There is a plethora of wisdom in Jodee Kulp’s book, Families at Risk: A guide to understanding and protecting children and providers involved in out-of-home or adoptive care. In this post, I am going to share with you some of her thoughts on when it is understandable and desirable that you ask for help.


She starts off by quoting an “oldie but goodie” article published in July 1961 by Indiana University (my arch rival as a Purdue grad!) titled, Teacher’s Handling of Children in Conflict, and written by N. Long and R. Newman. It states:

A teacher can’t function adequately for long without an informed shoulder to lean on, without an on-the-spot human wailing wall at which to gripe, to rage, to express fears and confess mistakes, to ask questions and wonder aloud … Where the human wailing wall is carefully conceived and consistently offered, where the people provided are … informed, sensitive, sympathetic, and understanding, the turnover among teachers, even under the most incredibly difficult conditions, is remarkably lowered.

Jodee concludes that if teachers need this kind of support system, is it any wonder that foster and adoptive parents do too? I’m kind of preaching to the choir here, aren’t I?


Jodee lists the ways other foster and adoptive parents can support a family in crisis, including but not limited to: help, humor, insight, validation, rewards, comfort and escape.


She then goes on to describe some of the every day issues faced by families parenting traumatized or attachment-challenged children:

• Previously healthy children in the home are developing problems because of the disruptive or emotionally disturbed child.
• The healthy family members are becoming increasingly anxious or conflicted about the difficult child.
• The financial burden of the disruptive child impacts the overall lifestyle choices of the family.
• The needy child consumes family time and resources to the point that parents have no time for each other, recreation, privacy or anything else.
• It is increasingly hard for other family members to find anything positive about the disturbed child, and the family develops a tendency to scapegoat the troubled child.
• The disturbed child successfully triangulates one parent against the other.
• Signs of PTSD become apparent in one or more family members.


This pretty well describes ALL of our families, doesn't it? So what do we do next? IS there anything to do next? Stay tuned...


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