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
Seeing and Filling Gaps in Foster Care with Amanda Preston
What happens when your foster care journey leads you to places you never imagined? Amanda Preston knows this path intimately - from young newlyweds dreaming of "opening an orphanage" to becoming adoptive parents of eight children, veteran foster parents of 16 years, and eventually establishing a mental health clinic supporting neurodivergent families navigating the complexities of adoption and foster care.
During Foster Care Awareness Month, this powerful conversation pulls back the curtain on the realities of fostering and adoption from someone who's experienced it from multiple angles. Amanda challenges the widespread misconception that infants adopted from birth don't experience trauma, explaining how separation from birth mothers creates deep-rooted wounds that manifest at different developmental stages despite loving, stable homes. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience raising children with various diagnoses, she offers crucial insights into supporting children through these challenges.
The discussion takes a compelling turn as Amanda shares how recognizing gaps in the foster care system led her to pursue social work education, founding a national nonprofit, and eventually establishing specialized mental health services.
Amanda’s Info:
www.instagram.com/thefostermomsocialworker
www.instagram.com/the_neurodivergent_bunch
Resources:
The Body Keeps The Score: https://a.co/d/9Aq3b6d
The Primal Wound: https://a.co/d/fEZwfiX
FREE Facebook Wellness Event: https://www.facebook.com/share/1L8zPWb37z/
Trauma Wellness Newsletter: https://nicoletbarlow.myflodesk.com/fosterparentwellnewsletter
I'd love to hear from you! Send me a text!
Connect with me on Instagram: @Fosterparentwell
@nicoletbarlow https://www.instagram.com/nicoletbarlow/
Website: https://nicoletbarlow.com/
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. Hey friends, welcome back to the Foster Parent Well podcast.
Speaker 1:It's May, which means it's Foster Care Awareness Month, and let me tell you, the momentum is already so strong, you guys. We're just a weekend and I've been blown away by how many conversations are happening on social media, here on the podcast. Even in my wellness groups, foster parents are showing up in such meaningful ways. They're asking deeper questions. They're getting serious about self-care and really leaning into what it means to do this work well. It's encouraging. It's also a reminder that awareness isn't just about raising voices. It's about rising to meet the needs that still exist all around us.
Speaker 1:Which brings me to today's episode. I'm sitting down with someone who knows this world from lots of different angles Amanda Preston. Amanda is an adoptive mom to eight children. She's a veteran foster parent of 16 years. She's a social worker and author and the founder of a national nonprofit supporting adoptive and foster families. She also leads a mental health clinic that specializes in supporting neurodivergent families, including those navigating autism, pda and the complexities of adoption and foster care. Today, we're talking about what it means to step up, not in a savior kind of way, but in a real honest, boots on the ground kind of way. Amanda brings both experience and wisdom, and I think you're going to leave this conversation really feeling challenged and encouraged, so let's get into it. Welcome, amanda. We're so excited to have you on the show today. Why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about you?
Speaker 2:Thanks, so much it's exciting to be here today. My name is Amanda. I am an adoptive mom to eight kids. My husband and I fostered for 16 years and I'm a social worker.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I love that. Now, how did you originally get into foster care?
Speaker 2:Okay. So it's kind of an interesting story. My husband and I had both gotten a job at a restaurant and I thought that chefs had to be quite older and I had this dream of somehow working with orphans, and in my head that meant opening up an orphanage. And so I saw this cute chef come back in the back of the restaurant and I said, oh, what do you want to do with your life? And he's like I want to open an orphanage. And of course, in my head I was like, oh, that's exciting. So we ended up dating and, long story short, I found out that he was still in high school. I was in my first year of university. There's only a year difference, but anyways. So we got married quite young. He ended up being 18 right after graduation. I was 19.
Speaker 2:And we started talking about our dreams and about what we wanted to do and where we felt God was calling us. And you know, just through those discussions we felt like God was saying he wanted us to adopt. And so we really had a heart and a passion for adopting kids that were on the waiting child list and didn't always get picked, kids that had more special needs, different neurodivergence, such as FASD and so we started the adoption process and they kind of said like we went through the whole home study, we were almost done and the social work was like you know, I know that you guys are really mature, I know you guys can do this, but when it comes to matching on paper you still sound kind of young. So why don't we put you guys on hold for a couple of years and then you can come back and it'll be much easier to try and match you? And so we're like okay, you know there's nothing we can do about that.
Speaker 2:So we went away that week, came back the following week to close everything up and have our final meeting, and she had this weird look on her face and of course we're like oh no, what did we do? Are we not passing our home study? What's happening? And she proceeds to tell us we actually have a match for you. And we're like wait, what? Like you just told us we were not moving forward at this time and apparently it was a little baby boy. He was two months old.
Speaker 2:We were expecting much older kids when we went into the process and he was ready to come home in three weeks and I had never cared for infants before. I knew nothing about babies and we had no baby items, nothing like. We were not expecting this. And so, yeah, we got everything ready and we went to go meet him to do the transition process and he ended up being in a Christian foster home and we knew nothing about fostering, we didn't know there was a need, we didn't know about anything about that process. And she just started telling us about the huge need for foster parents. She was what they call here, a safe baby home, where they take infants prenatally exposed to drugs and alcohol. And so it just we realized, you know, it was touching our heart and we prayed about it and 10 months later we opened up as a safe baby foster home. So that was kind of our origin story of fostering.
Speaker 1:That's very interesting and you know what? I think that you said early on that both of you had talked about wanting to open an orphanage, and I think that that is. I hear that quite often from people like I've always dreamt of opening an orphanage and that kind of thing, and I think part of that is because of stories that we know right, like what do we know of foster care and adoption and kids that need homes? A lot of them may be in orphanages and so people think that that's the best way to care for kids, right, that particularly don't have a place to go. But knowing what you know now right, about what adoption looks like, what foster care looks like, what would you say to your younger self that says, hey, I want to open an orphanage?
Speaker 2:Well I would say you know, you need to really know what you're doing. There's so many nuances. I mean, for example, just even the word orphan does not fit in at all. That's something I've learned over the years that doesn't accurately reflect, first of all, kids in foster care, but even kids that are placed for adoption. That's not an accurate word to use anymore. But also, is there a need for that in these other countries? Is there something that you can do to equip people, supporting people in their own country and so just doing things that really require more research and education? And I think we went into it knowing absolutely nothing, Feeling called for sure. There was definitely something that we were supposed to do, but we didn't have that background of information. So you know, getting behind other people who have done things before you is really a smart idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's great.
Speaker 1:I think we have recommended that to certain people that have said to us that that's the route that they want to go, you know, is really take some time. Get into this a little bit, get your feet wet a little bit and start to understand trauma, start to understand what it is that is really the need, right, and then you can figure out how to meet the need. But when we set ourselves up to meet the need, even if it's with the best intentions I mean everybody who I know, who has gone into you know, who has said I want to open up an orphanage or something like that, or a group home I think they go into it with the best of intentions. They just aren't educated yet. So really, you know, if this is a space that you really desire to be in, it's not a space that you just jump into and say, okay, let's go, you know, but really getting some education, getting some mentorship from other people in this space to figure out how best to meet the needs that are really present for the kids that need it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly yeah. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Speaker 1:So, but it is tricky. I mean, I have, in fact, a couple of months ago I had somebody come through one of my pre-service I do pre-service training for foster and adoptive parents and I had somebody come through pre-service training. That was like I think I want to open up a group home and I'm like, well, okay, let's talk about that a little bit. And it's not that that's not needed or that that's a space that people should always shy away from, but that's a space where you really need to know what you're stepping into before you get into it where you really need to know what you're stepping into before you get into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I've had the exact same thing in my own job. We've had to explain to people you know or they are wanting, yeah, just all sorts of things where that you can see the love and passion there, but just not the understanding of how it works or attachment and stability and that sort of thing and how important a lot of those pieces are and experience and different things like that. I mean not to say that new people can't start it. We fostered and you know we were very young and knew very little about parenting, but it was a slow process of you know one child at a time and not jumping into some of those bigger projects that I think do require so much more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, listen, we jumped in feet first. I mean, we had fostered for a while before we got our kids, but we adopted a sibling group of five and so got placed with five all at once and meeting their needs. Do you know what I'm saying? Even just one placement, it's one placement because they're all one case. But five kids with very diverse needs, diverse ages it can be really hard to really meet all of their attachment needs at once and help each of those kids heal 15, 20 kids. I mean you would have to have staff, more staff at that point. But I'm just saying I think that that's a very big, a very big leap. So okay, so you take in one baby and then you become a safe home for other babies that need it. How did that kind of transition into you adopting eight kids?
Speaker 2:So we ended up getting kids of all ages. As I'm sure you know, in foster care they never stick to what your age range is, and we were open anyway. So, you know, kids came and went. We were always, you know, supporting reunification and you know it was a great experience of having kids that would go home and we'd still get to maybe provide respite on the weekends or stay in touch, and it was a marvelous experience. But at the end of the day, there were cases where they just weren't able to reunify with their parents, and sometimes there was siblings. So our oldest was just a singleton and, you know, a straight adoption. But then the second little guy, our very first infant that we cared for when we opened up, he wasn't able to reunify and then his birth mom had another baby, and so you know we were trying to keep siblings together.
Speaker 2:At this point adoption was not the plan, and then reunification just didn't happen, and so, instead of seeing them move to an adoptive home and having to go through that you know, broken attachment and that sort of thing we decided that we wanted to offer them permanency and adopt them, and I'm a proponent for both. I think there is a need for foster homes that are able to adopt, to help prevent some more of that broken attachment. But I also think that if every foster parent adopts, then we don't ever have experienced foster parents. So I love both routes, for sure. And then we had another little one that came to us and she wasn't able to go home, and then our number five. That birth mom ended up having many kids over the course of the year, so we ended up with four siblings that we adopted after, you know, a long period of trying to reunify and it just not working out. So that's kind of how we ended up with eight of them.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that sibling group of four did? They come one at a time as babies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they all came, you know, straight from the hospital, which is always, you know, it was a fun journey and everything. We're actually really close with that family. There's a lot of openness there, and so it was. On the family side it was an amazing experience. On the social worker side it was like the most dramatic experience ever, but it was nice that we were able to keep them together and, surprisingly, the child welfare agency wasn't always trying to keep them together. We did have to fight to keep the siblings together, because they often will look and say, well, you've got a lot of kids, or you know, that's probably the number one issue that they have. But at the end of the day, each person has their own capacity and can manage. You know, sometimes more, sometimes less when it comes to kids. But thankfully we had a couple of key workers that were able to help advocate some family members, that sort of thing, so that we could keep them together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I am a big proponent for keeping siblings together and I mean, I think having a lot of kids is one thing, but if you're getting them one at a time, right, like you're not making these huge leaps, and I'll tell you, like now that my kids are settled, like we can have other kids that come over and spend the night, we have a former foster care placement that will come stay with us sometimes and you don't even notice. I mean, after a certain amount of kids, it's like it just is.
Speaker 2:It's funny, we sometimes joke, you know if like one or two will be out, we're like, oh my gosh, six kids. It's so easy.
Speaker 1:I know, I know that's my older kids are now kind of moving on. I have a 17 year old, an 18 year old and a 21 year old and um, and so it feels like most of the time it's just the little three that are still at home, and I'm like three is a breeze, like still at home, and I'm like three is a breeze, like I mean, it's the easiest I can't imagine you know, just because when you go from such a big number down to that, it becomes very easy, easy.
Speaker 1:Well, I think one of the myths that often happens when people enter into this space is that if you take a baby from the hospital, that there's no trauma, that there's no loss and that that child is going to attach easier, that they're going to have less effects of that brokenness or whatever, that it's going to be more similar to a biological child. So what would you say to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would definitely say that's not correct. I like to always recommend the book Primal Wound and the Body Keeps the Score those are two really great books to better understand that. But you know, they're inside that womb for nine months. They are connecting and whether or not you get them straight from the hospital or not, they're going to have that deep ingrained trauma in there and they're going to as they grow, especially at certain points. You know they say it's common at age seven, again when they hit puberty, in the teen years, they're questioning their identity and there's that trauma piece of why am I not with my birth family, you know, did they choose not to have me?
Speaker 2:Even if you explain things to them, even if you're open about their story, they're going to have these questions and really, really be second guessing things and that's a deep-rooted trauma for them, you know, not being with the person who gave birth to them. And they still have that love and attachment a lot of the time I would say most of the time, you know, barring certain things that might have happened. But I've seen it through a lot of my kids and we've had all of them, you know, other than my oldest who came to us at two months. All of them came to us from birth, and so we've seen a lot of them have those experiences, despite having a safe and stable home with the same two parents from birth despite having a safe and stable home with the same two parents from birth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see that as well. I mean where I see a lot of kids actually have and this isn't always the case, but in some of the cases I have seen a lot of times in the infants they actually hold on to more of their trauma because their brains can't process it at that stage of life, Whereas sometimes older kids are able to process through what's happening to them or what has happened or what is going on, because they have had the chance for their brain to develop a little bit more and so they are actually able to process some of those traumas, some of those losses, and walk through that grief in a different way, Whereas when you have an infant, they're feeling that loss, they're feeling that trauma, they're experiencing maybe some of the stressors or chemical changes that may have happened in utero, but their brains aren't developed enough to give voice or words or whatever to that experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and it starts to. You know, it's that subconscious, they're not even aware of what's going on or why they might be reacting to something, and it is deep rooted into that very beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how do you see that kind of play out in a general sense in some of your kids, right Like, what does that look like as they get older?
Speaker 2:And it's different for all of them. I mean they each have their own journeys. But you know, I've even seen some of them where they're not interested in openness, which is something that you know we're trained. You know I'm not open to that, I'm not really interested in that, and I think it's that deep-rooted trauma that they just can't connect to why that birth parent wasn't able to parent them, despite anything you know we say and encourage and seeing openness with other kids and how successful those can be just not being able to get past that trauma piece. And so that's kind of one of the big ones that I've seen. And then another one is sometimes just the self-identity piece, and you know how they feel about themselves as well. Despite being in a home where they're loved their whole life and being, you know, encouraged and praised for the things that they do, still having just little pieces that can pop up that show that they still have that abandonment feeling in them from that trauma that started all those years ago, despite a healthy attachment their entire life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have seen that as well. I mean, we have a couple of one of my kids who came to us very young he was the youngest out of our group is is now having questions where he hasn't had questions before, you know, and he's he's processing things in a different way, like you had said before. I mean all of my kids. I have a group of kids that are moving through adolescence right now that are all asking questions and again, we've been very open about where they came from and all the things. But as they process at different stages of life, as they process their own identity, some of those questions are changing and shifting the way that they're thinking about some of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And even you know you sometimes see in the you know community outside of adoption and foster care, where people might have been raised in trauma and that can affect their relationships and we've even seen that with how they, you know, respond to friendships or romantic relationships that aren't the way we've raised them, that aren't the way that we've taught them different pieces and really seeing that deep-rooted trauma of you know, of attached to the abandonment piece, of how they view it, not, of course, how we've worded it, but it's just, it's in a lot of areas that you would never expect after you know raising kids a certain way. So it's been an interesting journey for sure, kind of seeing how different things play out despite how you might be parenting.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, and not to take that personally right, like letting our kids be autonomous and have their own self, their own way of being, and understanding that each of them are going to react differently to things. I think you know you were talking about how we in this community are trained to talk about reunification, to talk about birth, family relationships and that kind of stuff and to really promote those relationships. And I mean we have seen those relationships. And I mean we have seen my oldest adopted daughter. She's 18 now.
Speaker 1:She has been very vocal about how she feels, but early on I'm going no, but you should feel this way and it's okay if you feel this way and you can come to me if you feel this way. And she was like but I don't, and I'm like it's okay if you're not grateful, it's okay if you don't want to be adopted, and she was like but I do, right. And so, realizing that, just because we can have this background and this understanding that some of our kids may feel this way, and we need to be accepting of those experiences, really letting each of our kids figure some of those things out for themselves and to have their own voice, like each of them needs to have their own voice and needs to not have us, one way or the other, promoting you know what they should be doing or how they should be feeling, or whatever right.
Speaker 2:Because I was like no.
Speaker 1:I've listened to adoptees and they say I have to be this way and I have to be supportive of you not doing this and you feeling this way. So I'm supportive and she's like I don't feel that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have had the exact same conversations of yeah, not lining up with some of the things that we've heard and exactly remembering that each person is their own person and has their own experiences and feelings. So, yeah, we can relate to that 100 percent.
Speaker 1:Well, and I do have some kids that that really desire relationship with their birth family. I have one child that did not want to be adopted and is very vocal that she didn't want to be adopted. When she turns 18, she most definitely will go back to her biological family and we are very supportive of that. I mean, we are supportive of that relationship. But really taking each kid at their own stuff I think is super helpful. Yeah, exactly Okay. So as you're taking in all of these kids, were you already a social worker or did that come later?
Speaker 2:No, no, I, it was around child six, okay that I just started to discover like there are major gaps in the system. You know there are issues that I'm seeing and so I wanted to just kind of get more involved from another capacity. So I went back to school and got my social work degree and then by around I think, eight, number eight I went back and got my master's and kind of through that process, I started a national charity here to support adoptive and foster families. Just really looking to, I think there's a lot of support out there for a lot of people of the triad, you know, for adoptive families or for adoptive children and for birth families, for foster kids, that sort of thing. But I and that you know the charity really was supporting all pieces.
Speaker 2:But the, the parents, also often had not the type of support I think that they were looking for. They were getting burnt out, they were getting isolated, not the type of support I think that they were looking for. They were getting burnt out, they were getting isolated. They needed training and education to help support their kids and just feeling very overwhelmed. And so I wanted to, you know, offer support for that. So I did that for quite a while with the charity, just supporting kids some of their neurodivergent needs, particularly through COVID, when things shut down and people couldn't access support. So we were trying to get things out to them, you know, like Chromebooks and sensory kits and things like that. And so, yeah, it kind of just came out of my experience as a foster and adoptive parent that I wanted to get into that world.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love people that see holes right and seek to fill them, and I think a lot of times God prompts us to see those gaps right, like he prompts us to see this need for kids that need homes, and we step in, in whatever capacity we step in, we step in to fill that gap. But then, even as we're in the system, we are seeing gaps. And so there are two, I think two types of people that get into this space. You can very quickly get overwhelmed by the gaps right, by all of the holes in the system, by all of the messiness of this ministry, of what we do. They quit or they fight the system head on and they get shut down. I mean, that is a thing, and so I think it's very important, because I think there's another branch of foster parents that come in and see holes and see gaps and say what is God calling me to do to even serve any little hole that I might see? We might not be able to change the whole system, we might not be able to change everything, but God, what little piece are you calling me to do? And listen, I'll be honest and to say when I first got into this system. I was the kind that was going at the system head on. I had a guardian ad litem one time tell my case manager for my agency. She was like you need to get your foster parent under control Because I was seeing all of these injustices and I am going into the courtroom going what the heck? This is madness. Like no normal person. This is madness. No normal person thinks this way.
Speaker 1:I remember one time I was questioning the head of our state system at the time and I just asked him. I was like why are we sending kids home to houses that are unsafe? Okay, that was my question and I was kind of passionate about it, like it didn't come off soft and graceful at all. And he said to me who are you to say that it's unsafe? Right, which partially is true, but partially like it's common sense, right.
Speaker 1:But the problem was is I didn't understand the law. I didn't understand how the law, I didn't understand all the complexities of how everything fits together, and so I'm coming at things head on going. This is a simple decision that the judge can make. When it's not that simple. I just didn't know that Right that the judge can make when it's not that simple. I just didn't know that right, and so I'm very, I'm very thankful that the Lord kind of covered me in that season and I didn't get blacklisted because I was not graceful, I was not, I was not humble and I didn't really know everything I needed to know. I didn't understand everything I needed to understand to really enter the system the right way.
Speaker 1:So I love that Number one. You didn't go after whatever the holes were. The first child that comes into your home Like you took some time to really like let me understand what is going on here. And then when you continuously see those gaps, you're like, hey, I think I can meet this need. So explain to me a little bit how you know God took you through that process and how he carried you through that, because I mean, you're entering the space to help out the system, to help out other foster parents, but you're parenting eight kids at the same time yeah, it was an interesting combination for sure, I think.
Speaker 2:Starting off when I first became a social worker, I did go into the child welfare system and work in children's services and it was helpful to see from the other side for sure what social workers are doing, who do a great job. They've got, you know, caseloads that are way too big and not enough funding. But I did see at the end of the day that even though when I was just a foster parent and I didn't understand the law just like you didn't understand all the different pieces, that sometimes well, this isn't really the social worker, it's the judge or it's the case or you know, whatever it might be but when I was on the other side I also saw social workers also don't understand foster parents. They have absolutely no idea some of the trials that we go through and the trenches that we walk through, and there is this disconnect, and so it was a really hard transition at first to be on the other side and see some of the things that went on and the way things were talked about and the lack of information that was sometimes provided. You know, a lot of people maybe didn't know about FASD when a whole bunch of kids in foster care of FASD, and if you don't understand that it's really hard to support the kids and the parents, you know the right way. And so that was a bit of a challenging transition for me. So again, I took some time as I navigated.
Speaker 2:That. God really helped through all of that for sure, because I think it would have been easy to just give up a lot of times. You know, in my head this is what I was kind of envisioning is I'm going to move up the ranks in the Children's service agency, like it was the it's the government one where I was working, and eventually I could be maybe the director of foster care or something and I can make all the changes you know, really see reform in the system. And that was kind of my dream. That was what I was picturing, and God was like that's not what I have planned for you. And so I really had to listen to that, because to begin with, to move up the ranks, you really have to play it what they want you to do, and I couldn't. I can't send kids back home somewhere where I know certain things have been going agenda and listen to what God had for me, which was really hard, and so that did lead to for myself.
Speaker 2:I ended up focusing on doing a lot of public speaking. I ended up writing a book that is becoming a textbook for social workers, but also like a solidarity book for foster parents, I think, so that they don't feel so alone. What I found through supporting foster parents was that so many just felt like no one listens to me and no one cares about what's going on, and no one cares that they're asking us to just drop everything and have no time to even have self-care or anything like that, and so just wanting to really give a voice to foster parents about what they were walking through and what they were experiencing. But at the end of the day, despite all of that, you know, god really moved us through all of that. It was hard.
Speaker 2:I reached burnout, I'm not going to lie. I, I, we had to stop fostering. I mean, we reached eight kids, and so I think that it was would have been a natural time to stop anyhow, but we couldn't keep like. I couldn't maintain the like being within the system and having to kind of drop your own mental health and your own well-being and the needs of other kids in your home to constantly meet some of those demands as a foster parent. And then I had to take a break from work too. It was kind of just like, you know, god wanted me to rest and so I did.
Speaker 2:I ended up stepping away from the charity and so, you know, I went a whole other direction and now I work in mental health, supporting neurodivergent families and the adoptive fostering community, but not through the charitable lens, cause that's it's a very tiring job to kind of, especially when, you like, add in fundraising and different things like that. But, um, I think it was just like relying on God and what he had planned, and not what I always thought was the best thing, because, you know, like the whole journey that we've talked about, you don't always know everything and you're not always going to have all the pieces, but you also, you know, aren't the one who knows what is supposed to happen next? God knows that, and so, just constantly reminding myself that I'm not driving this boat, I really have to let go of the steering wheel.
Speaker 1:Well, and that takes a lot of humility, right To be able to say, hey, I'm not driving, I'm letting somebody else, I'm letting God be the driver in my life, and what happens next? And I think it takes humility to step back right and to say, hey, I'm in burnout, I need to step away from some of these things and I need to get back to doing the things that I know are foundational, that God has called me to. You know, really concentrating on some of those things. But that is hard. That is hard Once you are in the space. I joke around all the time with newer foster parents. I'm like, if you notice, all the foster parents are driving 15 passenger vans. It's because once you get in, you can't say no.
Speaker 2:It's 100% true and it's you know, it's funny. I sometimes kind of laugh at God's plan, but when we I don't know if you have this where you are, but when you adopt you fill out this form of what you're open to in terms of special needs. And so we were very passionate about FASD. We had gone down a rabbit hole of learning all about it, but I said no to autism, like nope, that's way too scary, we are not going to broach that. And but that was when we were brand new, right, we were very young, we didn't know anything. Of course, over the years we learned more.
Speaker 2:Well, three of my kids ended up getting diagnosed with autism, and now that's my specialty for my my entire mental health clinic specializes in autism. And it's so funny that God's like you think you're headed one way, but you're actually going to head another way, and so we just we have no idea. And of course, it's not as scary as I thought. And you know, you just have to learn. Education changes everything. But you know, just not being too rigid and stubborn when he is trying to kind of shift you in another direction, I think is really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of times we're scared of what we don't know, like of what we don't understand. And I remember filling out that first form and I'm like what in the world? Like I mean they're asking all kinds of things like on our preference form. I remember we started out our age preference was zero to four and I mean it was asking are you willing to take a gang member, are you willing to take a fire starter? I'm like at four, yeah, and I mean, but some of that stuff is really scary on paper.
Speaker 1:Some of the diagnoses are really scary on paper, especially if you don't have any experience with mental health or those sort of things. I mean we said no to all kinds of stuff and then ended up with a lot of diagnoses in our house I mean we've, and those things aren't as scary anymore. Like I understand you can have a kid with reactive attachment disorder and guess what? They're still a kid, right, like they at the heart of it. They're still a kid and it's not. I'm not to say that it's not ever scary, but it's not as scary as it was, I think, on paper in the beginning. Or things like bipolar. Some of those diagnoses can feel very scary Autism, but when you actually get into it it's not quite as scary because you see the child behind. Whatever the diagnosis is, I will say those preference forms are important though, because, like there are some things that people don't need to do.
Speaker 1:I am good with any kind of mental health diagnosis, I am pretty good with behaviors any kind of behaviors, any of that kind of stuff but do not put a child that is medically fragile in my home because I can't. I mean, that's not my specialty. My brother is a type 1 diabetic and so growing up I had to learn how to give shots to him in case something happened. Well, they had us practice on an orange, like giving the shot, because I guess the flesh of the orange like simulates the flesh of skin, I don't know. Anyway, I passed out giving it to the orange, okay, so like you don't need to put a medically fragile child in my home.
Speaker 1:That is not going to go well. Like that is not my when I say that's not my gig, that's not my gig. Like I am pretty certain and listen, this could change anytime, I leave it up to God to change anything but pretty certain that God did not intend for me to take that child you know a medically fragile child into my home. But but he did. He did stretch me into my home, but he did stretch me. He did stretch me so that I had to depend on him. So when your first child gets diagnosed right, like you're saying I don't want to do autism, and then now all of a sudden you're facing these diagnoses Like what was on your heart, like where did you go at that point?
Speaker 2:You know what, by that point we were so far down the rabbit hole of different diagnoses that it didn't. It wasn't like I didn't really feel that fear in any way at that point. We were just trying to figure out what's going on and how can we best support our kiddo. There wasn't like the grief and loss like, oh my goodness, like I wasn't expecting this, because they already had. You know, all of them were already prenatal, like all kids that come to us were prenatally exposed, and so we were already used to so many different aspects that it didn't kind of hit us in the face like I thought it would. So and we were already so comfortable with deep diving into research. You know I'm an adult diagnosed ADHD, so hyper-focusing on things is definitely something I love to do, which I think is why I was able to do all these schooling pieces, so I was just so used to it. So it was like, okay, what's going on? What do I need to research? Who do I need to find out more information from? So it was basically just a redirection a bit really to get that information.
Speaker 2:And then that just opened a big gulf really fast and, funny enough, you know, god kind of threw it in my face immensely, because then he's like oh, by the way, your sister is autistic as well. And all these people in our life ended up, you know, being diagnosed older as autistic and members of my family, and I was like I've been surrounded by it my whole life and I didn't even know like, and so it's just this misperception of how, how scary it was going to be. So it wasn't really a big shock, other than the fact that one of my kiddos the first one that got diagnosed he has PDA pathological demand avoidance which is a very unique presentation of autism. If anyone has a kid that has ever been diagnosed with ODD, I highly recommend just peeking at what pathological demand avoidance is to see if that might fit better. But that was kind of the bigger piece because it's such a unique presentation and requires a very drastic different parenting. So that was more the challenge around that piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have toyed with that with one of our kids. They do not have an official diagnosis of ODD because we did not want them officially diagnosed with ODD yet. Right Like we wanted to explore other options. But in the back of our mind we've been researching some things around, and one of the things that I have researched was PDA that that might be part of the background of what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's interesting. I have one child who has an ODD diagnosis and one child with PDA, and when you see them next to each other it's very easy to tell the difference between the two that they're just it's very different.
Speaker 2:So you know that's that's been one of the things I've been talking on other podcasts about a lot actually, and you know, doing some trainings for families around that difference and how you can tell and when to kind of seek assessment and that sort of thing. So. But I think there's probably a lot of kids out there that have been misdiagnosed as ODD and then parents don't know to kind of do that low demand approach that's really needed for PDA. So it's a big topic that I think is starting to grow out there right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love all the knowledge and research and education that is happening in the space right now, because I think there is so much talk about getting accurate diagnosis for our kids, really understanding what they've experienced and how that's changed their brains, how that's changed the way that they think and the way they behave and all the things right. I can't imagine doing any of this without that foundation, without that understanding. And I mean to your point about working with social workers, you know, I think a lot of social workers don't have that education when they went through. I mean, the education on a lot of this stuff is so new that a lot of them, when they went through school, didn't get all of this trauma awareness that we as foster parents have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got when I was in social work school. I got nothing and I was told that all foster and adoptive parents were kidnappers. And I got zero training on attachment or on foster parents and kids and all the diagnoses like like nothing I was so if I had never been a foster parent first, I would have been so ill prepared for everything that the foster care system entails prepared for everything that the foster care system entails.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see that pretty regularly and I think I've taken on the approach like I can educate the people that touch our lives right, like I can give them as much education as I possibly can, and that goes for I mean school, I mean just all of these areas that touch our kids' lives are not trained to really or equipped to work with our kids, with their backgrounds and diagnoses and stuff, and so I love that we, a lot of times we are equipped or we can be equipped. The information is out there if we look for it, if we, you know, dig into the trainings a little bit. Well, amanda, I have absolutely loved this conversation with you and we're going to have to have you back on. We'll talk about PDA and ODD and the differences and stuff, because I do think that that would be very helpful in just the ways that parents view their child and the way that they're equipped to handle different things. I think that's very, very important. But where can people find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've got a couple accounts on Instagram. One is the Foster Mom Social Worker and that's kind of more related to adoption and foster care. And then I've got the NeuroDivergent Bunch with underscore under each word, so the underscore NeuroDivergent underscore bunch, and that's more related to different neurodivergent diagnoses and that sort of thing. I've got a website, amandaprestoncocom, and I offer parent support and coaching around the world and lots of online courses. That's really a passion right now is just to, like you say, like educate and provide that information for other people. So that's where you can find me.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you so much, and I will put a link to all of those things in the show notes as well. Well, thank you, Amanda. Wow, what a powerful conversation with Amanda Preston. I hope you felt both seen and stirred by her words. She brings such depth and heart to this work and it's exactly the kind of perspective we need more of in this space People who are really looking for the holes and different ways to serve to fill in the gaps.
Speaker 1:Since it is Foster Care Awareness Month, I'd love for you to take a moment and share this episode, Tag a friend and join in on the conversation online. You guys, social media is so active about foster care right now. You can find me on Instagram at Nicole T Barlow, and I'd love to hear what resonated with you today. And if you're feeling a little nudge to take better care of yourself so you can keep showing up for your kids in a sustainable way, hey, I've got something just for you this month. I'm hosting a free Facebook event right now where we're sharing practical, real-life strategies to care for your body, mind and spirit as you do this incredibly hard and holy work. The link is in the show notes, along with links to Amanda's work and some of the books that she recommended. If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It helps so much in getting these conversations into the hands of more parents who need them.
Speaker 1:And before we go, let me take a minute to pray over us. Father, thank you for every listener tuning in today. Thank you for the calling that you've placed on our lives, for the strength that you give in the middle of weariness and for your constant presence when this road feels daunting and heavy. I lift up every foster and adoptive parent, every child, every family walking this journey Equip us, sustain us and remind us that we are never alone in this. Give us wisdom and compassion and courage to keep showing up each and every day, imperfectly but willing. Lord, we love you. We trust you In Jesus' name, amen, Thank you.