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
Adoption, Identity, and Belonging with Adoptee, Isaac Etter
What if the most loving thing we can do for our kids isn’t to fix their pain, but to guide them through it? We sit down with Isaac Etter—transracial adoptee, educator, and founder of Identity and Parenting Different—to unpack what adoptees actually need: honest stories, practical preparation, and communities that make belonging real.
Isaac shares how identity often splits in two for adoptees: Who am I in a family where no one looks like me, and how does my race shape my daily experience? He names a trio many families miss—loss, grief, and guilt—and explains why guilt is so common when adoptees fear disappointing loving parents with honest questions. We dig into how parents can move from protection to preparation in transracial homes, offering concrete examples for talking about bias, public behavior, and safety without making the world feel hopeless. From Nerf guns in the front yard to being followed in a store, Isaac gives language to help kids understand what happened, know where we stand, and feel safe coming back to talk more.
We also map an age-appropriate path for lifelong conversations about race and adoption. Start early with everyday affirmation—books, toys, hair care, and mentors that reflect your child—and build toward practical scripts for school, friends, and authority. Belonging grows when the whole family participates in diverse communities, cultural festivals, and routines that normalize the child’s heritage. And when it comes to birth stories, we talk about sharing truth in stages—without vilifying or hiding—so kids carry a coherent narrative into adulthood.
Looking for ongoing support? Isaac’s work with Identity and Parenting Different brings post-adoption training and free resources to families, agencies, and states. Listen for the frameworks and scripts we use at home, then share the episode with someone who needs it. If this helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what’s one conversation you’ll start this week?
Link: https://www.parentingdifferent.com/
Connect with me on Instagram:
@nicoletbarlow https://www.instagram.com/nicoletbarlow/
Website: https://nicoletbarlow.com/
Welcome to the Foster Parent Well Podcast, where we have real, candid, faith-built 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. Can we just pause for a second and talk about how it's already November? I feel like I blinked and we jumped from strummer summer straight into the holiday season. Also, where I live, I feel like we also skipped the fall weather, which I love the fall weather. So I'm really upset that we went straight from uh summer to what it feels like winter where I live. Um my porch still has pumpkins, but I'm already thinking about Christmas lights and hot cocoa. Um, November also brings something really, really close to my heart, and that's adoption awareness month. This month is about more than just sharing adoption stories. It's about shining a light on the thousands of children and teens who are still waiting for forever families. It's a reminder that awareness leads to action. And maybe that means opening your home if your home's not already open, but it could also mean you mentoring somebody, you supporting a foster or adoptive family or encouraging somebody on their journey, or so simply helping others understand the beauty and the complexity that comes with adoption. Um, we need to be those of us that see what the need, we see what needs to happen. We are the ones who really need to advocate and spread awareness in our communities. Well, today we're leaning into that complexity with a really special guest, Isaac Etter. Isaac is a transracial adoptee and social entrepreneur that is reshaping how we support foster and adoptive families. Adopted at age two, he brings both lived experience and professional expertise to his work as the founder of identity and parenting different. He is a sought-after speaker and educator, which I think you'll understand why. Um, but Isaac really sparks honest conversations about how to support adopted children while they grow up. He equips parents and child welfare professionals with the tools and understanding needed to build homes where adoptees feel seen, heard, and truly valued. And y'all, isn't that what we all want for our kids to feel seen, heard, and valued? So we're talking about how to support our kids through the layers of adoption today, especially in transracial, foster, and adoptive families, where identity, belonging, and connection all intertwine. I think this conversation is gonna stretch you in the best way. It's eye-opening, it's hopeful, and so, so needed. So grab your coffee, settle in, and let's jump into this conversation with Isaac Etter. Welcome, Isaac, to the show. I'm so excited to have you on. Um, so tell us a little bit about you, about your story, and about how you came to work in this adoption space.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. Uh, first, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Um, so I am Isaac, I am an adoptee first. I think that's probably a good way to put it is that uh I was adopted when I was two. And so I was also adopted transracially, and that became a big part of how I ended up in this space. Um, but I guess maybe the story of how I ended up in the adoption space as a more of like a professional and a worker was that I was asked by a social worker when I was 19 to give a presentation at uh their cultural training. And it was just something I was volunteering and doing, you know, I was just a kid. And after a couple months of doing it, she pulled me aside and said, I don't know what else you're doing, but you should probably just do this. And uh at 19, that started me into figuring out how in the world to make a career in adoption, which, unless you're a social worker or working in the adoption space, uh, there isn't maybe necessarily a clear blueprint on that. Um, and so I started figuring it out then and and started speaking and offering uh webinars mainly. Um and that grew and grew. And as I started to speak more places and get more insight, uh I started to realize that the same questions I was answering on one side of the country, I was answering on another side. Yep. And it seemed pretty inefficient, um, though personal, um, but it seemed inefficient to trying to be answering a lot of these questions in like a 90-minute, you know, webinar. And so in 2021, I founded uh Identity, and Identity was built around enhancing post-adoption support. Our goal was to make post-adoption better at adoption agencies and states. Um, and over the last four years now, uh, we've partnered with several private adoption agencies, and then I think we're at three states now, um, provide post-adoption programmings across their states for their family, uh, which opens them up to not only the collection of resources that we make on an ongoing basis, but also uh sometimes three to four uh webinars a month that their families can come and get access to, uh, depending on what they need.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and then out of that, because I guess the story isn't over yet, um out of that, uh, we we found another issue, which was that uh a lot of families that had started maybe following me online or I'd run into uh were seeing that a lot of stuff was happening, but really did not have a way to access it. Um we really only distributed our resources through states and agencies. Uh, we did not have like a like a good way or a kind of a function to do it directly to families. Uh we tried a bunch of small things, but it nothing really seemed successful. Um so we decided to launch a parent focus company called Parenting Different in June of this year. Um, and it is really just like a free newsletter where we give away weekly resources. Um, and then we also give parents the chance to attend our training so they can buy tickets to our trainings if they would like to come to trainings. Um, but 99% of the stuff that we do at Parenting Different is meant to be free. It's meant to be given away. Um, it's meant to also give uh people a chance to get our paid resources if they would like to. Uh, but since we've always created such a large volume of resources, um, we wanted a way to get those into everyday parents' hands, whether their agency or state uh paid for them to have access to it or not. Um so that's identity and parenting different. Um, so that's maybe the adoption work side. Uh, and then personally, uh, I'm a dad to a five-year-old now. Um, I'm a big runner. I've been really into the running world, and I'm trying to run my first ultra marathon in May. And so I have a lot of training going on and uh just trying to enjoy each day as we're trying to build interesting things in adoption and manage parenthood and all that.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. I I love how you're kind of taking all of the opportunities that that God's kind of laying out there for you because there are so many opportunities for and so many needs for parents to really have good resources and good understanding. Um and I think your perspective coming from the adoptee perspective is so, so crucial. So, what was it like growing up as an adoptee?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Growing up as an adoptee, uh, I think for me, um in a lot of my experience growing up as an adoptee has definitely um influenced how we think about the work. Uh, but I will say that it's not the only influence of our work. Um there are some themes that I found of my story that I've found that resonate across a lot of adult adoptees that I meet. Um, and so some of those themes are lack of identity, right? So um there was one sense of that where I was growing up in an adoptive family where I was not able to see where my features came from. Um, my mannerisms were different. I grew up in a home that also had biological siblings, so I was also watching my siblings reflect my parents and their features and their attributes while I was not. I know that's not every adoptee's experience, but I would say that's one layer of identity that was a huge challenge for me growing up. Um, and another layer of it was cultural identity or racial identity, as we mainly talk about it in transracial adoption, uh, which was that I didn't also grow up around people that look like me. There were three other uh black adoptees in the community I grew up in, and it was just us. Um so I yeah, I also had a huge gap in racial identity that grew bigger and bigger as I got older, um, which is usually what we see. Um, usually when we think about elementary years, we think about questions and insecurity around looking different. But as we get into teen years and into early adulthood, there's usually more of a racial identity crisis because there is a lack of ability to understand where you fit in between these two worlds, um, especially for transracial adopters like myself who did not grow up in communities that represented uh their cultural identity. And so um identity was a big struggle for me on both of those fronts, uh, trying to understand my place um as just a person and where I fit into the world. And then especially as I got older, trying to figure out where I fit into uh life as a black person, as somebody who was having a racial experience. Um I didn't grow up facing a ton of racism. I grew up as a homeschooled um black kid in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Um, and so obviously the most diverse area you can think of. Um and so it was it was complicated uh as I went into adulthood. Um another thing that I'll talk about, maybe about what it was like growing up, is that I also feel like I dealt with a bunch of guilt. Um and um there's three elements I like to talk about when I talk about what adoptees usually experience, um, and it's loss, grief, and guilt. Um and we don't usually talk about guilt in that mix, uh, but I like to focus on guilt because I think guilt is actually a very um prevalent adoptee experience. And guilt is centered around this idea that you are living a life that you are not um unthankful for, but you are confused by. Um and so, i.e., loss in grief, right? We see grief show up in adoptees in many ways. Um, and so usually, um, and I'll use myself as the example, for me, a lot of my grief and loss around adoption, my desire to be with my birth parents, to understand where they were, to um understand why they placed me for adoption was all um, I would say, surrounded in grief at in um in guilt as much as it was grief. Um and so this desire to not hurt my parents' feelings, yeah, to not ruffle feathers, to not ruin uh the beautiful story that might have been told around the dinner table, um, to not ruin the adoption day celebrations, right? Um and I have found as I've connected with a lot of adult adoptees that this is a very common experience, maybe actually more common than adoptees who just like struggle with the idea of adoption. There are many adoptees who um might say that they don't struggle with the fact that they were adopted, but they have always felt guilt around their curiosity. Um, and so I find guilt to be a really core theme in the adoptees that I meet. Um, and it has been a core theme for me as well. Um, I will obviously pair that with grief and loss, which all adoptees feel to some degree. Um, and I definitely showed through like behavior and um through anger at times. Um, but I would say identity guilt, uh, i.e., or slash uh grief and loss were the main things that I experienced or felt growing up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I love that you brought up that guilt piece because I don't think that that's something that a lot of people talk about. And I've noticed with one of my kids, so I adopted a sibling group of five. Um, and so they all they all feel very different about adoption and about their parents. And it's been very interesting to watch their unique experiences, even though they they all came from the same biological family. Um, and they're raised in our family, their experiences with adoption, how they feel about adoption, how they feel in our space, how they feel about their biological family varies so much. And one of the things I noticed with one of my kids is she there was definitely grief and loss, but not necessarily um, she wasn't adversarial towards adoption. Like she wanted to be adopted. But, but, but there was still something there. So I love that guilt piece because I think it puts a name to it. Um you know, and for me as a parent, like I was trying to help her navigate. Like I'm watching all of these adoptee stories, I'm like, it's okay if you don't want to be adopted. She was like, but I do. And I'm like, no, but but it really, it's okay. And she was like, no, but I do. That's not it, you know? And so, you know, trying to help her navigate those feelings and make her feelings okay, but really also like listening to other adoptees and and pulling out what they but not placing those identities on them either, because each one of them, like I said, feels very different about adoption and and what that means to them.
SPEAKER_03:100%. And I think that's true with all adoptees, to be honest. I I think we see a lot of uh obviously narratives that are more prevalent. Um, but um a lot of a lot of the research that at least I agree with on uh that has been done on adoptees um has shown that um the range of feelings is actually very extreme. Yeah. Um and most adoptees fall within what is called a neutral state. Um and I I how I interpret that data is different than I think how other people have interpreted that data. I have interpreted that data as in adoptees do not feel anger or um like their adoption was an overall bad thing. I do not take that as they felt their adoption was an overall good thing. Um and I think that's how a lot of times that data is interpreted. Yes. Um, and I think that when we think about adoptee experiences, even adoptees who are excited to be adopted, who want to be adopted, um recognizing the trauma that exists in family separation as a whole means that we're dealing with complex layers of loss. Yep. And the expression of loss can range in so many ways. And I sometimes I get um weary and and love that parents are more like, let me know how you feel, it's okay if you feel that way, over just like not saying anything or leaning into their children, because I think that what you might find, and what I what I honestly think does happen a lot of times is that children who maybe show no emotion or regret or maybe even positivity towards adoption as children grow into adults who begin to process it more. And as they start to process it more, a new layer of guilt comes around because they're like, oh man, I wrote all my papers about how great adoption was, but now adoption is like really complex for me. And now I'm feeling sad. And what happens if I go back to my parents now and they like they still have my like I love that I was adopted like paper hanging up in their room? And it's like, um, that's you know what I mean? That I think is a really real adopte experience. Um, you know what I mean? It's also very well depicted in This Is Us. Um, I talk about This Is Us a lot because I think it it it just showcases a range of experiences so well. You know, Randall's 35 or something, and he goes and finds his birth dad, and a whole new wave of experiences around his adoption begins right then.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and if we can frame our children in that mindset, I think we can have um longer time horizons and better frameworks of maybe how we approach conversations around adoption with our children, just like you're doing. It's okay, like letting them know it's okay if you don't like adoption. And they might tell you, no, I love this, this is the best thing ever. But constantly letting them know, like you're always open to more complex conversation about it, allows that dialogue to always be able to exist. Um, and I think when adoptees don't have that dialogue able to exist, that is when a lot of guilt enters the arena, um, whether it's when they're young or it's when they're older.
SPEAKER_01:I appreciate that in that as an adopte as an adoptive parent, like I have noticed I was much more vocal with my kids that were adopted at an older age than I was with my kids that were adopted when they were very young. Um, and and as they're going through different stages of development. So I have like two groups of kids. I have like my big group, um, my older kids who are who are moving into adulthood now. And that has been a different season to process how they feel about everything. Um, but my little kids were very little when they were adopted. And now they're moving into middle school teenage years and processing things who they are, who we are, what adoption is. They're processing everything in a very different way. And I think that's typical of just child development in general. Um, as we process our identity, I think all of us go through that process of chain, you know, viewing our parents differently, viewing ourselves differently as we grow. I'm still not sure how I feel about myself most days. Um, but but to really understand that our our kids may feel different ways at different stages and allowing them that freedom.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. 100%. Um, my mom says something that uh I think is really good about grief being cyclical. Um, and um when we present together, she always makes this point. Um, because I do think that that's a good way to think about these cycles. You know what I mean? When your kids are young, you might not see any signs of grief. But as they start to grow into these different years, you might see it in different ways. Yeah. Um, behavior, overperformance, perfectionism are all signs as well. Um, but then especially as they get into adulthood, it might transition again. Um and just seeing these um these seasons as all different things, I think is really important. Um and and I think it also like, you know, as you're as you're finding by keeping these doorways to conversation open, um, it also builds a lot of trust and attachment by being prepared or already thinking about it within that framework. Uh because your kids aren't having to like wonder if you're if you've thought about it, wonder if you're okay with it, wonder if they can talk about adoption. Um and when kids don't have to wonder about those things, I think it really helps them a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's good. Um, well, you brought up culture and race as well. So for in our experience, my kids um racially look like me, but culturally, there are still a whole lot of differences that we've had to navigate, especially with my older kids, um, because they had a worldview that was kind of already I mean, not that it's ever set set, but you know what I'm saying? Like they had their own thoughts and right, they had their own autonomous view of the world, I I guess. And so that worldview wasn't framed in our home. So they had a very culturally different perspective, um, which is which is fine, but but having to integrate those things. But then I do think when you add in the race element, right? It adds a whole different layer, a whole different dynamic. Um, and so talk to me a little bit about that, especially growing up with siblings that do not necessarily look like you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, and a lot of good points there um about culture versus race, and and I think that's really good to keep in mind, especially with older kids. Um, for me, I think that um race in in my in how I was raised was a very big afterthought. Um it was certainly noticed. So, right, like let's, you know, it's hard, it's hard when you have like an all-white family. I think I have like a, I'm not sure if this is a video podcast, but like there's a picture of my family, right? It's like hard not to tell which one is. Um it was never not a conversation, right? So race was in one sense recognized, yeah. Um, but it was never recognized as uh as an experience that might be different than theirs, like on a life level. It was it was it was an appearance difference. Yep. Um and um in some ways we might like say, like, okay, great, like treat everybody the same, like good, you know, we want kids to not feel like they're different. Um, and yes, that is true to one degree, but the challenge I think in transracial adoption is that when we don't recognize race at all or have conversations about race, when the world treats your child differently because of their because of their race, then they are left confused, navigated, and hurt um by this. And so for me, that was pretty much the instance. I learned about a lot of racial issues on the internet, and that left me really confused on how to navigate what was gonna happen to me as an adult, like what my experience was gonna be. Right. Um and then as soon as I went to college and I started experiencing bias um and kids in my dorm room who were white, uh, wanting to be able to call me the N-word, like and these things, like I didn't know how to navigate them. Yeah, so this is this is not an unusual experience for transracial adoptees either. Like my story, I don't think, is particularly unique. This is this is the story that I hear across a lot of adoptees that are especially my age and and older. And uh that that's also how it was growing up. I mean, my siblings didn't didn't know didn't know me or think of me as anything other than their brother. And so when I eventually brought race up as a topic in my family, not only were my parents confused, but I think also my siblings were confused.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, because they never had to see me outside of the framework of their brother. They were also never taught that I might have a different experience.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And so it was kind of a shock to the whole family. And then as my parents became more educated, as we got closer and started having these conversations more, my siblings were actually able to start to recognize and note the ways in which um I was treated differently that I didn't even notice. They were able to make sense of comments that were made to me, but not them. Um, and then as they grew into, you know, now almost all my siblings are adults except for my youngest brother. But now, even as adults, they are much more aware of how race plays a factor, not only in my life, but in in culture and society. They can they can actually see it. Um, and I think that's not probably only due to me, me, but it definitely has a large part to do with the conversation that I brought into our home. And that I think helped us all as a family feel a lot closer. Um I definitely experienced things growing up that I didn't even recognize as racism, you know, like my friends leaving fried chicken and watermelon on my parents' doorstep for my 16th birthday. Um, my parents will talk about hair policies that what I was the only one who had to follow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um and so there were these things that were happening that uh my parents certainly at times were advocating against, but they were still happening without me understanding that these were due to me being racially different.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And I think a lot of parents understand to some degree like racism and bias, but their intention, as most good parents, is to protect their children, right? And so they think about protection instead of education. And and and in reality, when it comes to transracial adoption, especially as your kid is getting older, they need a mix of these things. They need to be protected, obviously, from hard and heavy things, but they need to understand these things, right? And so if, you know, for me it was a choir, the choir was trying to make me cut my afro, but there was another white kid that had an afro, and so my parents brought it up. Um, and so in like in in those kinds of moments, those are a moment where you know you can also teach your kid how to advocate for themselves.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Um, same thing with the fried chicken and watermelon, right? My mom talks about being so upset about that, but I wasn't upset about that because I didn't understand, like I didn't understand this the context behind it. Right? I didn't understand that this would be something offensive. And so um there is a really big element, I think, when it comes to raising transracial adoptees that that is educating them on how to navigate these experiences that will inevitably happen to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I we experience so my um son went to school with some kids. There was a group of like 10 guys, I mean, just best friends, like the great, great, great group of kids. Like just a great group of kids. Um, and I it must have been, I mean, they were driving, so it must have been their sophomore junior year in high school. They're over at a friend's house and uh we're going to play basically hide and go seek outside. They wanted to play hide and go seek in the neighborhood. And uh two of the the black boys said, we can't do that. That's not safe for us. Um, because if somebody sees us running around in their yard, they could think something different, right? And obviously their parents had taught them these nuances, these things to keep them safe, right? And I remember thinking, gosh, one, how how sad, how sad that here's a group of 16 and 17-year-old boys that want to play hide and seek. They're not out partying, they're not out doing things, they just want to play hide and seek. But also as a parent, if I had a child that looked different than me in my home, I would never think to teach them that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I would never think to teach them that. Um, I mean, our community is great. I love our community. Um but even in our great community, I the the forethought of their parents to teach and their parents knew to teach them that because of their own experiences, because they had had similar experiences, right? But as somebody who's never experienced that, I would never think to teach that. And so I my best friend in high school and growing up was black, and I called her and I was like, Hey, did you experience any of these things in high school and college? And she said, kind of similar to you, not as much in high school, in college and as she became an adult, a little bit more, but her brother experienced a lot of them growing up. And and I thought, how naive was I just to kind of walk in ignorance this whole time and not really. Really think about it. I mean, you know, I was kind of like you, like, I will protect somebody if I see something going on. I'm gonna step in to protect, but not thinking about the work that has to be done to prepare your kids for the world when they look different.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, the hide and go seek story is so real. Um yeah, I mean, that's just such a great um, I think, example of the the preparation that's needed that doesn't usually exist in transracial homes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, I do a I do a training for transracial parents, and one of the sections is like conversations about like public behavior. And in that, like I I might even end up using that hide and go seek story, to be honest, because it's such a good one. But usually what I use is examples of um like Nerf guns and BB guns and and um really this idea of helping our children be more mindful about their behavior and what somebody passing by might think. Um, because I think a lot of parents are um unsure how to navigate the conversation because they don't want to make the world a big and bad place. They don't want what they don't want to do is paint this picture like the whole world is bad. And I usually try to frame these as you can't just like you don't know who's driving by. And so what we're doing is we're helping our kids be more mindful in the off chance somebody with a bias, with a prejudice is passing by um and may see them. Just like those kids were thoughtful, you know, we shouldn't play hide and seek because we don't know what somebody may perceive. And that's a really important skill for transracial parents to be able to do is to be able to help their kids be thoughtful about what they do, when they do it, and where they do it, um, not usually taking away the behavior, um, but actually just being mindful about where they do it so that their children understand how to navigate the world safely. Because there's also a lot of stories of transracial adoptees uh having the police called on them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And so, you know, using these as kind of frameworks to think about okay, how do we how do we just reframe things for our kids to understand what other people might think of them off the bat and how to redirect things in a more positive direction? I always say, like, you know, if you're playing with Nerf or BB guns, play in a backyard instead of a front yard, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:You know, play away from open roads instead of, you know, right, you know, don't be running around the neighborhood. Um, but you know, play in a, you know, if you're gonna do that, try to go to an enclosed area where maybe there's some woods or something like that, but you're not gonna be seen by random, you know, strangers. And helping our kids be mindful about these things, I think, is a really important skill as they start to spend more and more time away from us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How do you do that though, Isaac, in a way that doesn't create the narrative that there's something wrong with their race? Does that make sense? Like, how do you have those conversations? Because I I don't I don't know I would know how to have those conversations delicately enough to where I'm I'm also helping my child understand the beauty in their culture and their race and their identity, but but seeing some of the challenges as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a really great question. Um, and I and I do break this down in my book very um strategically because I usually think that these things um they happen in seasons. And so um I in my book I give a breakdown of the best things to do from pretty much zero to eighteen, and it goes from like zero to five, five to twelve, twelve to eighteen, eighteen and beyond. And usually what I say is that the ideal is that you're hitting each phase because each phase kind of builds upon each other. And so obviously, in certain adoptions that are older, you might not be able to, but um, in the zero to five, I think is actually where you like have a lot of this narrative built in that you're trying to do about them being beautiful. Um, because I always say in zero to five, you're creating the home that celebrates difference and doesn't make them feel weird for being different. So it's you know them seeing themselves depicted in movies and books and art and things like that. Um, and it's also how you speak about their skin and how you treat hair time, which is a big one. Um hair is a big one that can uh it can be detrimental for adoptees, right? They can have only negative memories of their hair and then all they want to do is like have their hair straightened. Um, and so I think you set the framework for a lot of these things in their early years. Um, and obviously, if you're setting the framework of these things in the early years, positivity around their culture, positivity around their race, as you start to get into the more complex things, they're actually not uh, I think, questioning as much whether they are whether like their race is bad or not, uh, which is why we don't necessarily see that dialogue um go down in like homes of the same race, right? Right. Hispanic or black or Asian households who are having these same conversations. They're growing up in cult, they're seeing themselves represented, they're seeing themselves positively. And so when they're having conversations around um what they may experience, their first thought is not that something is wrong with them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And I think where you might find this happen with transracial adoptees is if they grow up in communities where they don't see themselves represented, they don't see themselves, in a sense, celebrated, um, right? Kids' toys, books, movies, things like that, um, they might, when you go to have these conversations, because it might be one of the first times that they're really having a conversation about their race, start to have a more complex experience, which might involve thinking something is wrong with them. And so I think how your environment is set up plays a big role in how these conversations happen. And when you go into these conversations, I think it's important to one, be very strategic about age appropriateness and thinking about building upon a conversation, not a one-time conversation. Um, a lot of times I think when we talk about transracial adoption, we we almost talk about it like the talk. You know what I mean? Like it's gonna be this like one time. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:We're like prepping for which the talk also shouldn't be a one-time thing. It should be an ongoing conversation, but absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:We could do another podcast about that too. Um so um, but yeah, that's I think that's how a lot of people think about it. I think that they think like their kids gonna hit their kids gonna ask about race one day, and they're gonna like zone in and they're gonna have the race conversation, and that's gonna be kind of it. Um, but these these moments they happen, I think, throughout your child's life, and they're not in these big ways. Like I said, like how you talk about your child's hair and how you treat that time learning how to do their hair, teaching them how to do their hair, that is a race conversation. Um it's not the race conversation we're thinking of because we're always thinking about them in like racism and like bias context, but that is a cultural identity moment. And so that is a race conversation about teaching them self-love, um, which we all need. Um so when you do get into having actual conversations about um race, bias, racism, I think that starting early in in frameworks, and usually these, I'm not gonna lie, usually these these happen pretty early because kids, I think, especially nowadays, are either having experiences earlier or learning about things on the internet earlier. And so um I think these things happen earlier, whether it's a kid that said a slur that he heard on you know TikTok or YouTube at school, um, or it's a video your kids come across, they might come across um racialized content earlier. And I think one of the ways that parents can approach this is uh by one in the at least the framework that I wrote for this, is that it's one like naming the thing. So um, in a sense, like your kid is eight years old and they get followed around a grocery store. What we might say in that instance is that um, hey, some people um have you know personal bias uh because of your skin tone, and that's why that was happening, right? That's why you're being followed around the store. We don't think that's right, but if that ever happens, you can come to us. And I I like this as a very elementary framework because um it names action, which I think is really important, especially as your kids become more aware. Um, so you could also think about using this in the context of somebody um making a comment in a grocery store to you guys together, right? Um, it frames you against it. So that's that's another part that I think is really important because then uh an adoptee might not be confused about whether that behavior was wrong or right. Um so it frames the action as wrong, and then it also opens up the doorway to continued conversation. So it lets them know when these things happen, you can always come to me. Um and so then there's no fear around if this happens again, um, where should I go? What should I do? You know, is you know, if especially if they don't know if it's right or wrong, they might say, well, maybe that's what my mom or dad would have done too. Um and so that's a very, I think, simple frame that parents can use from an early age to start the conversation. And then you build upon that conversation as they get older into those more mindful conversations, into those more driving conversations, in those kind of hard conversations about maybe how to think about law enforcement, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And so, you know, I think that if parents learn to have those smaller frame conversations, the bigger ones actually get easier.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's really good. Well, how do you, I mean, I imagine that growing up in a an all-white family where nobody looks like you, um, there's elements of belonging, right? Where you're trying to figure out where you belong. And so how do parents help their kids um feel like they belong, even though there might be differences?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Uh I mean I think this answer is almost all community. Um, the communities that you raise them in, I think, are the things that matter the most here. Um, it's hard to understand belonging when you're like the only person of this race at church or um at school. Um, it's hard to understand belonging um in these contexts where you might be the only kid who's adopted. So um we, you know, we talk about race a lot, which I think is important, but I think there's also an element of adoptee experiences. And so only foster kid as well, right? So you can take all these experiences and say, you know, if we want to build a positive sense of belonging, we're going to want to think about a community that is like adoption foster care competent. Um, right. Um, a whole nother side of my experience that was hard and detrimental was the ways in which the community I grew up in did not understand adoption and disregarded adoption grief and loss, and uh, you know, viewed me as a troubled kid instead of a kid that was experiencing loss and trying to navigate it. Right. Um so these communities also I think matter a lot for adoptees and can be a little bit hard to find, but uh depending on where you're at, there is usually like some kind of adoption or foster care community. Um and so that's one layer of I think belonging that's really important. Um and then, you know, when it comes to racial identity, I think it's you know, it's about being involved in things where they would see themselves, uh, whether it's the church you go to, the school you've decided to send them to, uh, the programs you've decided to be a part of. Um, and then also making these things like um like family things. I think a lot of times um it can be tempting or like parents can think about this as like just something like Jimmy does, right? Um but a lot of times that's more isolating. Um that's not how we would want to, like that's not how we would feel like we belonged either. If like our parents were dropping us off at this thing and then coming back to get us, um, right? That's not how we I think build belonging or cultural identity for children. And so it's about what you do as a family, where you go as a family.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um and can there be spaces that um are representative of your family and your child's culture in the communities that you're in? And I think the more it's a whole family thing, the more you build that sense of belonging. Um, I give ideas of like festivals, like um a lot of times parents will see their kids struggling and then all of a sudden they'll want to start going to like like the African American festival, right? Um but by the time your child's like eight, nine, ten, like it's it's not too late. Like your child still might enjoy it, but it becomes a very evident we're just doing this now because of this. Yeah. Whereas like if you had been going every year as a family for their whole time being adopted, they would actually never know, they would never know another experience. Yeah. And so that sense of their culture belonging in your regular routine would already be instilled. Um, and so you might have avoided the challenge in the first place, or you might have already had an outlet to go for the challenge in the first place because you've been building this community for years. Um, and so just reframing our thoughts about um what builds belong and how to do it, I think is really important. Um, and viewing this as like a family thing, not just like for our child, even though I know the spoiler alert is that it is for you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_01:But well, I I think it is for the child, but I think that it can be for the whole family and and not just going to events of that particular child's culture, but really exposing to our our kids to all different cultures, and everybody may not have those same. So I live in Metro Atlanta, and so we have you can do anything, like there is anything anywhere.
SPEAKER_02:I know.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I mean, there is no excuse. You can you can go to cultural events of all different cultures, um, and but really exposing our kids to those different environments just in general creates a more whole world view, I think. Absolutely for us and for them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think it does entirely. Um, and what a great area. I mean, I loved living in Atlanta. Um, and so yeah, no, I totally agree. It can be it can be any race and culture. Um, I think obviously if you have a kid of one race, maybe special emphasis, but I think this yeah, yeah, there is this this exposure and and expanding our worldview never hurts anybody. Yeah, I mean we always talk about this in the frame of transracial adoption, but I I tend to usually think like this would probably be good for anybody, like you know what I mean? Like just going outside of our regular world like always helps us in the find expansion. It's like when people go to a third world country or like uh out international for like a month, they come back like almost like brand new people. Yeah, and it's like you could actually do that in your backyard too many times.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, absolutely, but it's funny. My my 19-year-old um is is adopted and you know, is just trying to figure out as she's transitioning to adulthood, is trying to figure out some identity things, and she is actually going to Japan for three months next year. Um, and she's preparing for that right now. So I'm really excited about that experience for her just to kind of get a different vision. My um one of my other kids has done a bunch of mission trips, and so, you know, his perspective of the world is different because of that. And so to really um for all of us to have those experiences that broaden the way that we see people, that we see life, that we see the world in general, I think is always really good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, makes a huge difference.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned, you know, some ways that parents can really invest in their kids and help them belong and help to start having some of these conversations. Um, but one of the things that I have heard you say is talking about how parents can't fix everything for our kids, right? So we can't fix the biases of other people, which is why we educate. We can't fix um, you know, our kids' grief and loss and trauma, right? So talk to me a little bit about that. And if our job isn't to fix it, because I don't think that's just an adoptive parent thing. I think that's an all-parent thing. We want to fix everything for our kids so that they have, you know, a happy life. We don't want them to hurt, we don't want them to feel pain. Um, but especially as an adoptive parent, I think we step into these spaces and wanna and want to fix things for our kids. Um, so what is our role and how do we walk through that role well?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, very good question. Um, I think that our role or the role of an adoptive parent, just to center that experience, um the the role of an adoptive parent is to be like a guide and a partner through the complexities of the adoption experience. And obviously there is a role of parent, right? So we're not taking that off the table, right? Sure, sure, sure. But I think that if we think of ourselves as more of um a guide, more of a support through this experience, the the actions in which we take might be different, right? If we're trying to fix, we're like trying to like block a bunch of stuff. We're like, we're blocking, you know, birth mom's history, birth dad's history, and yeah, we're blocking the racial experiences, and we're doing a ton of protecting. But if we're like guiding and supporting through, we might reframe how we think about it. So we might say, Well, because I'm a parent and because there is a protection role of being a parent, I need to be thoughtful about how these things enter their world, but I don't need to hide them or protect them from them in general. And so you might be able to say, Well, at some point they're gonna be curious about their adoption, why they ended up in this, why they ended up in this home. And birth parents have a complex story, hard story, not a story that's for a three-year-old. So, how do we think about guiding them through their story in a way that um doesn't frame us against their birth parent, but tells them the truth and prepares them for adulthood. So we might, when they're five and ask, say, hey, your parents struggled, let's just say substance is the issue. Your parents just struggled a little bit with different uh, you know, substances, different things, and because of that, they couldn't raise you. And I would love to tell you more, um, but we want you to know just like for now that that's the reason, right? Yeah, and then you might be able to build upon that story and say, well, hey, you know, it was substance this and it was this and it was that, because there's always usually more to the story, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Um but you think about guiding them through the journey versus protecting them from it. And a lot of adoptees, for a mix of reasons, it's not just because of protection, but for a mix of reasons have been like hidden from their story, hidden from hard things, hidden from the realities. And I think one of the layers is protection, but usually another one is that this that adopted parents want to avoid the idea of difference. They want to avoid the idea of their feeling like their adopted kid is adopted. And so they want to avoid these conversations in general, which is another reason why thinking about yourself as a support system through the journey, as a guide through the journey, um, is a better framework. Um, and so that's that would be my I guess my answer to that question, which you know, I think it could probably be built upon, but you can't you can't fix pretty much anything that is surrounded with that is around the ideas of grief and loss.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um you can obviously fix environment, right? That's what you're doing, right? You're giving your child um all the all the pros of adoption that we talk about, like more security, uh, ideally a better, you know, childhood, um, and better opportunities, right? These are the things that in a sense you I think quote unquote fix as an adoptive parent, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um these are these are the fixes. Everything else isn't usually not fixable. So you are figuring out, okay, as my child is going to struggle in their own way, right? Because every adoptee will be different with these elements of grief and loss, with identity, with navigating at some point uh this big uh possible mystery, but not always a mystery, of birth parent. Um, I have to figure out how am I going to best support them and guide them through it. And if you really think about how to best support them and guide them through it, you'll think about like what if other adoptees needed? What do some of these principles of TBRI teach? How do we think about sharing hard things in in ways that children can understand? But then how do we build upon those conversations as they get older and can handle more information? Um, and that is an incredibly, I think, powerful thing for adoptive parents to do is to really in each season be supporting their kids through this journey and not leaving them to have to navigate it on their own, which is what I think most adoptees, um, whether their parents mean to or not, do feel is that maybe we can talk about one side of it, we can't talk about another. Um, and so really becoming this support and guide for your child, I think also builds a s like a builds a bond and attachment that is usually, from what I've seen, is usually what's being pursued and trying to fix. And trying to fix, you're trying to normalize, build a bond, build attachment, build, you know, we're not different. Um so let me fix all these things, but it actually usually is connected through being seen. Uh it's one of the reasons why we say like adoptees need to feel seen, heard, and valued. Um, because adoptees can tell when they're not being seen. Um, most adoptees um will will resonate with feelings of not being seen, not being seen as their full self. Um, not being seen either as an adoptee, as a child of a different race, um, as somebody navigating grief and loss. And when they're not heard, they haven't felt heard um in that struggle, in their complex feelings, uh, they notice that. And then ultimately, I think they don't feel valued because they don't feel valued as a full person. They feel valued as um as a byproduct of adoption. Um and if your children don't feel seen, heard, and valued, your your layer of attachment and bonding ha has not even reached its its full potential.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I yeah, I think that as adoptive parents, I mean, most of the adoptive parents that I know, like we want that. We want our kids to be seen, heard, and valued. I think a lot of times our own fears pop up and we act out of our fear or or we don't, we just don't know what to do. So I love all the information that you have given us and the guidance. I think, and you've been able to verbalize it so well so that as parents, we can kind of see your perspective and see a different route to kind of get to that same end that I think we we all want.
SPEAKER_03:That's the goal. As much practicality as possible is what I try to do. Uh even if it comes out a little sideways. Um, I I try to always have the most the most practical way I can get things out to parents because I think that's what's missing a lot in this space. I agree. Here's how we actually do it instead of like the idea of it. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Yep. Well, Isaac, how can listeners find you? Uh you have been so helpful. I think even in the short conversation today, I know that listeners will want to find you and find your resources.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, thank you. Um, so on Instagram, I'm just like Isaac underscore edder, I-sa-c underscore e-t-t-e-r. Um, and so I share a lot of stuff on my personal Instagram. Um, and so if you are an adoptive parent, foster parent looking for uh just free resources and encouragement every week you can go to you know www.parentingdifferent.com and sign up for our newsletter. It is completely free. Um, or you can follow parenting different on Instagram.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. And I will link all of those things in the show notes. Um, but Isaac, this has been so helpful. Um, I think really just gaining your perspective and just the way that you have interacted with other people and have kind of compiled um lots of different perspectives to be able to set up a framework to really help foster an adoptive parents. I think is crucial.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. What a rich conversation. I'm so thankful to Isaac for sharing his story and perspective with such honesty and grace. His insight reminds us that adoption doesn't end when the papers are signed. It is a lifelong journey of connection, identity, and growth for both our kids and for us as parents. As foster and adoptive parents, this month isn't just about awareness, it's about advocacy. We get to use our voices, our experiences, and our families to remind the world that every child deserves to belong. Sometimes that looks like cheering on another family stepping into the process. And sometimes it looks like doing the hard heart work to love our kids well, especially when their stories hold complexity and pain. If this episode encouraged you, would you take a moment to share it with another foster adoptive parent this month? Let's keep spreading awareness and building community of families who love well and who advocate boldly. Let's take a minute to pray together as we wrap up. We thank you, Father, for the gift of these families, for every parent listening today, Lord, who shows up day after day to love, nurture, and fight for the hearts of their children. You see every unseen act of love. You see every tear, every whispered prayer. Lord, help us to parent with wisdom and compassion. Teach us to hold space for our children's stories, the beauty and the brokenness, and to model your steadfast love in the midst of it all. Give us courage to speak up for others who need families and to keep building communities where adoption and foster care are understood and supported. We lift up every child still waiting for belonging, Lord, and every family walking through the lifelong work of healing. Let your grace cover every gap that we cannot fill, and may our homes reflect your heart, a place of safety, truth, and unconditional love. In Jesus' name, amen.