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.
🎧 Subscribe now and let’s do this together!
Foster Parent Well
Beyond Behavior Management: The Parent's Journey to Felt Safety
The tension between fostering deep relationships and managing difficult behaviors sits at the heart of every foster and adoptive parent's journey. In this deeply personal exploration, we uncover why our focus often shifts from connection to control—and the surprising neurological reasons behind it.
When behaviors are under control and there's order in our homes, we feel safe. But what happens when our peace becomes dependent on our children's compliance? We end up parenting from exhaustion rather than connection, creating a cycle that works against the very healing we're trying to facilitate.
Your nervous system responds to stress just like your child's does. When you don't feel safe, you move into fight-flight-freeze-fawn mode, making it neurologically impossible to parent with patience and wisdom. Even when you know better, your survival brain takes over—leading to burnout, anxiety, and disconnection.
Building felt safety from within changes everything. Through spiritual practices, predictable routines, environmental comfort, supportive relationships, appropriate boundaries, and essential wellness habits, you can create internal regulation that doesn't depend on external circumstances. Each practice—from morning prayer to consistent hydration, from soft lighting to meaningful conversations with understanding friends—sends powerful signals to your brain that you are safe.
This isn't about luxury or self-indulgence. It's about creating the neurological foundation you need to show up as the regulated, connected parent your children need. When you build felt safety from the inside out, you can finally address behavior while strengthening connection rather than damaging it.
If you're ready to break free from survival mode parenting, join our six-week wellness challenge starting March 24th, where we'll take small, doable steps toward creating lasting felt safety—for you and your whole family.
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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 host, Nicole T Barlow.
Speaker 1:Grab a cup of coffee, take a deep breath and let's chat, because today we're talking about something that hits very close to home. It's the tension between relationship and behavior management in foster care and adoption. Here's the deal. We step into this journey because we want to build relationships, we want to love our kids well and we want to teach them how to form healthy connections with people. But somewhere along the way, that goal can quietly shift. Instead of focusing on connection, we start focusing on behavior management, on making sure our kids are obedient, making sure they're compliant and making sure that they're well-behaved. And listen, I get it. There's a really good reason why this happens. When behaviors are under control and there's order in the house, we, as the adults, actually feel safer. It gives us a sense of felt safety, that deep down assurance that everything is okay. The problem with that, though, is when our own peace depends on how well our kids behave, we end up parenting from a place of control instead of connection, and, you guys, that's exhausting for everybody. So today we're talking about how to create a sense of felt safety for ourselves without trying to control our kids in the process. And just to be clear, this doesn't mean that we don't address behavior. It just means we don't make our peace dependent on their compliance. When we separate the two, we can actually address behavior in a way that strengthens connection instead of damaging it. So let's talk about how we can cultivate our own felt safety, no matter what's happening around us. So why does felt safety matter? All right, we're going to get a little nerdy for a second, but we're going to talk about what's actually happening in our brain and body when we don't feel safe.
Speaker 1:So our nervous system, just like our kids, our nervous system goes into fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode. This means we react instead of responding, which makes it harder to parent with patience and connection, because we're not thinking with our upstairs brain, and then our cortisol or our stress hormone levels stay high, and, you guys, cortisol is a big buzzword right now. So we know that it's not good when your cortisol levels stay high for too long. When this happens, we feel drained, we feel anxious and we feel burned out. So we often get stuck in this survival mode and it makes us more reactive. We are more prone to feel overwhelmed, we get something called decision fatigue and it's really hard to see our way out of it. Number one but also it's really hard to parent the way that we are supposed to parent. If we stay in this shutdown mode too long, we are likely to lose our joy and we're really going to start parenting from a place of fear and exhaustion rather than wisdom and grace, even if we know all the right things, even if we desire all the right things right, when our brains go into that survival mode, we can't parent from a place of logic and grace. So how do we shift? How do we create an internal felt safety so that we can show up as the connected, regulated parents we want to be? Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Number one is going to start with our time with the Lord. This is a time for surrender and gratitude. You guys, there is no greater peace than the kind that comes from surrendering our control to God, when we surrender and when we practice gratitude and lay our worries at His feet, something shifts inside of us. Prayer and gratitude actually change our brain. Chemistry Studies show that they lower cortisol. They increase serotonin and dopamine. Those are the feel-good neurotransmitters. Prayer can also activate the prefrontal cortex, which is like our logical brain, and it helps us think more clearly and feel more grounded. So there is science to what prayer does to help us.
Speaker 1:You know, parent from a place of wisdom and grace, for me this looks like. Every morning I take time to pray and give thanks. Sometimes this is deep and intentional and sometimes it's just whispering Lord, I need you, and kind of sitting with him for a minute. I set a timer for six minutes and y'all I know it doesn't seem like a lot of time, but I can commit to six minutes every single day, regardless of what else is going on. So that's the time that I have, but I set aside six minutes just to pray. Sometimes it lasts a lot longer, sometimes I go way beyond the timer, but setting that timer assures that I set everything else aside for that little bit to focus only on the Lord.
Speaker 1:I also make sure that I am in His Word daily. I ask Him as I read what he wants me to gain from His Words, and really ask him for wisdom as I read his word, about who he is, about helping me to read his word in a way that allows me to trust him in a deeper sense every single day. And then I also do daily affirmation statements where I renew my mind. So I use scripture or truths that come from the word, and I remind myself of things like God is in control, not me and y'all. That's actually a good thing, right, but our bodies and our brains want to be in control, because it helps us feel safer. So having this daily affirmation practice, having this daily time with the Lord where I surrender everything to Him, helps me set up my mindset in the right way for the day.
Speaker 1:Okay then, the second thing that can bring us felt safety is predictable routines and rituals. We teach this in pre-service training for parents that are becoming foster and adoptive parents about their kids that predictable routines and rituals will help our kids gain a sense of felt safety, but the same is true for us. Predictability brings peace when we have rhythms in place and our brain doesn't have to work so hard to figure out what's coming next. It helps us feel safer. Predictability reduces that cortisol and it reduces the unknown. So you know what to expect and you aren't left floundering. Here's what I will say, though you also, as you're building these predictable routines and rituals, you also have to give a lot of time for grace, because we know, even when there's predictable routines and structure, that things don't always go according to plan right. So part of our structure in our household is a lot of built-in grace time as well. Here's kind of some of the things that we put in place.
Speaker 1:So when my kids get up in the morning, my kids get up at the same time every single day. It does shift a little bit, but we keep this same structure. Like if we're going to the early service at church, we may get up a little bit earlier, but I keep the same time frame in order for everybody to get ready and have some grace time as well. So my kids get up at the same time every single morning and they have an hour to get ready every single morning and they have an hour to get ready. And that seems like a very long time, but my kids know that they're to get ready in the morning. They brush their hair, brush their teeth, get dressed, they clean up their room, they make their bed and then they have their quiet time where they can sit and read or be in the Word or do their devotional and all of that kind of stuff. In the morning it's everybody's time to kind of get up and get adjusted for the day before we all start the crazy interaction and busy schedule. So we have an hour to do that every single morning.
Speaker 1:The other thing that that gives me is it gives me an hour where I'm not immediately flooded with requests and demands and that kind of stuff. Now, do my kids come downstairs and ask me for things within this hour? Yes, I mean, there are times where they need stuff. I had a kid come down this morning and ask me for toothpaste, right? So I'm not saying this is a time of total quiet for me, but it does give me a little bit of grace in the morning so that everybody's not immediately, you know, in my face asking me for things. I will also say you guys, my kids are a little bit older. So my youngest just turned 11, yesterday, actually, he just turned 11. So my kids are.
Speaker 1:We are at a stage where my kids are able to get up and get moving on their own, that they don't need me to do all of those things for us. So we haven't always been in that season. You know, when they were little it was very different and our morning routine looked different. But I would urge you to build a routine that gives grace that you have some free time if things start to go off, but also where you are doing things in the same order every single day. It will help with your felt safety and it will help with their felt safety.
Speaker 1:One of the other things that I do is that I generally get up before my kids, and that's when I do my Bible reading and prayer time. I also usually get a little bit of work done before my kids get up. It allows me to get some things accomplished before the day really gets moving, and there are days, like this morning, where that didn't happen. I got up at the same time as my kids. One of my kids did not sleep last night. She had a little bit of a tummy ache and so she was in our room and we were kind of up and awake all night last night. So getting up early this morning didn't happen, but in a general sense I try to get up before my kids because it helps me have some quiet headspace in the morning before we get going. The other thing that I do every single day is I go for a walk. Sometimes this is alone, sometimes it's with my kids, just depending on what's going on in our house, if my husband's home and can watch the kids or whatever. But every single day, regardless of how it happens, I go for a walk and that time also brings me some felt safety. I know that that's going to be a part of my day and it's going to be the part of my day where I kind of get movement in, where it helps reset my nervous system and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:The last thing I want to talk about in this routine section is we keep early bedtimes at my house, even as my kids get older. My younger kids that again are now in that preteen stage still have early bedtimes compared to their peers for a couple of reasons. One they need that time to reset. My kids need extra sleep. I think they need additional sleep. But also my husband and I need that quiet space at the end of the day to reset ourselves and so for everybody's benefit, we kind of keep early bedtimes. That means we don't schedule a lot of stuff at night and I know that's very counter-cultural for a lot of people. But it's really important for us that we set up those boundaries in our home because it helps everybody feel safer. And then I follow a nighttime routine which really helps me wind down at night and helps me sleep better. And also having that nighttime routine, having that structure at nighttime again, just those routines and rituals help bring a sense of felt safety.
Speaker 1:All right, the third thing we're going to talk about is creating a comforting environment. So our environment has a very powerful impact on our nervous system and we know that because we can see elements of when our house is in chaos, how it can disrupt that in our nervous system. But also it works the other way around too. When our space feels warm and cozy and predictable, it sends a very clear message to our brain that you are safe. So think about what makes your environment feel inviting. Maybe it's soft lighting. I know at night I have this book reading lamp thing in my room and it has different shades and I turn it on this reddish orange shade at night. That's a bit softer than the bright light and it helps soothe me a little bit. It helps bring some comfort. Maybe you have a favorite blanket or a candle, essential oils diffusing certain scents that make you feel good or make you feel calm can be very helpful. Or even thinking about music playing music in the background that's going to lift your mood or help you feel safe in some way.
Speaker 1:These small, intentional details really can help you create a space that nurtures peace and felt safety. So why does this matter? Because sensory input things like sense, textures, lighting, sounds it activates the parasympathetic nervous system and it shifts us out of that stress mode. So creating a soothing space isn't just about luxury, right? It's a way to support your body and mind every single day. So be very intentional about this. We see this in our kids. When our kids go to bed, they may like a nightlight or a sound machine, or maybe they like a certain blanket or outfit during the day because of how it makes them feel. The same is true for us. So think through what are those things that you really enjoy, that bring you happiness and that bring a sense of felt safety for you, and then really think through how to add those into your environment every single day, to add little touches of felt safety. All right.
Speaker 1:Number four we're talking about safe relationships. Think through who is pouring into you and we talk about this on the podcast all the time, but we were never meant to do this alone. Safe relationships literally regulate our nervous system In the same way that safe relationships help regulate the nervous system of our kids. When we spend time with someone who is calm and supportive, our body picks up on their regulation and mirrors it. So it's that co-regulation. It's not just something that our kids need. We need it too, and it's why we feel calmer after talking to somebody that we trust.
Speaker 1:I had somebody ask me a question this weekend at a conference and they said yeah, but who do you go to? Who can you trust? Who do you lean on? Because most people don't get it right and the answer is it's other foster and adoptive parents. You need to build community with other foster and adoptive parents that can be a safe space for you. The other things that I think the other way that you can create a safe space of somebody to talk to is therapy. I think therapy is amazing. I think all foster and adoptive parents need to go through therapy so that they have somebody to talk to, somebody to support them in this, but making sure that that therapist is trauma-informed, so that they're understanding what your household environment is like.
Speaker 1:I've said this before too, that kids cannot serve as your co-regulation system. They cannot meet your relational needs. It's not their responsibility, nor do they have the capabilities to provide the support for you. And sometimes our spouse may not be this person either. So if you're going through similar stresses, they may not be able to give you what you need in the moment. You may need somebody that's not in the thick of it to help you process and that's not to say you don't process things with your spouse but you also may need somebody outside of your spouse that can pour hope, that can pour God's word into you, that is not in the thick of the stress as well. All right.
Speaker 1:Number five creating safe boundaries. It is okay to step away sometimes. This is a big one. You need to know that you're allowed to have boundaries. You don't have to stay in an unsafe situation just because you love someone and you're trying to help them heal. So we know that if we can give our kids a sense of felt safety and if we are close, even in their hardest struggles, it can help them heal. But it's also okay to set up boundaries so that you can be safe too. Their safety should not come at the expense of your safety and you guys. This is a very fine line. We want to be adults that come close when things get hard, but you also have to be aware of when the hard crosses the line to being unsafe. So maybe we can handle physical aggression from a three-year-old right and that might not feel unsafe because, honestly, there's only so much damage Well, I mean, maybe not, but there's only so much damage that a three-year-old can do. But if that aggression is coming from an older child or teenager, where the aggression brings you physical pain, you may need to set up a safety plan that allows safety for both of you. A therapist or a counselor really can provide some perspective on this, and they can usually help you come up with a plan that is personalized to your unique situation.
Speaker 1:Much of the same reason that physical safety matters for our kids, it matters for our brains to feel safe too. You cannot have felt safety if, in fact, you are not safe, and we don't want that. We don't want to shut down our nervous system so it's not detecting when we're not safe. We just don't want it to be overactive, so it's telling us we're not safe when in fact we are. So if you are unsafe physically or emotionally, your nervous system is going to stay in that constant state of stress and it's going to lead to burnout, health issues and emotional exhaustion. You can't have felt safety if you're not physically safe. So if your child is being physically aggressive, have a safety plan. Know what the plan is if that happens, if that's something that happens in your home, we do want to be there for our kids. We want to show our kids that we are there, even through the hard things. We want to show our kids that we are there, even through the hard things. But at the same time we can't put ourselves in unsafe situations, things that are going to be physically damaging to us All right.
Speaker 1:Number six, the last one, is wellness practices for felt safety. So you can't feel safe. Your body is not going to feel safe if your body is not getting what it needs. We can't separate our physical health from our emotional and mental and spiritual well-being, the state of our body. So we are a holistic being. All of those things come into play and the state of our body directly affects the state of our mind, which is why wellness practices are a foundational part of creating felt safety. When our body feels nourished, hydrated and regulated, it signals to our brain that we are okay. So let's talk through some of these practices.
Speaker 1:Let's start with hydration. Let's talk through some of these practices. Let's start with hydration. Did you know that dehydration, even mild dehydration, actually triggers a stress response in the body? So when you're dehydrated, our cortisol or our stress hormone, our cortisol levels increase, making us feel anxious, tired and irritable. Even mild dehydration impairs our ability to think clearly and regulate our emotions. So it's why I make sure to drink water consistently throughout the day. You guys, my goal is to drink 100 ounces of water every single day, and usually I start my day with a 24-ounce water bottle with electrolytes in it to support proper hydration and mineral balance, just to kick off my day in the right start. And then I carry around a 40-ounce cup of water all day long. I try to drink one before lunchtime, I try to drink one before dinner, and then I usually have part of one before bed. But it is so important that we're staying hydrated, because that can help our bodies stay regulated throughout the day. It can build a sense of felt safety when we have that water that we need, that water intake that we need, all right.
Speaker 1:The next one is whole foods and protein. Our brain and body need proper fuel, you guys, to function. Protein is particularly important because it provides amino acids, which are the building blocks for neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, and so we've talked about those earlier today. It's the very chemicals that regulate our mood and our sense of well-being. So if you're not getting enough protein, you are going to be more prone to feel overwhelmed. You're going to be more prone to feel anxious or unable to cope with the stress. That protein actually helps our body regulate the stress that comes into our body. And then we also want to make sure that we are consuming mostly whole foods. So think of things that you're going to see on the outside of the grocery store fruits, vegetables, lean meats, nuts, that kind of thing because it will help reduce inflammation.
Speaker 1:When we're taking in processed foods, we're increasing the inflammation in our body, which is an added stress to our body, and it is going to make our body feel unsafe. Chronic inflammation keeps our body in this low-grade stress response and it makes it really hard to feel calm and connected when our body on the inside is dealing with inflammation. You guys, stress doesn't just come from our environment and the chaos in our homes. Stress also comes from what we're putting into our bodies. If we're putting some of these seed oils or other processed foods into our bodies, it is adding to the stress on our bodies and it's going to make it hard for us to feel calm and connected. Not to mention we're probably not getting the nutrients that we need from processed foods. So those nutrients are going to help our body stay regulated throughout the day. And then, as we're taking in new whole foods and protein, we want to make sure that we're eating at regular intervals.
Speaker 1:When our blood sugar is unstable, when we go too long without eating or we're relying on processed foods for energy, our body perceives this as a state of stress. Right? How many times, especially as moms, do we make it until four o'clock and realized we haven't had anything to eat yet, and so we just grab whatever cracker or chip or snack is nearby usually a processed food just to get something in our system real quick. Well, you guys, we would never do that to our kids. We would never have our kids wait until four o'clock to eat. No doubt they would be stressed out, no doubt they would be melting down. And the same is true for us, especially if our stress threshold is almost at its max. If we're almost at the max amount of stress that our body can handle, and then we're adding in this extra stress of not taking in food at regular intervals, it's really going to push us over that limit. We're going to be irritable and reactive and on edge.
Speaker 1:I can tell if I haven't eaten. The way that my body tells me that I'm hungry is not actually a lot of times in physical hunger. I feel it in my anxiety. I feel anxiety kind of creep up and I start to get anxious and I can feel that my body's going into survival mode. So I really try to stay ahead of that, eating every two to three hours and making sure that I have protein and healthy fats in each meal that I eat, which helps stabilize my blood sugar and keeps my nervous system steady.
Speaker 1:All right, movement Exercise is often thought of as, like you know, when you're just trying to get in shape, but it's actually one of the best ways to regulate the nervous system. So movement reduces cortisol. It actually helps your you know, muscle helps you metabolize stress. It also increases endorphins, which make us feel happier and it helps our body release stored up stress. But not all movement is equal when it comes to nervous system regulation. So we want to look at things like walking, which are gentle and rhythmic in their movement. Like walking, stretching or strength training is also great. Those things tell your body that you are safe. But I think a lot of times you know foster and adoptive parents when we hear, hey, you need to reduce your stress, hey, you need to work out, hey, you need to eat healthy. A lot of times the things that we lean on are very what is out there in the world right now, which is very restrictive diets and high impact, high intensity workouts, which can be great if your body's at a healthy place already. But if you have a high stress load, if you're already at your max, then those intense, high-impact workouts are going to push you over that stress limit. Really, I prioritize daily walks and strength training as my main forms of movement.
Speaker 1:Felt safety doesn't just come from our circumstances, you guys, it also comes from inside of us. If we're relying on everything around us to be peaceful in order to feel okay, we're going to feel exhausted and out of control all the time. To feel exhausted and out of control all the time because life, especially in foster and adoptive parenting, is very unpredictable. But when we can build felt safety from the inside out, so when we can support our body with hydration and movement and nutrition and routines, we give ourselves the best foundation to navigate whatever comes our way. Give ourselves the best foundation to navigate whatever comes our way. You guys, this is how we set ourselves up to be the parents that we need to be for our kids, and that's exactly why I have my six-week wellness challenge. So I use a platform called Faster Way, which is science, comes with a science-backed app that has tracking tools and workouts and meal plans, and I combine that platform with trauma-informed education and a community of parents, just like you that are going through the same things that you are going through, that can lean on one another and we take small, doable steps each week to create felt safety in our bodies so that we can show up with more patience for our kids, so that we can have more peace and really we can work to build connection with our kids instead of focusing on control in order to gain that felt safety.
Speaker 1:And listen y'all. These aren't the things that I've shared with you here and the things that I share in my six-week challenge. They're not brand new, they're not trendy wellness tips. You already know most of these things, but what I have seen is, most of the time, under the weight of everything that we carry as foster and adoptive parents, it can be really hard to actually implement these things consistently. So that's why having a coach and a community walking with you really can make all the difference. My next six-week round starts Monday, march 24th.
Speaker 1:I'd love for you to join us if you're interested. If you need some assistance, I will leave the link in the show notes where you can sign up and you guys, if you just want some wellness tips, I'd love for you to join my newsletter. It's I Give Tips and you know recipes and different podcasts that I find from time to time that kind of speak into wellness for foster and adoptive parents or just speak into the parenting aspect. But I'd love for you to join that newsletter. I'll put that link in the show notes as well as well. Well, let me wrap up today praying for you guys as you strive to really do these hard and holy things.
Speaker 1:Father, thank you for being our refuge, our safe place when the weight of this journey feels too heavy to carry. You see the unseen battles that we face when we parent our kids. You know the exhaustion, the worry, the moments we wonder if we're enough. And, lord, we're not. We're not, but you are. Help us to trust in that. Today, lord, we ask for your presence to fill our homes with peace. Help us create spaces, both physically and emotionally, where our children can exhale, where they know they're safe and loved, because we're creating an environment of felt safety all the way around.
Speaker 1:And God, in the midst of pouring out, remind us that we need that felt safety too. Surround us with your comfort. Quiet our hearts, lord. Quiet our anxious hearts. Help us to trust in you. Let us rest in the truth that we don't have to hold it all together because you are holding us. Strengthen us for the road ahead, lord. Remind us that our work is not in vain. And when we feel weary, god, draw us back to you, our true place of safety. Help lift our gaze to your face. We love you. We trust you In Jesus' name amen.