Season 03 Episode 4
💬 Show Notes
In this heartwarming episode of the Connected Parenting Minute, hosts Will and CarrieAnn Standfest invite listeners to a special conversation with Daniela Coates, author of the children’s book “The Day Lily Turned [un]Invisible.” This episode explores themes of visibility and self-worth within the context of foster and adoptive families. Daniela shares insights from her own experiences as a licensed master social worker and mother of six, offering a unique perspective on the challenges and joys of fostering and adoption.
The Standfests and Daniela discuss the inspiration behind her book, which centers on Lily, a biological child in a foster family who feels invisible amidst the changes in her home. Through Lily’s journey, the book emphasizes the importance of feeling seen and valued, regardless of external recognition. Daniela’s personal anecdotes and professional insights provide listeners with a deeper understanding of the emotional dynamics at play in blended families.
Listeners are encouraged to reflect on the importance of acknowledging the feelings of all children in the family, whether biological or adopted, and to find ways to make each child feel special and seen. The episode also touches on the significance of self-care for parents and the value of finding personal hobbies that bring joy and rejuvenation.
Don’t miss this insightful episode filled with meaningful conversations and practical advice. Tune in to discover how to foster a more connected and understanding family environment, one connected parenting minute at a time.
Episode Keywords:
Music by https://lesfm.net/
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✍️ Episode References
Daniela Coates
[Daniela Coates Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/with_siblings)
The Day Lily Turned Uninvisible
[Amazon Link](https://www.amazon.com)
Replaced Conference
[Replaced Conference Website](https://replacedconference.org)
Royal Family Kids Camp
[Royal Family Kids Camp Website](https://rfk.org)
Christian Alliance for Orphans CAFO Conference
[CAFO Website](https://cafo.org)
Replanted Conference
[Replanted Ministry Website](https://replantedministry.org)
Show notes created by https://headliner.app
🗣️ Quotes from Will Standfest
“So you being in a healthy place is really, really important to that. So when you do something hard, sometimes it’s just hard. But it doesn’t equal bad.”
“We often forget that we feel like we’re reacting, but really we get to set the tone.”
🗣️ Quotes from Carrieann Ann Standfest
“Shared experiences are at the heart of connection.”
Season 3 Episode 4 of the Connected Parenting Minute Podcast
For more content:
Website: https://www.ConnectedParentingMinute.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConnectedParentingMinute
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connected.parenting.minute/
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Email: ConnectedParentingMinute@gmail.com
🔑 Episode Keywords
Foster Care, Adoption, Parenting Strategies, Emotional Regulation, Connection-Based Parenting, Child Development, Family Dynamics, Self-Worth, Parenting Podcast, Trauma-Informed Care
#connectedparenting #fostercare #adoption #emotionalregulation #parentingstrategies #childdevelopment #familydynamics #selfworth #traumainformed #parentingpodcast
Show notes created by https://headliner.app
Music by https://lesfm.net/
Show Transcript:
So you being in a healthy place is really, really important to that. So when you do something hard, sometimes it’s just hard. But it doesn’t equal bad.
You are listening to the Connected Parenting Minute with Will and CarrieAnn Standfest. this podcast is a conversation about parenting using connection, first trauma informed principles. Because when you lead with connection, everyone feels seen, which is the foundation to a more peaceful home. this podcast reminds you that you don’t have to be a perfect parent, but we can all get a little better. One connected parenting men at a time. Hello and welcome back to the Connected Parenting Minute. My name is Will Standfest, and I am so glad that you have chosen to join us today for this episode. With me, as always, is the lovely one and only Care Ann Standfest.
Hello, everybody. I have to say that I’m kind of getting over being sick. And my voice is like, I don’t know, three octaves lower. It sounds really weird.
It’s all good. But she’s, here. She’s here because you, our listener, are important to us.
That’s right. We were talking. We’re like, oh, man, we really need to record a podcast and we wanted to tackle a specific topic tonight because it was just important. There’s been some conversations that we’ve had recently with people and just, I don’t know, it just felt like a really good topic to cover. And then we’ll get to sharing another of our interview podcasts a little further down the way.
That interview still coming in?
Yeah, it is, but it’s really fun because lately I feel like there’s been more things coming up and I’m like, oh, hey, we could really talk about that. And we could talk about it like now and release it like this week. And it’s just fun.
Yeah, it’s really great to be able to have a topic to speak directly to that you feel is either relevant to the holidays. Like our last episode. You should go check that out if you’ve got holiday stress and expectations going on. m. Or other things like that. But this is a topic that’s come up with some of Kri Ann’s coaching clients. And it’s just something that we wanted to was on our hearts as well. So we wanted to talk through that.
So what are we gonna talk about tonight, Will?
Tonight we’re talking about hosting and dynamics with siblings in them
Well, the topic is siblings.
Siblings. they’re fun.
They are. And for context, we could set a little context here. I have one sibling, so just one younger brother. And you?
I have three younger brothers, so I’m the oldest and the only girl.
Yeah. So there’s some dynamics there. So we’re both oldest, which is also fun.
Remember, we’re at a certain point in our lives where, like, all of our friends were oldest children and we’re like, how on earth did we get along? But we managed. It was kind of funny.
It is a lot of fun, but it is funny because it was as soon as, our second born came around and one of them had their younger brother in town, it was like, oh, yeah, no, there’s a little bit of a difference there.
Right.
There’s a reason why they have stereotypes for firstborns and middle children and all that. With all that said, no.
So as we were re talking about siblings and we just kind of made the point of, you know, where we fall in birth order. But really we’re talking about our kids siblings. And tonight we’re going to kind talk about the dynamics with that. But specifically we’re going to be talking a little bit about hosting and dynamics with relationships with siblings in them. Now, hosting has a special place in our heart because that’s something we’ve done several times, but it may not apply to all of our listeners. And that’s okay because one of the things, how we’re going to talk about this a little bit can also apply to families that are fostering families that have adopted and also to families that maybe they have cousins coming in, staying for the week, especially over Christmas, or extended family coming and visiting and just navigating some of those dynamics between kids and their peers or kids that are older and younger, stuff like that.
International Orphan Hosting helps children experience life outside of their own country
Now, I wanted to clarify what hosting was specifically because, I mean, we’ve kind of talked about that a little bit, but actually. Well, why don’t you share a little bit so our listeners know what it is that we’re talking about.
Yeah. So we’ve done a program for two summers called International Orphan Hosting, and we did it. There’s several organizations out there that do it and a lot of them do a very wonderful job. But the idea is that you have a child come into your home for somewhere between four to eight weeks, either over the summer or sometimes it’s over Christmas holidays and things like that. This is a child who is likely living either in an orphanage or in a foster care situation in their home country. And because of the advocacy and the involvement of that country’s government and the advocacy of the organization, they’re trying to give these children opportunity to experience life outside of their own country. Because traveling internationally is a privilege.
Absolutely. And you know, it just gives children an opportunity to see things and experience things that maybe some of their peers may have been able to do. But it’s a special time. It’s a fun to be able to come and experience life with a different family, experience different things, different cultures, all that type of stuff. And especially the language thing is a big deal too, of learning a little bit of English and just getting to spend time with other people that have a heart to pour into children.
Yeah. One of the best things about experiencing another culture is you children that have either grown up in foster care or in an orphanage situation may not know a lot of families where the parents are both in, the parents are involved and there are kids living together and stuff like that. And so if you’ve never experienced that, you feel like it’s a fairy tale. You feel like that’s something that’s only in the movies. And so being able to experience that personally can be very life changing for, for some of these children.
Right. So tonight we’re talking about that sibling aspect of it because we did this for two years and we did the summer hosting, so it was a little bit different, you know, just more outside activities and stuff. But we, you know, there’s some dynamics coming into it when kids that are close to our kids age are coming into the family and they, you know, the kids don’t know what to expect, our kids don’t know what to expect. So there are a lot of conversations that happen. So we just kind want to address it from that aspect. Again, again it’s applicable to holidays, to foster care, to adoption, to just lots of different scenarios. But if we don’t talk about it, you don won’t know. And it’s a good chance to process some stuff out loud for us too.
I think so. And again, just translate it into whatever situation you’re facing personally. And I think the principles and the ideas apply.
Awesome.
Kids will always have feelings with change, M. O. says
So let’s get to point number one because we kind of talked a little bit, but that’s been fun. All right. Point number one is when in those situations kids will always have feelings with change.
Kids will always have feelings with change.
Yeah, there’s always stuff going on when something changes in your family, some dynamic that has, you know, maybe you’ve had that normal experience, quote unquote, what kids are used to, and then a dynamic of that changes. Either, you know, in this case other kids come into the situation or another child comes into the situation, there’s going to be feelings there. M. And you know, some kids can Roll with the punches pretty well and adjust and adapt, and that’s great. But that doesn’t mean that the kids that have a harder time with it are bad or naughty or something’s wrong. It just means that kids have feelings when things are different.
Well, all of us have feelings when things are different. I mean, we talked about that on the last EPOD episode around expectations, that the foundation of frustration is unmet expectations.
Right.
And so with a child who is going through a. A period of time with other people in the home, adding some kind of new dynamic, expectations are inherently not going to be met the way that you’re picturing, especially if it’s like a hosting or a family visiting kind kind of situation. You can picture this child as like, oh, this is gonna be so neat. I’m gonna have a new friend who’s gonna be here and stay with me for four weeks.
Right.
And then this child builds up a picture in their own mind of what it’s gonna look like. Or when the cousins are here, we’re gonna do all these things, and it’s gonna be so much fun. And then the problem is, when you go from the child’s dream of what this situation’s gonna be, and then you introduce a real person, that real person.
Has, different opinions and thoughts about what’s gonna happen. And a lot of times those two things don’t line up.
Yeah, they don’t. And that’s where, again, unmet expectations can cause some frustrations. And acknowledging that kids will have feelings around that is important.
O. well, that’s very, very true. And the other aspect of this is that it’s okay for them to have feelings about that. It’s okay for them to really like it or really hate it, and we have to be okay with that. And that’s the hard part, because we tend to be like, oh, wait, you don’t like that? Well, of course. Of course you like that. I mean, you’ve talked about this forever. You were so excited about this. And that’s, really not fair to the kid because they didn’t know what this was going to be like.
Yeah, well, and they might still be excited and disappointed.
Right. I mean, I think back to our conversation with Daniela Coates a little while back is that kids can be really excited and be like, I’m on board all these things, but then something happens and they didn’t expect that. And so it makes them feel maybe unseen, unheard, all these different pieces, and that’s okay. Like, and it’s really important to Allow our kids to express those feelings without taking them on for ourselves and see somehow how maybe feel like we’re failing in some way or another because we didn’t make sure that everybody was happy in every scenario.
Right. But that’s what we want sometimes. Like, even if we don’t say it out loud, there’s a piece of us that tells ourselves that if everybody’s not happy, we’re failing.
Right.
And that was one of the hardest things we had to learn, or at least for me, when we were doing foster care and we had kiddos in our home that were in foster care. And we’re trying our best to take care of them, to keep them safe, to help them feel like they’re a part of the family and we’re doing all these things. And yet they’re like, really sad that they missed their first parents.
And as a new foster parent, it’s easy to take that personally.
Yeah.
It’s easy to translate that and say, you don’t like me. You don’t appreciate what I’m doing. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that you. But once you get a little more experience and once you kind of take their perspective on a little bit, you can be like, they could enjoy being here and be sad that they can’t be with their parents.
Right.
And those things can coexist and that’s okay.
Exactly. Exactly. And I think the big part of that is taking what they have to say seriously and not diminishing it because they can have those feelings and it doesn’t mean anything good or bad about us. Going back to that, phrase I like to use, you know, it’s not about me.
Yeah.
It’s not about me. And just remembering that and being okay with sitting in that uncomfortable and being like, this isn’t a reflection of who I am.
This is a reflection of the children’s feelings.
Yeah.
And that’s all it is. That’s how they feel. And there’s. We can place value and worth in those feelings and they don’t have to run or control everything.
Connected Parenting Minute is looking for real encouragement for foster parents
Before we go to point number two, here’s a quick break.
We’ve had such a great fall, traveling and speaking at conferences. We’re excited to announce our first conference of 2025. Join us at the REC confnce in Kansas City, February 21st through 22nd, again in 2025. Join us for real encouragement for foster and adoptive parents. Registration can be found@real encouragement.org. that’s real encouragement.org. and if you’re interested in having us speak at your event, contact us at info. Ah, connectedparentingminute.com. we’d be happy to work with you.
Parents set the tone and help their children process what their emotions are
And now back to the show.
All right, so our point number one was kids will always have feelings with change. And that brings us to point number two is that parents set the tone.
Parents set the tone. All right, Say more about that.
And this comes back to. All right, so our children share something that’s really hard, and the ball’s in our court. Then what do we do about that? And that’s where we really get to set the tone and help our children process what their emotions are. now I can think of a very specific instance where this comes to mind. So we had some kids in our home that were not born to us. And one of our kids was pretty young, and they had some big feelings about that. There had been some negative interactions. There had been some fighting, some arguing, jealousy going on and stuff like that. And this kid stated, well, I don’t like them. I’m really upset they’re here. I want them to go away. And that’s hard to hear, especially as a parent who, you want to make your hits happy, you want to make them feel safe, but you’re also trying to love and care for other kids that have experienced hard things or, have different values than you have. Just all these different things. And you’re like, wait a minute. This kid who’s been in a safe home their entire lives, and now they’re complaining about these other kids. And now you feel very divided in that and you want to make it better. But there’s an aspect where I had to go, oh, okay, well, say more about that. Let’s talk about it. And they were pretty young, and, you know, it boiled down to a couple of different things, but I didn’t take that on personally. And I feel very fortunate that the time had the peace of mind to not freak out and be like, well, well, we have to be happy. We’they’re here. And, you know, they have experienced all these hard things and, you know, and like, a reason all. All through that, I was just in that place where I could sit and listen to them and be a sounding board and let them know that I was a safe place to tell their feelings to, even if it was hard.
Yeah, that’s for sure the way to do it. Being able to listen to those hard feelings and making it safe for our kids to express that, I think that was very huge, very emotionally huge, because, honestly, I really think that the foundation of a healthy, well adjusted adult who can express their feelings in a healthy way is a kid who was listened to.
Yeah.
Like a kid who was able to say, I’m really angry about this or I’m really frustrated about this and didn’t get shut down or gasl lit or whatever when, when they’re little, like their parents were in a good enough place or they’ve done the work. When they’ve grown, you know, there’s always hope. You can always process your, process your drama or your trauma.
Right.
But we want our children to grow up to be emotionally healthy adults. And I do think you can lay a good foundation for that by making expressing hard things an okay thing to do in your family.
Right. For sure. And I think a tip to really help parents do that is don’t go to the extremes. Don’t freak out because they’re expressing that they hate their sibling or that they’re so angry that, you know, you did this. Just let them have their feelings. But then also don’t go so far in the other direction. You’re like, well, any problem that comes up, I will fix and I will make better. Better. Because you can’t.
Yeah.
And we can, we can band aid it. And eventually our kids typically will learn to be like, well, I know that my parent will lecture me about how, you know, I shouldn’t have these feelings and stuff. So I know that I really can’t share that because it’s just, you know, I’m just going to hear a lecture. I mean, really. So taking a pause and going, all right, I’m going to cut off the extreme this, you know, in the, in the negative and in the positive and kind of meet somewhere in the middle and just be okay not having all the answersus. I think that’s, a tendency that we feel like as parents, well, we’re supposed to have all the answers.
We’re trying to fix it.
Right. We are trying to fix it. I mean, let’s, as we learn and as we grow, we can input stuff, but they have to be age appropriate too.
Yeah. Well, and sometimes our kids are looking to us for an answer for the hard feeling. Y and teaching them that sometimes you just have hard feelings and you got toa sit with that and find somebody who will sit with you. That. That’s the lesson.
Right. Exactly. Another tip is, you know, don’t, don’t blame yourself for everything. In a lot of things we go, okay, my kid is experiencing this hard thing because our family chose to do Something hard we chose to foster or.
We chose to host.
Right. And so then you take that all and all yourself and all you can do is feel guilt.
Yeah.
And that’s not gonna help your kid either because again, you are setting the tone of everything. If you’re just wallowing in that guilt of seeing all how hard it is in certain situations, then you have to get out of your head because when you sit in that, that’s all you’re seeing and that’s what you’re putting out. And then you’re trying to band ad things to make them better when you really can’t. And so you being in a healthy place is really, really important to that. So you know, when you do something hard, sometimes it’s just hard. But it doesn’t equal bad.
Say that again.
Just because things are hard, it doesn’t equal being bad. Yes.
it’s so true. Right. Some things are just hard.
Sometimes they’re just hard. And we learn and we grow through those situations. But keeping that in your mind, and again, like you said earlier in the episode, you can have conflicting emotions at the same time. This is also a situation where, you know, we assume if something’s hard, it equals bad. But sometimes hard equals growth.
Yeah.
And sometimes hard just equals sad. Or sometimes hard is good because again, what comes out of that? But the parents set the tone in these situations.
And so to be able to set a good tone, what do you need to do?
The responsibility to act like an adult falls squarely on us, the parents
Ooh, that is a great question. Well, what do we need to do?
Need to take care of yourself.
Yeah.
I mean, you’re the parent in the situation and unfortunately in the parent child relationship, the responsibility to act like an adult falls squarely on us, the parents.
Right.
And so that means that we have to be able to take care of ourselves. We need to be in an emotionally mentally stable place or a comfortable place that we can, that we can handle these big emotions. Cause we know, we know, we know when family is visiting or when we’re fostering a new kiddo, or when there’s hosting going on, there will be big emotions. Like just expect that there will be big emotions. Things will happen like this is normal.
We’re not surprised. We as the parents are gonna be prepared and not be surprised by the big hard feelings that people experience.
We’re gonna be prepared and then we’re gonna make a plan to be able to sit with our children and those hard feelings and work through them and whatever is needed in that moment for us to be able to help them through those emotions, we need to be in a good place ourselves.
Right? Cause think, you think about the fact that if we are panicking and freaking out about all these aspects of it, what does this mean? And all that stuff out, you know, in the moment, then we’re not able to be a calm presence for our kids. But if we’re expecting it and then we know that we’re gonna, you know, our reaction is going to be X, Y and Z, we’re going to sit and we’re going to have warm milk with our kids, or we’re going to do this or we’re going to do that. And that’s the plan. When things are going crazy, then we can process that later with a spouse, with a friend, with a coach, with somebody’s going to help us be able to go, huh? When that situation comes up again, maybe I can do this or I can do that. But making processing that outside the moment, it’s really important.
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, and the other piece that I thought of too is remember your mirror neurons, right? For those of you who don’t know, your brain has what’s called mirror neurons, and they develop very early on. This is why when you look at a baby who is just born, maybe not just born, but a very young child who has not quite learned to communicate very well and stuff like that, you’ll like coo at them or you’ll smile at them and then they smile back and it’s adorable. Or if you’re in there’s a room of adults watching somebody playing with the baby and the baby just like has a big grin and smiles like, all the parents are kind of like, aw. And they like, smile like it’s a real thing, right? That mirror neurons are a real thing where you mirror the tone and emotion of the people around you. And so as a parent, you use that in your back pocket, that if you come in to a stressful situation where the kids are frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed, tired, whatever. The thing is, if you can bring your calm into that situation, you can. Those mirror neurons will help the children co regulate and help them calm in the midst of a stressful situation.
Right. As much as it doesn’t feel like that, it really does, it really does set that tone.
Point number three, shared experiences are at the heart of connection
So point number two, parents set the tone. Point number three, shared experiences are at the heart of connection. Now you said this the last podcast, that shared experiences are at the heart of connection. And I really felt that that particular phrase needed to be one of our points. And I think this really applies, here.
And the reason being is that kids have some of the longest relationships. Now when you bring other kids into the home, it changes the dynamics a little bit. But overall, kids share similar experiences with similar parents. Okay, think about it this way. When I’m thinking back to like a hosting that we had when we had two sisters come and they stayed for the whole summer and stuff, our kids interacted with them, probably way more than we did.
Oh, yeah.
And we were there all the time. I mean, I was home the entire summer with them, but they did stuff like go outside and play on the trampoline and play make believe games in the basement and did all these things where they were really good at playing. Because as much as play is important, I kind of stink at it sometimes. I’m like, there needs to be dishes that have to be done right now.
There’s a lot of parents that struggle with play.
Yeah.
But play is the language of children.
It is. And so, our kids, when they have cousins over, when they have friends over, when they have, when there’s a foster situation or a hosting situation, they are going to spend more time playing together and then see parents very similar, similarly in a lot of ways. So that shared experience that they have of being called to dinner at the same time, being told the s time to come inside because it’s raining and lightning. And that may have happened a few times. riding their bikes around the block, swimming in the pool. Those things. They share those experiences and that’s some of the things that connect them.
Connect them with each other.
With each other. And then with us too, when we spend time with them.
Yeah, for sure. Especially when you think about the pressures of trying to host the perfect family get together or hosting. There’s expectations there for sure are. And when things will never go the way we expect them to.
Yeah.
Never again. Just expect that there’s. Somebody’s gonna melt down, somebody’s gonna get sick, somebody’s gonna not wanna do the thing, the, activity and just be okay with that.
Yeah. I mean, I think to our family right now, we want to do. We’ve been on this holiday movie kick, trying to watch holiday movies together. We have a particular child that is not on board. And normally it ends up being all right. You have to watch the first 10, 20 minutes of it. And then that child’s like, nope, I’m done. And at the point we’re like, okay, I guess that’s it. They don’t like it. And that’s going to be okay. But we tried, right?
Because what because what’s gained by me fighting with him and forcing him to sit there and watch it?
Right.
He’s just angry and resents me, and I’m frustrated, and it doesn’t. Nobody builds connection out of that.
Exactly. But if we know that we’re like, hey, buddy, we really want to spend time with you, at least watch part of it with us. And then accepting the fact that he’not his favorite and he. He wants to go do something else, that’s okay.
But then he sat down and played a board game with me for 40 minutes this afternoon and loved every minute of it.
Exactly. And so just looking for those opportunities to share, even if they’re not perfect, in community activities and things you can do together. And it may look different than what you think, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. And that’s really what talking about this and talking about parenting is all about for us, is recognizing that we don’t have to seek perfection in all these things. It’s just a little bit at a time. A little bit at a time. A little bit at a time.
I love it.
Kids will always have feelings with change, so parents set the tone
All right, so our three points for tonight is that point number one, kids will always have feelings with change. Just remember that. It’s okay. Point number two, parents set the tone. Our interactions with family, with friends, posting with fostering whatever it is.
With big feelings.
With big feelings. We get to set the tone. We get to set the tone.
Oh, there you go. We get to set the tone.
Right. We often forget that we feel like we’re reacting, but really we get to. And point number three, will.
Shared experiences are at the heart of connection, that even when things aren’t perfect, if you do it together, you’ll remember it. Because how many crazy stories from when you’re growing up, when everything went wrong, do you still remember and laugh about years later?
That’s right.
All right, well, thank you so much for joining us today. I pray that you’ve gotten some value and encouragement on the podcast. If you have, if you go over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review and share this episode with a friend, we’d really appreciate it. And before we go, we’d like to.
Remind you you don’t have to be.
A perfect parent, but we can all get a little bit better one connected parenting minute at a time. Thank you so much for listening to.
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