Saturday, November 22, 2008

Welcome

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Welcome!
This site focuses on positive parenting practices, and it was created specifically for foster parents. The goal of the site was to condense the overwhelming amount of information available to parents into a format that is easy to navigate and understand, while covering the basics of what positive parenting is all about.

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Foster Children: An Overview

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According to the Child Welfare League of America, on September 30, 2004, 518,000 children were in the U.S. foster care system. Among those youth, the average amount of time spent in the foster care system was 30 months.

As much as every child needs parents who will care for them and guide them in their growth, foster children have an even higher level of need. The Child Welfare League of America states that, “Although family foster care, designed to provide temporary protection and nurturing for children experiencing maltreatment, has been a critical service for millions of children in the United States, the increased attention given to this service in the last two decades has focused more on its limited ability to achieve its intended outcomes than on its successes.”

According to the Annie E. Casey foundation, “the number of foster families nationally has dropped, so that fewer than 50 percent of the children needing temporary care are now placed with foster families. As a result of this disparity, child welfare agencies in many urban communities have placed large numbers of children in group care or with relatives who have great difficulty caring for them.”

One major area for improvement within the foster care system is its need for a larger number of foster families who are equipped to serve the needs of the youth needing to be placed with them. With the right tools, foster parents can be the saving grace of the foster care system, as they have the most direct contact with the youth living under their roofs.

Purpose of This Web Site

This web site was created for the benefit of both foster parents and foster children alike. It is addressed toward parents, but the outcomes using positive parenting practices will undoubtedly affect all involved. When children and adolescents are treated with respect, it will influence them in a positive way, no matter what their external behavior reveals. Although it will often take time for a foster parent’s influence to show in the life of a child, by using positive practices, the parent is renewing that child’s ability to trust others and believe in himself.

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Three Styles of Parenting

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Diana Baumrind organized several studies that sought to discover whether there were different styles of parenting, what those styles were, and whether the different styles affected children in different ways. She and her colleagues categorized the three styles of parenting in the following way:

Authoritarian Parenting
The authoritarian parent places the highest value in the obedience of his/her child. The parent plays the role of complete authority, and the child is expected to follow rules and comply with limits, without argument or discussion. When the child disobeys or defies the parent, punishment is the resulting course of action.

Permissive Parenting
The permissive parent places the highest value in the child’s acquisition of his/her wants and needs. Children are allowed and expected to control their own behavior, with few guidelines and restrictions thereof.

Authoritative Parenting
Authoritative parents place equal value on positive behavior and on the general happiness and well-being of the child. These parents have high expectations for their children’s behavior, and they play an active role in supporting positive choices by setting limits, monitoring, and following through with consequences when the child has pushed the boundaries. In addition to demanding positive behavior, authoritative parents are highly responsive to their children’s needs, and they communicate this by creating a warm and supportive climate, communicating their reasonable expectations in an open and direct manner, and allowing the child the freedom to express his/her own expectations and desires.

Mistaken Goals of Behavior

In order to help parents understand the reasons that their children act out, Rudolf Dreikurs categorized those reasons into what he called the Four Mistaken Goals of Behavior:

Attention:
Every child strives to find a sense of belonging and significance. One way that children can feel important and cared for is by gaining the attention of adults. Children learn at a very early age that acting out is one way to receive attention, and even if the attention is negative, it can still give the child a sense of belonging.
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Power:
The acquisition of power will foster a sense of significance for virtually any human being. Children are no exception. When a child is not getting what she wants or needs, that child may attempt to create a power struggle between herself and an adult in order to gain a feeling of significance.
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Revenge:
When a child does not feel that he belongs, or is significant, it is inevitable that he will feel hurt. Sometimes, children try to hurt those who have caused them pain, because they feel they have the right to give back what they have received.
Assumed Inadequacy: If a child gives up hope that he can ever feel a sense of belonging and significance, he may change his behaviors from positive to negative, because he simply does not believe that his behavior matters to those around him.
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Assumed Inadequacy:
If a child gives up hope that he can ever feel a sense of belonging and significance, he may change his behaviors from positive to negative, because he simply does not believe that his behavior matters to those around him.
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Note:
When adults are assessing the goals behind certain behaviors, they should evaluate the setting and circumstance, to find out why the child is not getting a need met. For example, if the child was receiving enough attention, he/she would not need to misbehave in order to receive more. This does not mean that adults should pay special attention to individual children every waking moment, it simply means that determining where the deficiency lies will be the first step to solving the problem and eliminating the behavior.

Creating a Climate of Support

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Unconditional Positive Regard
Parents and caregivers can get so caught up in trying to help their children succeed, that they can unintentionally give them the message that their value is based upon their actions and abilities. Every discipline technique in the world will not help a child who does not feel valued and appreciated. Negative behaviors will be met with consequences, and positive behaviors with encouragement, but children should always be reminded that they are valued no matter what their actions are.

Mutual Respect
Children are much more likely to treat adults with respect when they themselves feel respected. Adults have a tendency to want children to view them as all knowing and all powerful, but by acting that way they only create a larger gap between themselves and the children they care for. When adults are willing to listen, empathize, and admit when they have been wrong, children feel respected, and reassured that they are in a safe space for sharing their own ideas, feelings, and blunders.

Building On Strengths
Every child has strengths which can help him or her to succeed. It is common among human beings to be self-critical, and to pinpoint their own misgivings more quickly and easily than their strengths. Adults can help children to build their self-confidence and problem-solving skills by pointing out their talents, abilities and positive qualities, and helping them discover how they can use those strengths to problem solve.

Encouragement V. Praise
There is a fine line between encouraging children and praising them, and this can be difficult for some adults, because they have seen the positive outcome of praising children. The difference between praise and encouragement is that praise is a positive judgement placed on a child himself, (ex: “good girl,” “good boy”) while encouragement addresses the child’s actions, and inspires him to keep up the good work (ex: “You worked really hard on that.”) Praise can be tricky because children can get discouraged if they don’t get enough of it, or they can become reliant on the opinions of others in order to feel that they have value and that they are doing things the “right” way (ex: “You did that perfectly.”) Encouragement, on the other hand, recognizes the work that went into accomplishing an outcome, and motivates children to evaluate their own thoughts and feelings about what they have done (ex: “How do you feel about what you have accomplished?”) Encouragement allows children to own and take responsibility for their own achievement. For example, instead of saying, “I’m proud of you for getting an A on your paper,” a parent could say, “That A reflects the hard work that you put into writing that paper.”

Active Listening
When a child shares a problem, an adult may have the automatic response of lecturing the child about her behavior, or immediately offering solutions. A more positive alternative for the adult is active listening, which involves avoiding judgement and interruptions, and giving the child feedback regarding the feelings that they heard being expressed. These will help the child to feel cared for and respected, and give her a starting point for formulating her own solutions to the problem. For example, saying “You didn’t understand the word problems, and you got so frustrated that you did not finish the assignment,” will make the child feel validated, and therefore motivated to come up with solutions for getting homework done.

Setting Limits

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Age Appropriateness
The child’s age is a major consideration when deciding which behaviors can be expected, and which are inappropriate. For example, a two-year old can be expected to pick up his toys, but it would be unrealistic to ask him to make his bed and vacuum the floor. Parents should have high expectations for their children, but also keep in mind the age and behavioral level of the child.

Involving Children in the Process
Parents may have the final say, but children are much more cooperative when they feel that they are a part of the decision making process. Parents and children can discuss their wants and needs when it comes to limits and consequences, and leave room for discussion. Negotiations made in the “heat of the moment” (for example, right when the child arrives home after curfew) can lead to power struggles. Therefore, consequences should be arranged before the limits are broken, and if one or both parties wants to amend the limit or the consequence, this can be done later, in a neutral moment.

Natural and Logical Consequences

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Natural Consequences
Certain behaviors can be perpetuated when adults step in to rescue children from the natural consequences that might ensue. For example, a natural consequence of forgetting to wear a jacket on a chilly day is that you will feel cold. Constant reminders from parents can keep a child from having to experience a natural consequence. Sometimes parents even go out of their way to rescue children (for example, bringing his/her jacket to school.) However, rescuing children from consequences also keeps them from learning valuable lessons.

Natural consequences are excellent teaching tools, but there are times when it is not appropriate and/or effective to use them:
1. When a child is in danger (ex: allowing a child to experience the natural consequence of playing with matches)
2. When natural consequences interfere with the rights of others (ex: destroying property)
3. When the results of children’s behavior do not seem like a problem to them (ex: the natural consequences of not brushing one’s teeth may not hold any meaning for a child)

Logical Consequences
Logical consequences should be formulated by the adult - with input from the child - before the actual behavior occurs, so that the child knows what to expect, and will not feel that the consequence is unjust. The three R’s of logical consequences are:
1. Related to the behavior (ex: if a child writes on the table, she will be expected to clean the table.)
2. Respectful - the child should not experience blame, shame, or pain as a result of the consequence, but a sense of responsibility for his/her actions
3. Reasonable - the child and the adult have agreed beforehand that the consequence is appropriate and will not create resentment between the child and the adult.

Follow Through

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Being Consistent
One way for a parent to lose a child’s trust is to say one thing and do another. When parents inform a child of a specific consequence that will result from a specific behavior, and do not follow through, it is likely that the child will test other limits to find out whether they will produce similar results. When parents are clear and consistent, avoiding empty threats and following through with the consequences that they have set for (and with) the child, there will be a lower amount of boundary-testing, and a higher level of trust.

Being Realistic
If a child is continuing to break a limit, regardless of the consequences, it may be appropriate to reevaluate the limit, and whether it is something that the child can realistically comply with. Certain limits will change as the child gets older (curfew, dating, etc.) and will need to be renegotiated as time passes. Consequences may need to change as well. For example, while time outs may be effective disciplinary tools with young children, they become inappropriate when a child reaches a certain age.

Final Tips

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This web site was created for the benefit of both foster parents and foster children alike. It is addressed toward parents, but the outcomes using positive parenting practices will undoubtedly affect all involved. When children and adolescents are treated with respect, it will influence them in a positive way, no matter what their external behavior reveals. Although it will often take time for a foster parent’s influence to show in the life of a child, by using positive practices, the parent is renewing that child’s ability to trust others and believe in himself.

There are a multitude of other strategies for positive discipline, but to keep the information from becoming overwhelming, here are the last few tips:

Modeling
The behaviors and attitudes that we expect from children are not much different from those that we should be exhibiting ourselves. If we tell children to “do as I say, not as I do,” children will not take us seriously, and we will lose their trust. One of the most powerful teaching tools is to model responsibility, individualism, and care and respect for others. One very important aspect of modeling is to model respectful and caring relationships with others. Parents can use all the right disciplinary techniques in the most respectful and loving ways, but if children witness their parents constantly fighting with each other or with others, they can jut as easily learn disrespectful behavior as they can the respectful attitude that their parents are attempting to teach them.

Teaching That Mistakes Are Learning Opportunities
It has been ingrained in our minds that mistakes are cause for shame and embarrassment. This view can only lead a person to strive for perfection, which he can never achieve, and therefore a constant feeling of disappointment ensues. Instead of offering that message to children, we can teach them (and model for them) that every mistake has a message behind it, something that we can glean from it and use to better ourselves in the future. This will help them to focus on the positives and keep from getting stuck in the mindset that they can never live up to their goals.

Quality Time
In today’s busy society, even children often have their schedules filled to the brim. Between school, extracurricular activities, homework, meals, and sleep, it can be difficult for parents to get a word in edgewise, especially when there own schedules are equally packed, if not more so. However, there cannot be enough said for the importance of spending quality time with children. This special time is a key factor in fostering a sense of belonging and significance in children. If a parent can even squeeze in a few moments before bedtime in which parent and child can both share the highlights of their day, it will make a significant difference in the relationship.

Resources

All of the sources listed below were used to create this site, and are responsible for the ideas and strategies within it. For further information on these practices, and many more, please have a look at the texts listed and visit the sites below.

On Parenting

Positive Discipline A-Z
Jane Nelsen, Ed.D., Lynn Lott, M.F.C.C. & H. Stephen Glenn, Ph.D.

Positive Discipline
Jane Nelsen

Positive Discipline in the Classroom
Jane Nelsen, Lynn Lott, & H. Stephen Glenn

Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World
Jane Nelsen & H. Stephen Glenn

Reclaiming Childhood
William Crain

Research Related to Parenting

Twenty Studies that Revolutionized Child Psychology
Wallace E. Dixon, Jr.

On Foster Care

The Annie E. Casey Foundation
www.aecf.org

National Foster Parent Association
http://www.nfpainc.org/index.cfm

Child Welfare League of America
http://www.cwla.org/

On Related Issues

Child Development and Social Policy
Edward F. Zigler & Nancy W. Hall