Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

Latest Episodes:

How Do I Teach Safety Skills to a Foster Teen Without Being Overprotective? - Weekend Wisdom Oct 24, 2026

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How can you build safety skills for foster teens without becoming so protective that they feel you don’t trust them? Older youth who have experienced neglect, unsafe adults, exploitation, family disruption, or other trauma may need extra help learning to recognize risk and make safe choices as they gain independence.

In this Weekend Wisdom episode, we share practical ways to build relational safety, practice decision-making before a crisis, set clear expectations without making them feel controlling, talk about friendships, dating, peer pressure, and online safety, and surround teens with trusted adults they can turn to for help. The goal isn’t to prevent every mistake—it’s to help young people recognize risk, think through their choices, recover when things go wrong, and know they always have a safe place to land.

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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

What the Research on Adult Adoptees Can Teach Us Oct 21, 2026

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What can research on adult adoptees teach us about adoption across the lifespan? In this episode, adoption researcher and adult adoptee Dr. JaeRan Kim joins us to explore what adoptees’ experiences can teach families and professionals long after placement and finalization. We discuss adoption disruption and displacement from the adoptee perspective, the importance of relational and cultural permanency, how becoming a parent can reshape an adoptee’s understanding of their own adoption and loss, and what researchers are learning about adoptees who choose to adopt themselves. Throughout the conversation, Dr. Kim challenges us to listen closely to adult adoptee voices and consider how adoption, identity, race, family relationships, and support needs continue to evolve across a lifetime.

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How to Teach Kids to Use AI Responsibly - Weekend Wisdom Oct 17, 2026

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How can parents teach kids to use AI responsibly when their children may already know more about tools like ChatGPT than they do? In this Weekend Wisdom episode, digital safety expert Chris McKenna of Protect Young Eyes explains why knowing how to operate AI is not the same as understanding how it works. He shares practical ways parents can build AI literacy and digital discernment, protect children’s privacy, set age-appropriate boundaries, and help kids question the information and advice AI provides. We also discuss why parents do not need to embrace every new technology simply because their children may use it someday—and why younger children especially need supervision and strong guardrails when using artificial intelligence.

How to turn off ChatGPT using personal data to train future models:

Click your name/profile in the bottom left hand corner of your ChatGPT Account.
Click "Settings".
In the left side menu, click "Data Controls." You can search for it if-needed.
Find "Improve the model for everyone" and toggle it off.

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The Impact of CASAs and GALs in Foster Care Oct 14, 2026

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What do a CASA and GAL in foster care actually do, and how can one consistent advocate make a difference in a child’s life?

In this episode, we talk with Melissa Luddington of Illinois CASA and Michael Custos, a former foster youth whose CASA volunteer ultimately became his legal guardian. Together, they explain how Court Appointed Special Advocates and Guardians ad Litem represent children’s best interests, build trusting relationships, bring a child’s needs and wishes into the courtroom, and work alongside caregivers and professionals. Michael also shares how one volunteer’s persistence, advocacy, and willingness to keep showing up changed the course of his childhood. We also discuss what it takes to become a CASA volunteer and why consistency may be one of the most powerful things an advocate can offer.

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How Can We Do Open Adoption from Foster Care? - Weekend Wisdom Oct 10, 2026

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How can families navigate open adoption from foster care while maintaining the safety and boundaries their child needs?

In this Weekend Wisdom episode, we answer a listener’s question about staying connected with birth parents after adopting a young child from foster care. We discuss how openness can help children maintain connections to their history, identity, culture, and important relationships while recognizing the circumstances that led to foster care and termination of parental rights. We also explore how to set clear and respectful boundaries, choose the right level of contact, respond to a child’s changing needs as they grow, and create an openness plan that is flexible, sustainable, and centered on the child.

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Keeping Kids Safe Online: Raising Tech-Ready Kids with Confidence Oct 07, 2026

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Keeping kids safe online takes more than setting screen-time limits or turning on parental controls. In this episode, digital safety expert Chris McKenna, founder of Protect Young Eyes and author of Five Habits of the Tech Ready Family, joins us to talk about raising kids who can navigate technology with greater safety, confidence, and judgment.

We explore how children’s developing brains interact with persuasive technology, why parents should model healthy digital habits, how to build enough trust that kids will come to us when something goes wrong online, and how to use practical guardrails without making technology feel like a constant battle. For adoptive, foster, and kinship families, we also discuss how trauma, disrupted relationships, and a child’s need to maintain important connections can shape decisions about access, supervision, and digital independence.

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What If Important Information Was Withheld About a Foster Placement? - Weekend Wisdom Oct 03, 2026

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What do you do when you discover that important foster placement information was withheld before you accepted a child into your home—or even before adoption was finalized?

In this Weekend Wisdom episode, we respond to an adoptive parent who learned that behaviors they had specifically said they could not manage had been documented in previous foster homes. We explore how to hold the agency accountable without placing that conflict on the child, use newly discovered records as a roadmap rather than a verdict, respond to challenging behaviors with safety and compassion, and help a child learn that they no longer have to hide their struggles in order to belong.

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Helping Kids Transition From Foster Care to Adoption Sep 30, 2026

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The transition from foster care to adoption can bring relief and security, but it can also stir anxiety, grief, uncertainty, and behaviors families may not expect. In this episode, adoptive dad Adrian Potter shares what his family learned while adopting three siblings who had spent years in foster care. We discuss building trust through predictability and routine, helping a parentified child return to the role of sibling, giving children voice in the adoption process, responding to mixed emotions and changing behaviors, maintaining important connections, and building the support system families need before and after finalization.

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How to Lessen the Trauma for a 4-Year-Old Moving Into My Home - Weekend Wisdom Sep 26, 2026

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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.

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What Do I Look For In A Trauma-Informed Parenting Model? Sep 23, 2026

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With so many trauma-informed parenting approaches available, how do foster, adoptive, and kinship parents know which strategies will actually fit their child and family? In this episode, childhood trauma consultant Beth Tyson helps parents cut through the overwhelm and understand what to look for in a trauma-responsive parenting model. We explore why safety, trust, attachment, and connection should be at the foundation; how trauma can affect a child’s behavior, developmental age, sensory needs, and relationships; and why caregiver self-awareness matters just as much as understanding the child. You’ll also learn how to evaluate claims such as “evidence-based” and “brain-based,” recognize red flags in parenting programs, and decide when to adapt, combine, or move on from an approach that isn’t working.

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