Penelope, Author at Foster2Forever

What I Learned When I Rode a Roller Coaster with My Son

Now that my son is getting older (he just turned 8) – he recently re-introduced me to the “joy” of riding roller coasters, and at SeaWorld, no doubt!

Did you know SeaWorld rides include roller coasters?

When was the last time you rode a roller coaster? We are talking decades for me! Last time I rode a roller coaster, I had a “Rachel” haircut and my CD collection was comprised of grunge rock bands. Before I tell you what happened after a two decade absence from thrill rides….

SeaWorld has a variety of rides depending on your bravery level or degree that you wish to get wet.

For toddlers and preschoolers, Sesame Street Bay of Play is the SeaWorld attraction must. Plus the little ones can choose to stay dry or get very wet on the splash pad. Check out all the fun this same son had as a 3-year-old when SeaWorld opened Sesame Street Bay of Play a few years ago.

On this trip, both my boys (ages 5 and 8) loved Shamu Express which was a very short, mild ride for preschoolers at least 38 inches tall. A great ride to introduce young kids to roller coaster rides (and stay dry). My son rode Shamu Express a few times, but as an 8-year-old sensory-seeker, he seemed to desire a ride that could give him more of a “thrill.”

Although Journey to Atlantis is part roller coaster and part water ride for those over 39” tall but we really didn’t want to get wet just yet!

Rio Loco is another SeaWorld ride that gets you wet. It’s like a whitewater rafting trip for those over 39” tall and you will get soaked.

Steel Eel on the other hand is strictly roller coaster. Was my 8-year-old ready for this “big kid” roller coaster? Was I?

Our sensory-seeking son was so excited to finally be just tall enough at 48 inches tall to ride his very first roller coaster!!!

And can you guess which parent had the exquisite pleasure of riding the Steel Eel with him?

During this roller coaster feat, I screamed like a hysterical madwoman giving birth to 20-pound quadruplets – the entire ride – up & down & over again! While I was screaming my lungs out as gravity reeked havoc on my senses, my brave little boy quietly smiled and held my hand. My son amazes me! His body enjoyed the sensory stimulation of the roller coaster.

Honestly, Steel Eel has no flips or sharp turns – just those really tall ups and downs – that made this scaredy-cat scream like a banshee.

There’s also the Great White roller coaster ride at SeaWorld! That roller coaster, for those over 52” tall, places you in the seat with your legs dangling down as you go up and down AND upside down. Oh, hell no! I’ll stick with the Steel Eel.

What I learned by riding a roller coaster with my little boy, is that he is quickly becoming a little man right in front of me, and he showed me that bravery doesn’t have an age!

Disclaimer: I purchased tickets for me and my family to attend SeaWorld’s AdventureCon blogging conference in San Antonio and received no compensation for doing so. All opinions about riding roller coasters at my age are my own.

10:26 am by Penelope

The One Thing You MUST Do When Your Child Misbehaves

Remaining calm during times of chaos is THE single important parenting technique you can master.

I’ve discovered that if my child misbehaves in some way, my reaction to the behavior amazingly determines what happens next.

It’s funny how I’ve discovered that I can apply what I learned (and forgotten) in high school science class 20 years ago to parenting my children now. Do you remember Newton’s third law of motion?

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

And that’s not just true in physics. It’s true in parenting children too!

“Kids act, parents react, kids react.” from No-Drama Discipline

If I scold or reprimand my child in a harsh or mean manner, my child’s fear response kicks in which becomes his trigger for a huge meltdown that can sometimes last for hours.

On the other hand, if I keep my cool, my child might or might not keep his cool. However, if I am not calm in my response to his behavior, you can bet that my child is primed for a meltdown.

You MUST stay calm when your child misbehaves!

Think of it this way: how can we teach our children to stay calm and ask for something nicely, if we, as parents, don’t respond calmly? If our child’s emotions are dysregulated, and then the adult’s emotions become dysregulated — we are not good examples to teach our children how to keep their emotions in check. How can we teach a child to regulate his emotions, if we can’t regulate ours?

Sometimes when our home becomes crazy chaos, I picture a hurricane with the storms raging and things crashing and breaking all around — but then, I remember, there is calm and peace in the eye of a hurricane. As a parent during these chaotic times, you must remain calm like the eye of the hurricane. “Be the eye” I tell myself sometimes. 🙂

As parents, we have to remain diligent in staying calm in response to our child’s misbehavior. And sometimes, it just isn’t easy!

5 Parenting Techniques To Stay Calm When Your Child Misbehaves:

1. Don’t respond to your triggers – I have to make a concerted effort not respond to my triggers. Sometimes, I can do this more easily than others, but sometimes, my downstairs brain is triggered and honestly, I’m not a very good parent during those times.

2. Take a deep breath – Sometimes, I have to just close my eyes and take a deep breath before I respond. Deep breathing has a calming effect and resets the brain allowing us to return to the thinking part of our brain.

3. Don’t say “I told you so” when a child’s misbehavior leads to a natural consequence – What? Are we still in junior high? This type of response is simply taunting a child.

4. Use as few words as possible – When a child is having a tantrum, no reasoning, no yelling “Stop” — that is going to bring a child back to their thinking brain. When a child is misbehaving, we may have a tendency to not only tell them what they did wrong, bring up the last time they misbehaved, what happened before that, why they shouldn’t do that, yada, yada, yada. Stop talking! Kids tune you out anyway. Do you really think that your child is really listening to what you say?

5. Listen to your child – When you remain calm and listen to your child, you are more likely to find out the “real” reason for your child’s behavior. Often what sets off the misbehavior is not the real reason for the emotions your child is feeling. Maybe he is hungry, tired, or just frustrated from something that happened to him at school or daycare. Listen to what your child is saying, not the way he is saying it. Learn how to ask questions to learn more about what’s going on.

Staying calm is critical to figuring out what is the real reason for your child’s misbehavior.

9:38 pm by Penelope

Creating Belonging in an Adoptive Family

How do you create belonging in your adoptive family?

A family created through the miracle of adoption, sometimes, to the outside world, doesn’t look like what they think a family should look like. How many adoptive families have to hear: “Are they all yours?” Family members don’t have to look the same to belong. but we can create a sense of belonging in our adoptive families by focusing on how much alike we actually are.

To ensure that you give your adopted child, and all your children for that fact, a sense of belonging to your family celebrate your sameness. All my sons are adopted and have various ethnicities: Anglo, Hispanic and Cherokee Indian. Even with our various ethnicities, I tell my sons that they have my unique eye color (green with specks of golden brown), or my sister’s W-sit, or their dad’s face shape.

I tell my children how we do look alike. And sometimes, I can sense a special feeling from that, even from my oldest, that became my son at 12 years old.

Recently my Facebook feed has been filling up with images from the LikeParent app – an app that calculates what percentage a child resembles each parent. Of course, it’s not scientific or anything, but a fun little thing to do anyway.
So, of course, I had to do an experiment – I wanted to see how much the LikeParent app says my sons look like me and how much they look like their dad.
I was pretty confident going in since all our sons have my exact eye color.
Our middle son looks so much like his dad did as a toddler and young boy. In fact, while looking through some old family photos, I picked up a photo of my husband as a toddler in a high chair. My husband’s reply was: “That looks familiar.” It was if we were looking at a photo of our middle son! (But our son does have my eyes!) So here are the surprising results:

Our youngest son, Lil Bit, is Hispanic, but definitely has my eyes and my smile. I’m constantly amazed at how much he resembles my sister too, especially with that thick, wavy hair. Of course, I realize our youngest son has his dad’s round face shape, and my husband back in the day did have really dark hair too. So look! Our son is a perfect blend of us.

Our oldest son shares my Cherokee Indian heritage. We both have a long narrow face with those Cherokee high cheekbones. And his eye color is a duplicate of mine! Many people are very surprised when they learn that he isn’t my biological son. So these results are completely bogus!

But finding similarities of our family goes beyond our physical features. I tell my sons how they like bike riding like I did. Two of my sons bite their fingernails like I did. My middle son is a math wiz like me. “I used to do that too.” Our middle son LOVES baseball – just like his dad. Children mirror their parents in so many ways and pick up our sayings, habits, and beliefs.

By pointing out our sameness as a family that it can help minimize those differences to give a more cohesive sense of belonging. Families are alike! So celebrate your child’s sameness to help promote a sense of belonging to your family.

2:05 pm by Penelope

A Fun Way To Teach Children to Control Emotions

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #InsideOutEmotions #CollectiveBias

My kids and I loved the Disney/Pixar movie, Inside Out! (Have you read my Inside Out movie review for foster/adoptive parents?)

What makes the Inside Out movie a great tool in parenting is that it gives kids a language to talk about the emotions they are feeling. Getting your children to talk about their emotions can be quite frustrating as a parent.

And now that Wal-Mart has the Inside Out plush characters, a parent can use them as puppets to get children talking about their emotions.

How can puppets help children talk about their emotions?

Puppets create a playful environment. Play is safety in a child’s eyes. It’s difficult for a child to be guarded in the midst of play. Using puppets to communicate complicated feelings gives a child a safe way to communicate what’s going on with them. During play, children are more willing to express their feelings.

To a child, talking with a puppet can feel safer than speaking with an adult, which can be quite scary.

Tips on using puppets to communicate emotions:

Have the child choose an Inside Out plush toy of an emotion. (Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Disgust) The goal is to have the child become the character and talk as the emotion.
Begin with helping the child tell a story as the emotion. — For example, “My name is ANGER and I get really mad when you don’t give me candy for supper.” (Remember that the emotion is speaking to you and not the child)
Show empathy. “I understand why you would be angry.”
Use open-ended questions in your puppet show to allow the child to lead the discussion.
- What happened when _____?
- Why do you feel _____ (the mood of the puppet he has picked)?
- What did you do when _____?
- Did that make you feel better?
- How do you think that made someone else feel?
- What else could you do?
- How would that make you feel?
Point out that it is okay to have emotions, even if it feels uncomfortable.
Help your child realize that emotions can affect what he does, BUT that he has choices about how to act when having that emotion.
Explain that if he doesn’t like what he is feeling, he can do something — like talking to someone about how he feels.
At the end of each story, discuss with your child ways to cope with each feeling. “When you’re feeling mad, you can take three deeps breaths.” “When feel you sad, it’s okay to cry.“

Also, here’s a song about emotions you can teach your children ways to control emotions.

If you’re JOYful and you know it – Laugh out loud
If you’re ANGRY and you know it – Breathe in deep
If you’re SAD and you know it – You can cry
If you’re SCARED and you know it – Hug your dad

You can find the Inside Out plush characters at WalMart for only $8.88 each.

Just go to the Toys section of the store

But, remember, the emotion of Sadness can show up anywhere unexpectedly!!! Even in the toy aisle! (He wanted one of these toys for active boys.)

5:58 pm by Penelope

What Foster Parents Need to Know About Inside Out

Most children at some point struggle with controlling their emotions. My son who suffered intense hunger as an infant, still struggles with overwhelming emotions when he is hungry. Through the years, I have been trying to help him understand how his brain reacts when he gets hungry, and help him “use his words.”

So naturally, I was excited about Inside Out — the new Disney/Pixar movie about the emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear) that live in the brain of an 11-year-old girl, Riley.

Inside Out Movie Review

Joy is the main emotion throughout the Riley’s life; however, with the disruption of her family moving across the country from everything she knows, the other emotions tend to take over for Joy. Then, when Joy and Sadness get lost, it’s up to Anger, Disgust and Fear to lead the brain which ultimately begins to change Riley’s personality.

I liked how Inside Out illustrated, through storytelling, how the human brain can work — the movie showed how, when a negative emotion is attached to a memory, that it can affect a child’s personality. In short, emotions can hide a child’s true personality.

The movie focuses on keeping core memories happy, which made me think about our traumatized kids. What if those early memories are comprised of Fear? The fear of hunger in my child moves his brain into Fight or Flight mode – so watch out! Fighting (using Anger) is how my child’s brain has been wired for survival.

For instance, a foster child that has suffered abuse and neglect, are suddenly moved into the home of strangers leaving everything they know behind. It’s easy to see how Joy, if they ever knew it, can get lost in their lives too. Given their circumstances, Fear and Anger can take over, just as it did for Riley.

In the movie, the parents keep asking Riley: “where’s my happy kid?” Although well-meaning, the question seemed to squash Riley’s ability to share her true emotions. That’s a lesson for parents: emotions are normal, even Sadness.

It’s our job as foster parents to help our kids navigate through their emotions, find their Joy, and appropriately deal with their Sadness, Fear and Anger.

What I specifically liked about the movie is that it demonstrates how each emotion does have a purpose in a child’s life. (For instance, Fear and Disgust can protect a child from harm) But more importantly, that sometimes even grief and Sadness do serve a purpose.

Because of the complexity of brain science, I don’t believe that my son really understood all the nuisances of the how the brain works from the movie. Inside Out has a pretty deep message that younger children probably won’t understand, but at the very least, it gives a language for children to use when talking about their emotions.

I LOVED IT!

Have you seen the movie, Inside Out? What are your thoughts?

6:48 am by Penelope

Celebrating Amazing Foster Dad of FIVE Little Ones

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #NauticaforDad #CollectiveBias

We became foster parents in 2008 and have fostered 16 kids during that time. As parents of neglected and traumatized kids, our journey has not been easy one. In fact, we’ve had to learn our limits as parents, especially with the placements in the summer of 2012.

My husband was anxiously watching the calendar that school year. Every day that went by was one day closer to his ultimate goal in teaching — early retirement! After teaching special education for the past decade, he was eager to relax at the end of his teaching career.

Not that life at home with our two boys was relaxing. Our 5-year-old forever son, placed with us as an 8-month-old, had been having all sorts of explosive behavior that he had been kicked out of THREE day cares. We were struggling in parenting him, but then again, he’s only five, right? And parenting him with his 3-year-old brother, chaos is expected, right? We were living our normal with our two rambunctious preschoolers.

Suddenly, one day, I received a call asking if we would accept a placement. The placement was a sibling group of THREE – but we only had TWO beds available in our home. As the cloud of guilt overcame any clear thinking – I realized we only needed two beds because, get this – the baby doesn’t need a bed since she will sleep in a crib!

I immediately said “YES” because how heartless can you be to say no to a BABY, right?

In the summer of 2012, our family looked like this: our 5-year-old forever son, 4-year-old foster son, 3-year-old forever son, nearly 2-year-old foster daughter (possibly FASD), and a 9-month-old foster baby!

While I was at my quiet desk job all day, Dad was at home with FIVE kids – 3 rambunctious, quibbling preschool boys, one very active non-verbal toddler, and a baby!

Welcome to retirement, Dad! So long to a relaxing summer enjoying retirement!

The stress of parenting five little ones all day alone was overwhelming for my husband (with a history of high blood pressure, no doubt).

Our 4-year-old foster son constantly fought with our 3-year-old son. Our 2-year-old sensory-seeking foster daughter was constantly into things and would scream at just the mention of sleep – she could only fall asleep with hard rocking motion. And then there was the baby… That was along with our two forever sons.

But through that summer, I gained a new respect for my husband while parenting this herd of little ones. He is the anchor of our ever-changing family.

I also learned that I should discuss accepting foster care placements with my husband first.

And even years later, I’m still trying to make it up to him and like to treat him special on Father’s Day. With our recent move to the Austin area, I finally went and checked out the shopping at The Domain.

Since my special man likes to smell good, I went browsing at the Macy’s fragrance counter.

I discovered this deluxe gift set of the new Nautica LIFE. It retails for $65 (even though it’s valued at $128.00). It includes a 3.4 oz Eau de Toilette, 2.5 oz Aftershave Balm, 2.5 oz Shower Gel, and 1 oz Eau de Toilette.

You can celebrate your lifelong journey with the DAD in your life with new Nautica Life!

I have teamed up with Nautica fragrances via Collective Bias to host an amazing giveaway with 3 very easy ways to enter.
-One GRAND PRIZE winner will win a $4,000 cruise vacation package
-5 second place winners will win a Nautica Men’s fragrance gift set!
-Winners must be 18+
Nautica for Dad

NOTE: There is a happy ending to this story – the siblings were placed with a family member nearby. We run into the kids occasionally, and they seem well and happy.

5:29 pm by Penelope

How Can Attachment Become So Disorganized?

Before becoming a parent, a person should understand the four attachment parenting types. Specifically, foster parents should study the disorganized attachment style. Why? Because 80% of abused children come from a home with a disorganized attachment style – an attachment based on FEAR. (Parenting from the Inside Out by Dan Siegel)

How is Disorganized Attachment Developed?

Caregiver is frightening, dangerous, or causes terror
Child needs the caregiver for survival but is terrified of the caregiver
Child cannot find a solution which results in disorganized attachment

Characteristics of Disorganized Attachment Style

Significant difficulty with behavior, emotions, attention, and relationships
Attempts to control their caregiver in order to make them more predictable
Prone to dissociation from relationships

I recently attended a workshop on Attachment and the Circle of Security — which simplified the disorganized attachment style down to 3 things parents do to disorganize attachment in their children.

MEAN, WEAK, or GONE!

Is the parent MEAN?

The very person a child has to rely on for safety or care causes fear in the child. That’s pretty much a given for physical abuse of the children that come into foster care. But it doesn’t have to be physical abuse. Harassing or humiliating a child is a subtle form of abuse that causes emotional problems for a child needing to feel secure. A child can become disorganized in their attachment.

Is the parent WEAK?

A weak, permissive, or not-in-charge parent can surprisingly cause a chaotic, disorganized family structure. When a child “rules the roost,” the entire family suffers. There is such a fine line from being permissive and giving a child a voice. Honestly, this is the struggle in our own family as we parent our traumatized, strong-willed child. Parents much be in charge, but in a kind way.

Is the parent GONE?

If a parent isn’t around and a child has to take care of themselves, the child loses any sense of security, and the family can become disorganized. Note that a parent doesn’t have to be physically gone. A parent that is spaced out using drugs is not present in the child’s life, even if they are sitting in the same room with the child. As a child of an alcoholic, I experienced feelings of aloneness and took up the role of caregiver in my family as a young teen. But even a parent that doesn’t use drugs or alcohol can be “gone” if they are preoccupied with other things in their life – examples include watching TV, electronics, video games, or online a lot of the time and not engaging with the child. A child needs to feel a connection with their parent in that their emotional needs of feeling important are met.

Parenting children with disorganized attachment is a challenge not to be taken lightly. But by learning a variety of parenting techniques that encourage attachment, a parent can help a child learn to trust and become more secure in their attachment.

9:51 am by Penelope

Life Didn’t Stop Just Because I Had Cancer

One year ago, I discovered that I had cancer. The diagnosis of cancer paralyzed me emotionally for months with many days of nonstop crying.

Throughout my cancer diagnosis, I was emotionally spent and exhausted. Sometimes for no reason, the tears would fall at the most inopportune times: driving to a Little League game, seeing a mom with her baby in the store, attending a wedding. I was blinded by the cancer, in a dazed stupor, and couldn’t see two feet in front of me.

The great Jimmy Stewart in this scene from It’s a Wonderful Life so eloquently demonstrates the emotional turmoil that I felt during my cancer ordeal when he hugs his child through tears. I can’t watch it without getting emotional even now. https://youtu.be/7Wfkkwvuoso?t=1h12m29s

However, I had to wait four months to have surgery and began to realize that life didn’t stop just because I had cancer!

Even with a cancer diagnosis, I still had my life and young children to care for!

Even with a cancer diagnosis, I still encouraged my husband to pursue a career opportunity – one which required months of travel, even though that meant I would be a single mom while he was on the road.

Even with a cancer diagnosis, I still had to get my young children up for school every morning and get them to their numerous appointments with specialists.

Even with a cancer diagnosis, I still wanted my young son to pursue his love of baseball with a Little League team, even though it added numerous practices and games to our already busy schedule.

Even with a cancer diagnosis, I still fought our school district to evaluate and test my son for special services (and lost).

Even with a cancer diagnosis, I still enrolled my boys in swimming lessons.

Even with a cancer diagnosis, we still took family trips across Texas.

Even with a cancer diagnosis, I had to live my life!!!

(On July 31, 2014, my doctor successfully removed my cancer, and our family has since began new life adventures)

10:30 am by Penelope

How a Backpack Can Give Hope to a Hungry Child

On that Monday morning, the tiny Kindergartner was anxiously anticipating as my mother served him a breakfast meal in the cafeteria line at school. He grabbed his tray, quickly ran to a table, sat down and began devouring his meal. He wolfed down the sausage-on-a-stick — but then something shocking happened when he finished eating the sausage — he began eating the stick!

This isn’t an isolated event — 16 million kids in America aren’t getting the food they need!

In the Texas county where I live (McLennan County), 27.1% of the children in MY local community experience hunger and food insecurity, meaning that over 16,000 children in MY community don’t know where their next meal is coming from!

See this interactive map on the “Hunger in America” tab to find the hunger statistics for your county. Be prepared! You will be shocked. {Leave a comment below with a statistic from your county}

Fortunately, there are easy ways for families to get involved and make a difference in their own community.

In my community of Waco, Texas, the nonprofit organization, Pack of Hope, works with local school districts to identify these hungry children. (The children on free lunches that devour all the food on their tray and even those of their classmates.) Pack of Hope provides these hungry children with a package of food on Friday afternoons so that they don’t have to experience hunger on the weekends.

Each Wednesday morning during the school year, volunteers for Pack of Hope work together to fill 1,000 packages of food for the local school children experiencing hunger and food insecurity.

Visit www.childhungerendshere.com or this inspiring Pinterest board to learn more and for inspirational project ideas for your area.

One easy way YOU can get involved is to look for the red pushpin and locate the code found on specially marked ConAgra Foods products. For each 8-digit code entered at www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com from March-August 2015, ConAgra Foods will donate the monetary equivalent of one meal to Feeding America, up to 3 million meals!

Solving child hunger isn’t something we can do alone! How will you help?

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. ConAgra Foods generously provided 500 bottles of water for Pack of Hope, enough to fill half the weekly food packages. For more than 20 years, ConAgra Foods and the ConAgra Foods Foundation have been committed to fighting child hunger in America, donating food and investing in partnerships to find solutions that are within reach.

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