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
Foundations for the Foster Care Journey
The foundations you build before welcoming foster children into your home will determine whether you merely survive or truly thrive in this challenging calling. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience, this episode walks you through four essential preparations every prospective foster parent needs to prioritize.
How are you preparing your foundation? Your investment in these four areas will determine not just your longevity as a foster parent but your effectiveness in creating a home where healing can truly happen.
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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. You're here. I hope you were able to experience a moment of peace and reflection this past week, especially with Mother's Day on the calendar. But let's be honest Mother's Day isn't easy for everyone in our community. For so many of us, it's so complicated. I mean, maybe your child spent the day missing their biological mom and confused about how to feel about this holiday. Maybe you were reminded of the loss that led you to this parenting role in the first place. Maybe you're grieving what you hoped motherhood would look like, or you have the silence of infertility or the strain that foster care has put on your family. If that was you this past weekend, I want you to hear this you are seen. God is near to the brokenhearted and he walks with us in these complex, messy places. You are not alone.
Speaker 1:Now let's shift into today's conversation. May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and whether you're still exploring the idea of becoming a foster parent, or you've already said yes and you're in exploring the idea of becoming a foster parent, or you've already said yes and you're in the thick of it, I want to walk you through four things that you absolutely need to do to prepare for the journey. This isn't a checklist, it's more like a foundation, and if we're going to stay in this for the long haul and really do it well, then these are the things that we have to prioritize. So let's dive in. The first and most crucial is having trauma awareness and getting some education on trauma. If you're stepping into foster care, you're stepping into trauma. There's just no way around it.
Speaker 1:Every child who enters care has experienced a break in attachment, and for most it's not just one break, but many. Their brains, bodies and nervous systems have been shaped by trauma, and I don't mean that in a metaphorical sense, I mean it literally. Trauma affects the development of the brain, it can rewire the limbic system, it can impair executive functioning, it can shrink the size of the hippocampus and it can keep a child stuck in survival mode long after that threat is actually gone. So this may show up in behaviors that don't really make sense. Maybe it's meltdowns over small transitions or aggression. Lying Hypervigilance is a big one in our house. Trouble sleeping, trouble connecting. It's not because kids are bad. It's because their brains are doing their best to keep them safe. You guys and our brains do the same thing. So when we're taking in this trauma awareness, we need to also look at how having trauma in our home is going to affect us, because chances are we're going to experience something called secondary trauma or we may even experience primary trauma if there is physical aggression and that kind of stuff in our home as well. But there is good news, there's help and there is hope.
Speaker 1:Some of my favorite trauma resources include the Connected Child and the Connected Parent. Both of those are great books and I know that we've shared them before on the podcast. But if you have not read those resources, they are must-reads for every foster and adoptive parent. Look into TBRI or Trust-based relational intervention trainings. See if they have any in your area or what people are doing. Empower to Connect also has a training called Cultivate Connection. That is trauma-based training for parents. So look into those types of things. Hope for the Journey is a conference that is put on. It is a virtual conference that you can attend or watch and there is lots of training in that to become more trauma-aware. There are also lots of podcasts, like the Empowered to Connect podcast, the Empowered Parent podcast, the TBRI podcast. All of those things are shows that you can listen to that will give you little snippets into being more trauma aware when you parent. And, honestly, any training that dives into attachment, neurobiology and the effects of early adversity are helpful to kind of round out our thinking and how we're looking at trauma and how we're viewing our child's behavior. Because awareness isn't enough, you guys. We can't just be aware that our kids are affected by trauma, but we have to implement systems in our home that adhere to this trauma-informed approach. So this looks like prioritizing felt safety before discipline and y'all.
Speaker 1:This one is so hard, especially in our house this week. This one has been really, really difficult for me. I'll be honest, I'm struggling with this in my own home right now. We are in the process of getting an assessment for one of our kids. We suspect it may be PDA or pathological demand avoidance, which is a trait of autism, but you guys, it looks like disobedience. So, regardless of what the underlying cause ends up being.
Speaker 1:I know that it is rooted in anxiety. This child is very, very anxious and so a lot of this looks in seeking control right. But when I look at the behavior, just from the outset how my brain is wired to look at behavior I look at it and I look at disobedience. But the thing is is I have to break that mindset. I have to remind myself that this is either coming from a place of trauma or it's coming from a place of neurodivergence and anxiety, and I can't consequence them out of that. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work. We have tried it, believe me, just in the way that I was raised, the things that I fall into are leaning on consequences and it just doesn't work. We have done it. So I will tell you that, and we need to change our mindset as parents to be able to view our child's behavior in light of their trauma and in light of their trauma and in light of building relationship, in light of building their felt safety, versus just looking for compliance all the time. But I'll tell you, this is hard, and so y'all can pray for me in that.
Speaker 1:The next thing that we need to do when we're looking at implementing trauma-informed parenting in our home is regulating ourselves before we respond to our child. So you set the temperature in your home, you set the level of calm and you guys, you can't fake it. Our kids, especially the ones that are super hypervigilant, will pick up on it when you're faking the calm. So we have to prioritize habits that actually keep our bodies calm, and that is so, so difficult Drinking water, turning on worship music, hugging your spouse, whatever it takes for you to regulate before you're engaging with your child. You need to make sure that you're implementing those things. We'll also talk about some self-care habits towards the end of the podcast episode today, and those things can be higher structure with our kids.
Speaker 1:Our kids may need more boundaries because they may not have an internal boundary system. My kids don't sense danger. Well, they don't. I shouldn't say all of my kids sense danger well, they don't. I shouldn't say all of my kids. I do have a couple of kids that do have this internal system, but a couple of my kids don't sense danger. Well, they don't know what is too far to push the boundary right. And so we have to prioritize those boundaries for our kids in order to keep them safe, but also in order for them not to feel rejected or controlled in the midst of all those rules.
Speaker 1:We also need to increase our level of nurture. So think about an infant. An infant has somebody that's deciding what to do for them all day, every day. Right, adults decide almost everything for an infant, but also, that baby is always close by our side, day and night. Right, they are close by, so as soon as they need something, we are right there. The same thing needs to be true. If we're giving our kids that high level of structure. We need to increase our level of nurture so that we can meet those needs. Both are equally as important.
Speaker 1:My husband is naturally very high nurture. He is the fun one, he is the connecting one. All of that stuff comes very, very naturally to him, and so, for him, he has to work on increasing his structure, and you guys, he wouldn't be surprised by this. We know this about one another. I, on the other hand, am naturally very, very high structure. I am the one who sets the boundaries in our home. I'm the one that usually holds everybody accountable, but for me, what I have to work on, what I have to concentrate on, is making sure that I have that same level of nurture with my kids, that I'm giving them the same amount of connection, time of investment in that relational aspect as I am providing structure. So making sure that those are equal with one another, that we're high structure and high nurture.
Speaker 1:And the last thing, as we're kind of implementing these trauma-informed environments in our home, is we want to create a home where healing's possible. So that doesn't mean we're perfect, but it means that we're creating an environment where felt safety, connection, relationship is the priority, that we're creating a space that's safe, that feels safe, that's warm and inviting, where our kids can heal, can heal. Healing is not ours to give right, like we are not the healer. No-transcript, all right. The second thing that we need to be doing as we're stepping into foster care or before I mean y'all all of these things are really really important to do before you step into foster care, if at all possible, but if you're already in the thick of it, investing in these areas is just as crucial. So the second area that we're going to talk about is creating stability and agreement in your home. So this journey will disrupt your home. It will disrupt the environment that you currently have, because trauma doesn't just affect the child, it affects everybody under your roof. So it's really, really important that, before you get started, you are investing in the stability of your home and your marriage and your relationships before you ever get licensed. If you're already in this, that investment again is just as crucial. We need to make sure that we're continuing to pour into those relationships with other family members, with our spouse, so that we are connected as a family unit. So think about this Are you and your spouse on the same page about this mission Y'all? If not, you need to stop. You need to put on the brakes. You need to not jump in if everybody's not on the same page.
Speaker 1:Do your biological kids understand as much as they possibly can? I say biological, but I mean kids that are already in the home. So if you have adopted kids that are already in the home, you need to have these conversations with them. Do they understand as much as they can what foster care means? Do they understand what you're stepping into? Are you communicating openly about expectations and boundary and what support looks like? What does everybody need as you step into this? How does everybody stay connected? So making sure that kids that are already in the home. Don't lose your focus or support. They need your continued support. They need a parent to continue to guide them, so making sure that you're setting aside time to invest in them as well. I know in our home it's very often that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and so when kids come in with trauma, it can mean a lot of disruption and a lot of attention that is going towards the kids that are struggling at the moment, but we need to make sure that we're not putting everybody else on the back burner.
Speaker 1:I did a podcast episode with Daniela Coates. She grew up as a biological sibling in a foster home and she talks a lot about how to support biological siblings in this process. So if you are interested, if you are looking to get into this, or if you are already in this and trying to figure out how to support the kids that are already in your home, I highly, highly suggest that you go back to that podcast episode with her. Her name is Daniela Coates. Her organization is called With Siblings. Go back to that podcast episode, listen to it, look her up. She has tons of resources on supporting the kids that are already in your home, but also supporting your marriage, setting up some structure, setting up some habits where you're investing into your marriage, into that relationship.
Speaker 1:Foster care is going to press on every crack. So if there are cracks or holes in your marriage, cracks and holes in your family unit as it is right now, when foster care comes into your family, when foster care comes into your family, those cracks are going to increase. But know that when those cracks show you guys, when we see those, when they're amplified, it can actually be a blessing because it can show spaces where we can grow our marriage, where we can grow our family units to be stronger. At the end of it, this is your invitation to slow down, to reconnect, to really rebuild our relationships and our family unit, rebuild stronger as a stronger unit. I know that this has been great. Foster care, adoption, has been great for my marriage. It has been the hardest thing for our marriage but it has also been the best thing for our marriage. So it can build your connection in a stronger way. But you have to make sure that you're making that a priority.
Speaker 1:Okay, the third thing that you need to do when jumping into foster care is to work on community relationships. So relationships outside of your home. Friendships, church relationships, that sort of thing. You cannot do foster care alone Not well anyway. So we need people in our corner, and not just any people. We need folks who understand the language of trauma, who have sat through caseworker visits and courtroom hearings, who know what it's like to grieve a reunification and to celebrate it all at the same time. Most people are not going to understand this world, and so you need to surround yourself with other people that get it. So right now, before you even take a child into your home, build relationships with other foster and adoptive families in your area. Join a support group. Get coffee with somebody who's been where you are or where you want to be. Text a friend who really gets it. Even if it feels awkward at first, you guys just keep showing up.
Speaker 1:I know that time is really hard for foster parents to be able to come together, because we all are overloaded with things on our plate, things on our schedule, and so it can be really hard to make time for those things. But make time for it. Find a support group in your area that really brings people together, where you can sit together and build friendships. Maybe that's in your church, maybe that's just in your community. I know in our area a lot of our county programs have support groups. They have foster parent associations. Figure out how to get involved in those things so that you're connecting with others that are in this the same way that you are.
Speaker 1:I will say, for me it was really important to connect with other Christian foster and adoptive parents and that's not to leave other foster and adoptive parents out. But I needed some people who understood why I was doing this and who could encourage me and you know with the reasoning that I was using to step out in the first place. So I needed people to encourage me in my faith. I needed people to build me up in the Word and in prayer, and so I needed to really surround myself with some of those people. You may also need a large community of people that are willing to support you that are not necessarily in foster care but support what you're doing. Other foster parents, other adoptive parents probably are not going to help you with laundry and meals and all that kind of stuff because they're struggling to put it on their own table right. They're struggling to get those things done in their own homes. So it can be helpful to have people that are outside of foster care and adoption, that are willing to support you in some of those things. Come alongside of you, pray with you, pray over you. Just make sure that you have both. Make sure you also have foster and adoptive parents that you're connecting with as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, the last one, the fourth thing that you really need to do when you're getting into foster care and adoption is personal wellness habits. Here's the one that I see overlooked the most often and it's the one that I am the most passionate about. If you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you know this is my heart. I want people, when they are stepping into this journey, when they're stepping into this role, to know how trauma affects their body and to be prepared for that, to train their body and their system to support the stress that they're going to be prepared for that, to train their body and their system to support the stress that they're going to be taken on. Your health matters, and it's not just for you, but this affects your entire family. So I really want people to be aware, both aware of how this works and making sure they're implementing these habits early on and not waiting until it's too late until trauma has already kind of taken over their body.
Speaker 1:So trauma in the home has ripple effects and when your kids are dysregulated, our nervous systems absorb that stress. It's called secondary trauma and it's very, very real. It can show up as anxiety, fatigue, brain fog, irritability, even physical illness, things like high blood sugar. I told this story on social media a couple of weeks ago about a group that I'm in where there was a mom who was saying that she wore a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, and to see how you know what spiked her blood sugar throughout the day. And you guys do you know what spiked her blood sugar the most? It wasn't her food, it was her child's meltdown. So we have to understand how trauma impacts our bodies. So it can mean that we have high blood sugar, that we have insulin resistance or our hormone imbalance because of all of that stress that we're taking on.
Speaker 1:We need to make sure that we're learning how and implementing the habits to really combat some of those things beforehand. Without intentional support, we are going to burn out. Our bodies are going to burn out Even emotionally. If we're not burned out, our bodies are going to burn out. Our bodies are going to burn out, even emotionally. If we're not burned out, our bodies are going to burn out. So we may fall into blocked care, and blocked care is where our compassion fades, where we begin to feel numb or resentful. And then we wonder why this thing that we were once so super passionate about now feels impossible, that we were once so super passionate about now feels impossible.
Speaker 1:Y'all that is a natural process that happens in our body when our body is unsupported. So that's why we have to build healthy habits now, before the crisis hits. This means you are fueling your body with real food, even when it's chaotic. You guys, once you get in the habit of fueling your body with real food, even when it's chaotic, you guys, once you get in the habit of fueling your body with real food, that is what you naturally will reach for. But if we're not in that habit, then when things get stressful, we're going to be reaching for all the processed foods, the snacks, the sweets, all the things Moving our body regularly, not to punish yourself but to support your mental health, to support that stress in your body.
Speaker 1:Muscle building muscle. Muscle actually metabolizes stress. So we want to build as much muscle as possible so that we are able to handle the stress load that's going to be coming on us. Making sure that we're drinking enough water. We know that even if we're mildly dehydrated, it sends our body into fight, flight or freeze, and it's impossible for us to be that calm, regulated, steady force in our home that we need to be. And then we need to create margin for rest and to practice that even before kids come into our home. And making sure that, also, we have habits that are nourishing our faith daily. Are we in the Word? Are we spending time in prayer? Do we have those habits already established?
Speaker 1:This is exactly why I created my six-week wellness challenge, you guys. It's to help foster and adoptive parents put systems in place before they hit a wall, not after, but before. It's trauma-informed, so I use a model, a platform called Faster Way to Fat Loss, but what I do is I take it and I put in trauma-informed practices and faith practices trauma-informed practices and faith practices that make this sustainable and simple for you in real life. That helps you establish good habits within the structure of a busy, chaotic parent right, because sometimes it's not just knowing what you need to do, it's understanding how to fit it all in. So one of my clients just this week. We share our weekly wins, and one of her wins this week was my body responds to stress with lots of inflammation and GI issues. Thankfully, those have mostly been eliminated in the past six months. I can see how eating mostly whole foods and working out daily has helped my body learn how to better respond to stress. Also, now when I'm feeling stress, I try to go for a walk, and that makes a huge difference too.
Speaker 1:You guys, this is huge right. Just implementing these simple habits and getting our bodies adjusted to these things so that we can manage the stress that's coming on us, and I want you to join us too. This calling is stressful, but there is a way to support your body through it. You just have to be prepared for it. So I do have a six-week challenge that starts on Monday, and right now I am offering a $50 discount with a discount code. I'll put the code in the show notes and all the details for that if you are interested.
Speaker 1:You guys, you deserve to feel strong, you deserve to feel well, and the children in your care deserve the very best version of you. So, as you're preparing to take kids in your home, or if kids are already in your home. You guys, we need to be implementing all of these strategies so that we are creating the very best environment for them as possible. We have been called to this. We have been called to this. We have been called to this. We have been called to step up in these ways, but it is our job to make sure that we're stewarding this calling well. It's not enough just to show up. We have to be trauma aware, we have to be working on our marriages and our relationships. We have to have people pouring into us that are going to lift us up and encourage us along the way, and we have to be stewarding our bodies and our health in this process.
Speaker 1:If this episode encouraged you, you guys, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review or share it with a friend who might be exploring foster care right now. I would love for people to really have the knowledge and information before they get in, and if you have questions about the Wellness Challenge or you want to talk more about any of the topics I covered today, come hang out with me on Instagram at Nicole T Barlow Y'all. I'm sharing lots of awareness things for Foster Care Awareness Month this month Plus, I just love hearing from you. I've had so many people reach out the past week. There's actually a feature on the podcast where you can text me and you guys. It's so fun hearing from people, hearing what you're getting from the podcast, hearing about your own journey. I love learning about how I can encourage you along the way.
Speaker 1:You are doing really important work. You guys, this is holy work. You do not have to do it alone. We are all here together. We are in a community together. Let's keep showing up for one another and for our kids and for our families, one step at a time.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me pray for us as we close out today. Father God, we thank you for the opportunity to pause, reflect and lean into this calling. Thank you for opening our eyes to the need around us the children who are hurting, the families that are in crisis and the systems that are overwhelmed. Lord, break our hearts for what breaks yours. Let us not turn away from the need, but instead move towards it with compassion, with courage and conviction. We ask that you should raise up more people that are willing to say yes, and not just to the idea of foster care, but to the daily, often unseen, work of you showing up in love.
Speaker 1:You show up every day for us, lord. You hem us in in each hard step that we take. Help us to steward this calling well. Teach us how to care for our own bodies and our hearts so that we can pour out from a place of strength and not survival. Help us to lean into you every step of the way. Remind us that we're not meant to do this in our own power, but through yours. Strengthen our homes, our marriages, our support systems. Fill the gaps where we feel weak, lord, and keep our eyes on you as we serve every single day. We love you, we trust you. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.