Thank you so much! I am a therapist and these are all really good. I think all parents need to hear this, not just foster parents!

Yes to the last one. Kids and teenagers who are acting out probably have something going on and could use some empathy, not minimizing or judgment.

This is awesome, thank you both for sharing this information

I was in quite a few foster homes with inexperienced foster parents. In those homes (and especially one where I was their only foster placement and they quit fostering after they disrupted my placement), it seemed like other people where judging if they were (or weren't) good parents by my behavior and how I seemed. They wanted me to seem happy and glad to be there and were upset about me talking about going back to my mom (reunification wasn't possible, so these were foster-to-adopt type homes) because that implied I would rather go back to my "abusive" home than live with them, so something had to be wrong with them. This video just reminded me of all the sort of sickly positive, happy platitudes about putting on a smile and just seeming happy and ignoring my feelings that did entirely invalidate them. Honestly, I don't think those foster parents wanted me to feel that way thus didn't want to hear how I felt and thought they could make me change the way I felt by telling me to pretend to be happy and smile so it made them look good to others.

Can you do a video on how you do/would handle kids that have extra curricular activities or sports?

as a mentally ill teen that's about to start college, the point about asking your youth about fear/concerns about college made me cry cuz ive been so scared of going to college

Thanks for this!!