical moment when your child's behavior pushes your buttons? That split second before you respond determines whether your correction will actually work or simply bounce off ineffectively.
Foster and adoptive parents know the struggle all too well—the same behaviors repeating despite countless corrections. But what if the key isn't what you say during correction, but what you've established beforehand?
Drawing from neuroscience and trauma-informed approaches, this episode reveals the four non-negotiable steps required before any effective correction: regulation, trust, connection, and instruction. I break down why your nervous system must calm before you can help regulate your child's, and how co-regulation creates the biological foundation for receptive listening.
You'll discover practical techniques like "Yes Jars" that build attachment cycles with resistant children, and understand why connection feels so difficult when a child pushes away (hint: it's your brain's reciprocity response protecting you from rejection). Most importantly, you'll learn why teaching expected behaviors during calm moments is essential—because correction without instruction is just punishment.
Whether you're struggling with a child who seems to resist every boundary or simply want to make your guidance more effective, these foundational principles will transform your approach to discipline. Your patience and consistency in these four areas creates the safety necessary for lasting behavioral change.
Ready to see correction that actually sticks? Start with just one of these principles this week and watch what happens. Share this episode with another foster or adoptive parent who needs this encouragement—because even when change isn't visible yet, your impact is real.
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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 foster parent Well.
Speaker 1:So picture this you're standing in the kitchen and your child just did the thing again, the thing you've corrected a thousand times. Maybe they snatched a toy from their sibling, maybe they screamed at you, or maybe they just full-on ignored the very clear instructions that you gave them five seconds ago. And in that moment you feel it, your blood pressure starts rising, your jaw starts to clench and that deep sigh escapes you before you even realize it. So you're about to correct them, but let me stop you right there, because before you correct, there are four things that you absolutely need to do. I know when you think about correcting a child, you don't really want a list of things that you should be doing, because it's about the child and their behavior, right? If only that were true. The truth is, is it really does start with you. I promise, if you put these things in place first, your corrections will actually land instead of going in one ear and out the other. Actually land instead of going in one ear and out the other. So we're talking today about, number one, regulating yourself, because your calm brain calms their brain. Number two, we're talking about building trust, because correction without trust just feels like control. Number three, we're talking about working on connection, because connection, or correction without connection, feels like rejection Y'all that is a mouthful. And number four, we're talking about teaching the expected behavior, because you can't expect what you haven't taught.
Speaker 1:All right, let's break these down. So let's be real. Have you ever tried to correct a child when you're already on edge, y'all? I feel like I live my life on edge. I don't remember a time when I'm not on edge, right, but how did that go? Did your child respond with oh thank you, mother, I deeply appreciate this correction. Did your child respond with oh, thank you, mother, I deeply appreciate this correction? Yeah, no, more likely. They escalated right along with you.
Speaker 1:That's because our nervous systems talk to each other. It's called co-regulation. If you're dysregulated, if you're frustrated, anxious, overwhelmed, your child's brain picks up on that and it matches your energy. It's like when you walk into a room where two people just had an argument. Nobody has to say a word. You can actually feel the tension. Well, kids feel that too. Think of it like Wi-Fi. Your nervous system is always sending out a signal. Right, if your signal is stress, frustration and panic, your child is going to connect to that. But if your signal is calm, safety, stability their brain has a chance to match it.
Speaker 1:So what do we do right when we're on edge In the moment? Here's a couple of things that you could do quickly. One take a deep breath, slow in, slow out. This tells your nervous system hey, we are safe. And sometimes you guys I actually say that to myself like remember you are safe, remind yourself that this is not an emergency. The other thing that you can do is to move your body, shake out your hands, dance, stretch your shoulders. This physically helps your brain to reset in the moment.
Speaker 1:But not all of the things about regulating ourselves happen in the moment. You guys know that I'm going to touch on self-care habits here. You have to be proactively taking care of yourself in order for you to have felt safety and the power to regulate yourself. This isn't done in the moment, and I know, because I see it all the time with my coaching clients, that, especially if you're drowning already right and experience something called decision fatigue, figuring out how to fit in self-care may seem impossible. In fact, that's why a lot of my clients come to me for my wellness challenge is because they need support in this part. But I promise you, if you are not taking care of yourself, it will catch up to you and you are not going to be able to regulate yourself in the moment. And that step is crucial, because you cannot calm a dysregulated child if you are dysregulated yourself.
Speaker 1:All right, let's move on to point number two, and that's in building trust. Trust is the foundation for everything in parenting, especially for kids who have experienced trauma. If a child doesn't trust you, your correction is just going to feel like control and, let's be honest, for a lot of our kids, the people that have had authority over them have misused their authority, and so we have to earn that trust in order for them to have buy-in to what we're saying. Control, you guys, that's something that kids from trauma are wired to resist, right, because it potentially has meant them being unsafe in the past. So if they don't believe that you're on their side, correction is going to feel like rejection.
Speaker 1:We tell our kids over and over and over again and it is something that we need to tell them over and over again but that the reason we have rules is for your safety. The reason we have this structure is for your safety, because we care about you, we want the best for you, we want you on the right path, right. So we reiterate that all the time. So how do we build trust? The first is consistency Showing up for them every day, even when it's hard. So work on going through that attachment cycle.
Speaker 1:If you're familiar with the attachment cycle when a baby is needing something, what do they do? They cry, and then a caregiver meets their needs and then their bodies relax and this happens over and over and over again and as this attachment cycle takes place, the baby learns to trust that their needs are going to be met right. So for a long time, we used something called YesJars to help us accomplish this attachment cycle over and over and over again. Because the truth is is that babies go through this process I don't know, 500 times a day, it feels like, but bigger kids that are able to do some things for themselves. It becomes harder to get that number of repetition in with an older child, and so we created we didn't create this, but I learned of this concept and we implemented this in our house, where we do we did yes jars.
Speaker 1:So I've talked about our yes jars before, but in order to build attachment and for the child to trust that their needs are going to be met, we have to give a lot of yeses, right? If you think about that attachment cycle with an infant, every time they cry and every time their needs are being met, it's like they are voicing a request and they're getting a yes, right? So we want to view it in the same way with our kids. We need to give a whole lot of yeses. So think about your ratio of yeses to nos. We want our yeses to be much, much more. So, anyway, I made a jar for each of my kids and then picked out things to put in them. It was small things that I was okay with them having at any time of the day. So think like a matchbox car, or I would put a mini water in there, or a sticker, or maybe a couple of almonds or something and because I had already picked out the items that I was okay with, I could guarantee my kids a yes if they requested something from their yes jar. It took away their fear of asking because they knew they were going to get a yes and it allowed me to meet their needs more often every day. So this was one way that we implemented something in order to go through that attachment cycle more in order to build up trust.
Speaker 1:But in order to build up trust, we also need to make sure that we follow through. So if you're going to say you're going to do something, do it. I was once coaching a client and they said well, what happens if we were talking about implementing yes jars? And they were like but what happens if? What happens in this scenario? What happens in this scenario? And I'm like the answer is yes, like if you have said that this is a yes jar and your kids are going to come to you and they're always going to get a yes for something from this jar, right, then your answer has to be yes, you have to follow through. When we don't follow through consistently, it builds mistrust with our kids and that's not what we want. So we want to be people that follow through with what we say we're going to do, and then we also need to be a safe place. So we need to listen before we correct, we need to validate feelings and we really need to try to understand where they're coming from. Because here's the deal Kids don't automatically trust adults. They trust safety, and safety is built through this attachment cycle and it's built through connection. So we're going to talk about connection next.
Speaker 1:Connection is the third thing that I want you to do before correcting. It is the daily work. It's the thing that you're putting in every single day. So if you think of your relationship with your child like a bank account, every moment of laughter, every shared experience and positive interaction is a deposit into this bank account. Every moment of correction, discipline or tension is a withdrawal. So if you're trying to correct behavior from an overdrawn account, that correction isn't going to work well okay. So we need to think about the deposits that we are putting in. Connection is something that creates emotional safety. That and that connection is needed in order for correction to be received instead of being resistant.
Speaker 1:So how do we build connection? Get on their level. You guys Sit on the floor with them, play, make eye contact, use a warm tone, think of playful things to do, dance in the kitchen, play a game together, really show up in some of the small ways. So five minutes of focused, undistracted time really can do more for your relationship than a big planned outing. I used to make a point when my kids first came to us. We made a point that every single one of our kids got five minutes of one-on-one time, and sometimes we would do 10, but they got at least five minutes of one-on-one time every single day. So we would set 30 minutes to an hour apart in the day and literally we would just go from room to room playing with each child and we would let them decide what they wanted to play, right, like we would really be there for them, to connect with them in those moments. Correction really is going to go much better when your child's heart knows that they are deeply loved and cared for. But let's talk about something really real for a second.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we are resistant to that connection. We know our kids need connection. We know it's the bridge to trust and healing. But what happens when they keep resisting or their walls are up, when they push away, when they reject our affection. It can put our walls up too.
Speaker 1:Because here's the thing our brains are wired for something called reciprocity. When someone leans into us, we naturally want to lean in too, but when someone pulls away, our brain registers that this is a threat and before we even realize it, we start pulling away too. Imagine you go in for a hug and the person stiffens. What's your instinct? To retreat? Right? That's not just emotional. That's your nervous system protecting you from rejection. So just like your nervous system is there to protect you from physical danger, it protects you from relational danger as well. So if you've ever felt like this, like I want to connect, but I just also feel like shutting down, you're not crazy. Your brain is trying to protect you from that emotional pain.
Speaker 1:But here's the truth Walls don't create safety, they create distance. And our kids don't need more distance, you guys. They need someone willing to stay close, even when they push away. So we can recognize that pattern, we can see what our brain is doing and we can give ourselves grace in those moments, because sometimes those connections with people that are resistant are harder. They take more work, they take more energy, right. But we can identify that and then say to ourselves like connection is still worth it. We need to be that steady one. So, even when their walls are high, we are choosing to stay open. We smile, we offer warmth, we show up right, and we have to remember that those walls aren't personal. It can feel very personal, but they're protection for that child and the more consistently we are safe, the less those walls for that child will be needed. Healing doesn't happen when both people are guarded right. It happens when one person chooses to be safe enough for the other person to let their guard down, and y'all, that person is you. It must be you that leans into that connection and we must lean into that before we look at correcting All right.
Speaker 1:Number four teach and practice expected behavior. This is the one part that most parents skip. So before you correct, you have to actually teach what you expect. You have to practice it. I mean, think about it. Like, imagine as a teenager being told to parallel park, or y'all me, that's even now we don't do. Where I live we don't have much parallel parking and so I never really learned. I kind of failed that part of my driving test. So imagine somebody telling me to parallel park without me ever really being taught how. No instructions, no practice. Just hey, you should know this by now. That's what it can feel like a lot of times for a child when we're correcting them without teaching, especially kids that may have come in from a very different environment. So, instead of just saying don't do that, teach them what to do instead and then practice it over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:The more that we practice a behavior, the more that that is going to become the habit. So we want to teach it, we want to model it, practice and role play, make it fun, make it a game. We learn faster and our brain wires faster if it's actually a game and it's during playtime. And make sure that you're practicing these things in a calm moment, because when our kids are dysregulated and we're trying to tell them what they should have done, in that moment their brains are in that survival mode and the other parts of their brain are shut down, which means they're not receiving the information, which means they're not receiving the information, they're not taking that in, they're not learning. Our brains are not able to learn when they're in that fight, flight or freeze mode.
Speaker 1:You guys, we can't correct if our kids don't know what to do. A correction without instruction is just punishment, and punishment does not teach skills, it just teaches avoidance right? So if we want to be effective in the way that we're discipling our kids and the way that we're leading our kids, we need to make sure that we're actually teaching and practicing the behavior that we want from them. All right, let's recap the four things you need to do before you correct. You need to regulate yourself, because your calm brain calms their brain. You need to build trust, because correction without trust feels like control. You need to work on connection, because correction without connection feels like rejection. I challenge you guys to say that five times fast. And then we need to teach and practice the expected behavior, because kids can't meet expectations they were never taught.
Speaker 1:So if you're starting to put these into practice, you are going to see a shift, not overnight, but over time, and that's where the real lasting change happens. So here's my challenge for you this week Pick one of these steps and really focus on it. Just start with one and then see what happens. And hey, if this was helpful, send it to a friend, share it on Instagram or leave a review. Let's get this encouragement into the hands of more foster and adoptive parents who need it. I've also included a link in the show notes for my wellness challenge, if that is something you want to look into. My next group starts March 24th. All right, friends, keep showing up, keep loving well and remember, even when you don't see the change, your impact is real. Keep going.
Speaker 1:Before we go, though, I just want to take a minute to pray over you, because this work, you guys, is holy work, and I know it can feel heavy, but you are not carrying it alone, so let's pray. Father, god, I lift up every foster and adoptive parent listening right now. Lord, you see them. You see the late nights, the deep sighs, the moments when they feel like they have nothing left to give. And you are right there in the midst of it all. God, I ask you for supernatural strength to rise up in them when patience runs thin. Pour out your peace, lord, god. When discouragement creeps in, remind them that you are the one who carries the weight of transformation, not them. They don't have to carry that.
Speaker 1:I pray for hearts to soften and walls to come down, for every child who has been hurt, for every parent trying to reach them. Lord, build trust where there has been so much fear. Build connection, lord, god, where there has been distance. Let their homes, god, be filled with laughter, with grace, with second chances. With second chances, and God, when that road feels long, remind them that obedience is success, that our obedience, lord not just our child's obedience, but our obedience to you and how we move forward and how we disciple and how we parent our kids is success, that you have called us to love, and the outcome is in your hands. We are only responsible for being obedient for what you have called us to do. Strengthen the parents, Lord. Strengthen them, refresh them, fill them with joy that doesn't make sense and let them feel deep in their bones that they are doing work that truly matters for eternity. We love you.