Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption & Foster Care

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

What issues do you need to think about when using social media as an adoptive or foster parent? What issues do you need to consider for your teens and tweens as they engage in social media? We talk with Katie Biron, Director Fostering Connections for Families and Program Manager of the Family Connections Program; Laura Jean Beauvais, licensed professional counselor with New Wind Counseling; and Dawn Friedman, a licensed professional clinical counselor with supervisory designation at Building Family Counseling about handling social media with adopted, foster, and kinship children.
In this episode, we include:

Some of the most popular social media platforms include:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Snapchat
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Reddit

Social Media pre-adoption

• Keep in mind that states have varying laws on matching online and advertising for an expectant parent. You need to know what is allowed.
• How much information can you or should you post after you have been matched with an expectant mom during her pregnancy?
• How much info can you share post birth and after the baby comes home, but before the adoption is finalized?
• Is it OK to “snoop” on expectant family and birth family online pre-adoption? You should know that the expectant family will also be checking you out online.
• Should you friend the expectant mom and family pre-adoption?
• How, when, and if to announce a child coming into your family through adoption.

Social Media as an Adoptive Parent

• How much of your child’s adoption story should you share online?
• How much should you share of your child’s birth parent’s online presence with a school aged child or younger?
• Sharing photos online. How to handle differing opinions between adoptive and bio family on sharing pics. Common scenario is adoptive parent doesn’t share online pics and bio family does.
• Friending biological or first family or accepting friend requests from biological family.
• How to seek help online without divulging your child’s personal information or oversharing.
  • Post anonymously either on your own or ask group admin.
  • Ask general questions without personal details.
• How to juggle the ups and downs of adoption groups on social media.

Social Media as a Foster Parent

• Differing rules and expectations on social media use between foster child and foster parent will be discussed later in the interview.
• Can a foster parent post a foster child’s picture online?
  • Ask you caseworker
  • Confidentiality is essential
  • Use the Reasonable Prudent Parent Standard
• Discussion in online forums. How open can you be?

Social Media with Adopted/Fostered Teens

• What age do adolescents start having access to social media without adult supervision?
• How to handle and

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

What are the long-term impacts of prenatal alcohol and drug exposure and how can we parent these kids to help them thrive. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Mona Delahooke, a clinical child psychologist and the author of Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s Behavioral Challenges.
In this episode, we cover:
Long term impact of prenatal alcohol and drug exposure: Research has found that most drugs that are commonly abused easily cross the placenta and can affect fetal brain development. In utero exposures to drugs and alcohol thus can have long-lasting implications for brain development resulting in behavioral challenges and mental and physical health implication. Some things to consider:

• The amount of drugs and alcohol used by the mom and the timing in the pregnancy matter, although this is information that is seldom available to adoptive or foster parents.
• Very often children are exposed to more than one substance in utero. For example, it is not uncommon for a pregnant woman who is drinking alcohol to also use drugs.
• Untreated drug abuse/addiction often coincides with poor nutrition and prenatal care, which increases the risk further for pre-natal and post-natal trauma with potentially lifelong impacts.

It helps to begin with understanding how alcohol and drugs exposure in pregnancy can affect the child not just in infancy but throughout their life.

• Alcohol
  Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) is characterized with a broad range of deficits. Children with FASD may not have the facial dysmorphology and other physical abnormalities associated with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).
• FASDs currently represent the leading cause of mental retardation in North America.
• Of all the substances of abuse (including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines), alcohol produces by far the most serious neurobehavioral effects in the child and into adulthood.
• Alcohol exposure can cause a host of cognitive and behavioral impairments, including:
  • Low to average IQs (IQ can range from mental retardation to normal)
  • Poor executive functioning skills
  • Poor information processing skills
  • Lack of social and communication skills
  • Lack of appropriate initiative
  • Discrepancy between their behavioral age and their chronological age (i.e., acting younger than they are)
  • Difficulty with abstract concepts, such as time and money
  • Poor judgment
  • Failure to consider consequences of actions. Doesn’t learn from mistakes.
  • Poor concentration and attention
  • Social withdrawal
• Other drugs: Methamphetamines, Amphetamines (speed and also some of the medications used to treat ADHD), 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)- street name Ecstasy, Opioids-(including heroin, fentanyl), Methadone or Suboxone, cocaine (including crack), and marijuana. While there are distinctions, after re

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

Are you considering adopting or fostering? Or taking in a relative's child? Do you suspect or know that the birth mom used drugs or alcohol during pregnancy? Join us today to learn how these substances might impact the child and how you parent. Our guest is Dr. Lisa Prock, a Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician, Director of the Developmental Medicine Center at Children’s Hospital, Boston, and Clinical Director of the Translational Neuroscience Center at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
In this episode, we cover:

• Foster, adoptive, and kinship parents and caregivers often need to consider whether they are the right family to parent a child with prenatal alcohol and drug exposure.
• The US government estimates that about 10% of children born in the US have been prenatally exposed to alcohol, drugs, or both. How common is prenatal substance exposure for foster and adoptive children, as well as those kids living with grandparents and other relatives?
• Are there signs or symptoms with a child that may have been exposed to alcohol and drugs in utero, absent confirmation from the mother?
• What is known about the amount or timing of alcohol or drug use and the impact on the baby or child?
• Short-term and long-term impacts of the following substances:
  • Alcohol-does it matter the type of alcohol?
  • Methamphetamines
  • Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin or other ADHD medication
  • Opiates/opioids-prescription
  • Opioids-illegal
  • Heroin
  • Fentanyl
  • Methadone, Suboxone, Subutex, Buprenorphine
  • Marijuana
  • Ecstasy, inhalants
  • Tobacco-smoking cigarettes or vaping
• How common is dual exposure/polysubstance exposure—alcohol and drugs?
• Do children who have been prenatally exposed to alcohol or drugs have a greater risk of abusing drugs in adolescence or adulthood?
• How do you get a child diagnosed with prenatal substance exposure?
• What should parents consider when trying to decide if they are the right family for a child with prenatal exposure?
• Creating a Family’s Prenatal Substance Exposure Trainings for Parents, Daycare/Preschool Teachers, and Afterschool Staff.

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

Question: My niece has been living with her paternal grandparents for two years. She is now four and they have decided that it is getting too hard for them. We’ve agreed to take her in. She knows us, but we haven’t spent much time with her. What’s the best way to move her to our home that will cause the least psychological damage to her. She is very attached to her grandparents.
Resources:

• Kinship Parenting Resources
• Transitioning a Child to Your Home
• Creating and Cultivating Attachment

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

Have you ever wondered if your struggle to conceive could be caused by your genes? Today we're going to answer that question and more about genetics and fertility by talking with two certified genetic counselors with CooperGenomics: Sharyn Lincoln and Sheila Johal.
In this episode, we cover:
Infertility is a disease affecting nearly 7% of all couples. It is a highly heterogeneous pathology with a complex etiology that includes both environmental and genetic factors. In this episode we will be focusing on the genetics.
What percentage of infertility can be attributed to our genes?
Genetics and Female Infertility

47,XXX (trisomy X; Triple X)
⁃ What is trisomy X?
⁃ How common is 47,XXX?
⁃ What are the symptoms of Triple X syndrome?
⁃ How common is infertility in women with Triple X?
⁃ Will the children conceived also have this chromosomal abnormality?
Turner syndrome (monosomy X)
⁃ What is Turner Syndrome?
⁃ How common is it?
⁃ What are the symptoms?
⁃ How common is mosaicism with this chromosomal defect?
⁃ How common is infertility in women with monosomy X?
⁃ Will the children conceived also have this chromosomal abnormality?
Single Gene Disorders
⁃ Fragile X (Primary Ovarian Failure)
⁃ Premutation
⁃ Galactosemia
⁃ Others
Polygenic, complex female infertility (environment & genetics)
⁃ Endometriosis
⁃ Is there a genetic link?
⁃ Fibroids
⁃ Is there a genetic link?
⁃ Hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer (HLRCC)
⁃ Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)
⁃ Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)
⁃ Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (POI)
⁃ Is there a genetic link?
⁃ XXX syndrome
⁃ Fragile X syndrome
Genetics and Male Infertility

Klinefelter syndrome
⁃ What is Klinefelter syndrome, 47,XXY?
⁃ How common is Klinefelter syndrome?
⁃ What are the symptoms of Klinefelter syndrome other than infertility?
⁃ Is it possible for a man with Klinefelter syndrome to reproduce?
⁃ Will the children also have chromosomal abnormalities?
47,XYY syndrome
⁃ How common is XYY syndrome?
⁃ What are the symptoms of XYY syndrome other than infertility?
⁃ Will the children also have chromosomal abnormalities?
Structural chromosomal abnormalities (SCAs) include deletions, duplications,
translocations (balanced, imbalanced, and Robertsonian), and inversions.
⁃ Y chromosome micro deletions
Single Gene Disorders (Cystic Fibrosis)
Why has it been so hard to pinpoint the exact genes associated with male and female
fertility?

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building