Podcast – Smart Foster Parenting: Recent Episodes
Ben & Deb Pugh share top tips to help foster parents find joy along every step of their journey, even during the most overwhelming and frustrating times with foster care.
Summer’s over. Now it’s time for the real FUN! Highlights from our summer. Our longtime foster daughter graduated from high school and Utah Youth Village. Ben’s sister, who was adopted from Russia, was married in Kansas City Missouri. While in Missouri, you might as well go to Silver Dollar City in Branson. So that’s what we […]
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Nice is Not Always Easy We know that being nice to our kids is not always the easiest thing to do. We get grumpy and we get emotional and we say or do things that we regret and are not nice at all. We get very complacent in our parenting sometimes and those emotions take […]
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Get them to Listen Without Yelling Every parent wants to get their kids to listen. Sometimes we just don’t know how to get the results we want. Sometimes I just want to amp up the volume and get them to hear what I’m saying. By the way…It.Never.Works. Follow through on Consequences – Your kids need […]
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Foster parenting is hard, and we’ve enjoyed helping other foster parents. One thing that we’ve noticed is that when it comes to solving problems, it helps to try something new. This has worked for us, and it has worked for other foster parents that we have worked with. Get out of your comfort zone! Have […]
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We've talked about in the past about how we do family meetings and why they are important in our home. On today's podcast we are going to talk about how we do family meetings in our home in 5 simple steps and how you can make them work in your home as well. Family meetings have a big role in helping the kids in your home feel like they a part of the family and team and a part of making decisions that affect them.
Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.smartfosterparenting.com/tfp055
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Struggles are okay, everyone has them! In this episode we are talking about some of our latest struggles and what we do to handle them when they come up. What we’ve been struggling with during the past week Moody teenager Getting nervous about graduation and what happens afterward No motivation to do anything after school […]
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How are you helping? Welcome back to episode 53 of The Foster Parents’ Podcast! We are excited to be able to talk about this topic. Here is what you are going to learn on this episode: Why it is important to support Bio Parents & Families. Some ways that we try and help Bio Parents The […]
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Family Activities makes foster care more FUN! I know we are here to talk about family activities, but our podcast is 1 and we’re excited. In the immortal words of the cartoon Frosty the Snow Man, “Happy Birthday!” That’s right, our podcast is now 1 year old. So, we’ve got a gift for our listeners. […]
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Episode #51 – Our Rewards System, and Making Them Work! It’s hard to create a Rewards System without some idea of what one looks like. Here’s some examples of some of the rewards and systems that we’ve used in the past and tips for making it all work. By the way, you can still claim your FREE 6 […]
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Episode #50 – How to Create a Rewards System Part 2 Wowsa! Thanks to all of you who have already downloaded your FREE 6 Step Guide Creating Rewards Systems. We appreciate your support. If you haven’t downloaded this yet, what are you waiting for? Download it HERE Today! Anyways, sorry to leave you hanging. We try and keep our podcast at a […]
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Episode #49 – How to Create a Rewards System Part 1 One of the questions that we get the most is something along these lines: “My foster kid won’t do [fill in the blank]. What punishments should I use?” The answer is simple. Stop punishing and build a rewards system. Benefits of the Rewards System […]
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Episode #48 – How to Foster a Family with Kelsey Flannery We are so lucky to have Kelsey Flannery with us to share her amazing story. Kelsey is licensed to take kids from 0-5 and has 2 placements right now. She is 23 and found her calling to help other people already, even though she […]
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Episode #47- 5 Tips to Teach your Foster Kids Responsibility Teaching responsibility as your youth gets older gets harder and harder. Here are some quick tips to help your foster youth learn responsibility: 1. Start as soon as you can. – I know that you all get kids at different ages, so the best way to […]
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Episode #46- Getting out of Debt! We have Michael Taylor from Householdbudgetcoach.com here to talk to us about how to get out of debt! How did Michael and his wife pay off $34,000 in 21 months? Michael grew up seeing his parents struggle financially. They were poor. He wanted to escape that struggle. That drive spilled into my adult […]
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Episode #45 – Time for Taxes with Michael Taylor Michael’s Background: Married for 21 years and was a foster parent for 6 years during that time. He and his wife were able to adopt 1 of their sons from foster care. They were invested in having good communication with the bio families. Foster care is […]
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Episode #44 – Why You Shouldn’t Label Your Kids What are labels? A label is an idea that we assign to ourselves or other people. Usually this has to do with something that you have done. Where we place someone in a role. -Messy eater, Bossy, Always Late, etc. Here is a link to the […]
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Episode #42- The One Thing You Should Start Doing in Your Home Today! This is something that we have done in our home for quite awhile. It is called Compliment Time! This is something that we feel has made one of the biggest differences in our home. What is compliment time? We meet together every day […]
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42 – How To Build Success Through Failure One of the things that we’ve noticed since becoming foster parents is that everyone is afraid of letting foster kids fail. We’ve seen teachers who are willing to just hand them a grade because they don’t want them to fail, caseworkers and foster parents who won’t allow […]
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Episode #41 – 7 Tips to Handle Hard Caseworkers As we’ve fostered for almost 7 years, we’ve noticed that it is often hard to get along with caseworkers. So, we thought that it might be helpful if we came up with a list of things that we do that help us get along with caseworkers. […]
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Episode #40 – I’ve Been Rewarding…Now What? Awesome Question! We got an email the other day from one of our listeners about rewards and transitioning away from rewards. Here’s the question: “How do you transition from giving rewards for things [your foster kids do, to] foster kids doing that thing without a reward? So for example, if […]
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Episode #39 – Self -Care in Foster Care So it’s a new year!! Welcome to 2016. We are so excited to see what the new year brings for The Foster Parents, for our family, and yours! With a new year comes resolutions. In this episode we talk about how we can make healthier choices so […]
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Episode # 38 How to Empower Your Foster Kids – Part 2 We always talk about developing basic skills like “Accepting Feedback” and “Following Instructions”, but also it’s important to develop skills like cooking, cleaning, budgeting, and others. When you are confident in your skills, you have the power to go forth and do something. […]
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Episode # 37 How to Empower Your Foster Kids So many foster kids have all but all of their power stripped away from them. As a result of this, they feel powerless, and they often give up and quit trying. It is our job as foster parents to empower our foster kids. We need to […]
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Episode – 36 Don’t forget your bios! One of the questions that we get asked all the time is about how foster parenting has affected our biological children. So, in short I’ll just say that it has been one of the best things to happen to them; however, it is also one of the hardest […]
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Seems like now a days, everyone between the ages of 5 and 105 years old has a cell phone. Naturally, with everyone else having cell phones, your foster kids will want cell phones. So, here’s some things that you need to know if you are considering allowing your kids to have cell phones. There are […]
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Episode 35 How to Manage Cell Phones With Foster Kids Seems like now a days, everyone between the ages of 5 and 105 years old has a cell phone. Naturally, with everyone else having cell phones, your foster kids will want cell phones. So, here’s some things that you need to know if you are considering […]
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Episode # 34 How to Set Boundaries and Why It’s Vital! When we have struggled as foster parents, it is usually because we have not do a good enough job at setting boundaries. When we have spoken to foster parents who are struggling, it is often due to a lack of boundaries. As a principal, […]
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Episode #32 Boys n’ Girls, Kids n’ Teens, & What’s the Difference? So, we’ve done foster care for about six and a half years. In that time we’ve had teenage boys, teenage girls, young boys, and young girls. There are pros and cons to each group. So, here’s the our take on it. Teenage Boys […]
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Episode 32 – The Power of an Attitude of Gratitude We firmly believe that attitude can change everything. Every day is either awesome or awful, but it depends on how we want to view it. I have noticed in my life that I can completely change my attitude, but it’s not easy. And, it usually […]
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Episode #31 Foster Kids and Depression and What You NEED to Know Have you ever felt down and depressed? Depression is a common thing in the lives of foster kids. There area few things that you should know when dealing with depression. Have you seen Disney/Pixar’s movie Inside Out? I know that there are people […]
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Episode #30 – Communicating during the Holidays Continuing on with our theme of making sure the holidays are relaxing and not super stressful, one of the big things we recommend is to communicate. Who should you be communicating with? The Foster Youth in your home: Let them know what the plan is or give them […]
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Episode 29- 4 Tips for Holiday Survival: Holidays can be stressful times. Here are 4 tips that we use in our home to help us and our foster youth relax a little more during the holidays. Focus on things the kids liked to do, how they celebrated when they were at home. Have them make […]
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Just a quick note to let you guys know we will be moving our podcast release days to Thursdays! We aren’t skipping out on you today. Hope to see you guys on Thursday!!
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Episode 28- How to Use the Honeymoon Phase When foster kids are brought into a new home they often go through a phase called the “Honeymoon Phase.” This is normal, and it is actually a good thing. Here are a few things you should know about the Honeymoon Phase. Some people don’t like the honeymoon […]
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Episode 27-Keeping Kids Safe This is one of the concerns that I hear the most. “How do you keep your kids safe?” or, “Do you worry about your own kids’ safety?” Not only is this a common concern, but it is a legitimate concern as well. You are bringing someone into your how who you […]
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Episode 26-How To Decide On A New Placement: What We Look At. When we first started foster parenting, over 6 years ago, we were extra cautious about the kids that we let into our home. We looked into their background to try to ensure that they were a good fit for our home. Now that […]
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Episode 25-How “Doctor Who” Helped Motivate Our Foster Kids We enjoy celebrating the seasons and the holidays that fall in them. A couple of years ago we had a sibling group that was into this weird TV show that we had only just heard about. It was called “Doctor Who.” We never really watched it […]
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Episode #24 – What Works for Us & What Hasn’t Some things we have done have really worked for us and the foster children in our home. Other things have not! You can check out one of our biggest wins in Episode 4 HERE. CALL TO ACTION: As we move into another month, we […]
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Episode 23 – Power Struggling: Pick Your Battles We’ve been focusing on doing things that will improve our home for the month of September. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve talked about power struggling. We’ve identified how you get sucked into it and how to realize when that is happening. We’ve also talked about […]
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Episode 22 – How to Prevent and Manage Blowups Last week we talked about power struggling. Power struggles are unnecessary, and they are tough on relationships. It is important that we recognize when we are engaging in power struggles so that we can avoid them. That being said, you cannot simply allow your […]
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Episode 21- Do You Power Struggle? What is a Power Struggle? Power Struggling occurs often in foster care. It is important to realize that foster kids often feel like they have power over nothing. Make an effort to allow them power over some things. It takes two to power struggle. And out of those two, […]
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Episode #20- This HAS to Change! We want things to change…We want things to Improve! Change is Possible! You can only change YOU! No matter what you do, you can’t force someone else to change. You have to BELIEVE that you can change something. You may have to try 100 different things before something will […]
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Episode #19- Back to School: Tips for Success 3. Communication Usually, when there is a problem at school, if we haven’t had good communication, it is usually our fault. Make sure you are in contact with the teachers. Let them know who you are! Let them know what your child is working on! Let them […]
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Episode #18- Back to School: Tips for Success 1. Setting School Expectations First thing you want to do with setting up school expectations, is to make sure they are REALISTIC! You don’t want your kids to be set up to fail, you want them to set them up to succeed! Some of the things that […]
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Episode #17 : Understanding Foster Care With Dr. John DeGarmo Every child deserves a family, and every child deserves love. Foster care is an awesome experience when partners are equally involved. Foster parents who are not in it together eventually struggle. How do foster parents deal with grief and loss? Grief and loss are real and […]
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Episode #16- Back to School: Why Foster Kids Might Struggle! Why is Going Back to School Such a Struggle with Foster Kids? School is often something “unknown” to foster kids, and they might feel alone in their struggle with school. They don’t like school, and they don’t want to go to school They might have […]
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Episode #15- Improving Beahvior with Role Plays Part 2 Things to be Aware Of This will take practice. It will not feel natural the first time. Having a structure is important when doing role plays. Role plays will be more productive. You’ll be able build a routine and habit. You and your foster kids […]
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Episode #014 Improving Behavior with Role Plays Part 1 Things to be Aware Of First thing to realize, doing role plays can be a little uncomfortable at first. Grown ups have a harder time remembering how to use their imagination. To see the benefit, you must be consistent in your effort to create meaningful role […]
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Episode #13 Meditation and Avoiding Burnout with Zeena Burse Zeena is awesome! She’s a wife & mother of four children. Has been a psychotherapist for teens and young adults. Has worked with foster children and Families. Rejuvenation We don’t give value in our own rejuvenation. We need to be aware of the need to take […]
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Episode #12 Dealing with Stealing First thing to realize, stealing is often a coping mechanism. This little action may stem from having to steal to meet survival needs. It might come from a need to be in control. It may have been acceptable, and in some cases a taught, behavior from bio parents.. Just because […]
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Episode #011 – Why We Do Foster Care In this episode we discuss some of the reasons that we got into foster care. We also talk about why we have started podcasting. Why We Became Foster Parents We both had a desire to work with teens. Ben coached high school football. Deb worked at a […]
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Episode #010 – Pros and Cons of doing Foster Care In this episode we talk with our first guest, our 6 year old son Parker, about the Pros and the Cons of doing foster care through his eyes. Pros- -Always having someone around to play toys with him. (This only really happens when we have […]
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Episode #9 – Preparing Foster Kids for Transition In this episode we talk about what we do to make transition from our home to another placement positive. With all the transitioning from one placement to another, it is important that we make this process positive and as painless as possible. Here are the 3 things […]
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Episode #8 – Putting Your Marriage First In this episode we talk about how couples can protect themselves against the stresses that come from foster parenting. Here are 3 things we do. Being on the Same Page – If you don’t agree with your spouse on how you are going to discipline or what different […]
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Episode #7 Summertime Structure Part 2 We structure free time to help motivate our foster kids and to help them get the most out of their free time. We are also flexible so that we can all have a fun summer without stressing out too much about our summer structures. Structure Free Time – Sleeping […]
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Episode #6 Summertime Structure Part 1 We have/keep structure throughout the summer because we feel like the foster kids are getting a lot accomplished, but still feel like the have a lot of free time. We keep structure at home because of the loss of school structure. School- -We usually do about 1 hour/day during […]
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Episode #5 Support Systems Stayin’ alive in Episode 5. Sorry I was so tired. Too many late nights. Proactively build your support system. Friends Not everyone will be uber supportive. Some of your friends might distance themselves. Your family might think you are weird. Some friends will step up and really support you. Ours (shout […]
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Episode #4 Our BIG Win Boo-Yah! Makin’ headway. Johnny is improving his behavior. He is constantly trying harder. Johnny used to throw fits anytime he had do something that he didn’t want to. Especially when you asked him to do homework, a chore, or even washing his hands before dinner. We’ve been very consistent. We […]
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Episode #3 Motivating Your Kids Episode 3 comin’ atcha! If kids aren’t motivated, they’re not going to want to do anything. How to get your foster kids to make their beds with the Bed Fairy. Bed Fairy comes and leaves treats if beds are made properly. Comes consistently for the first week or so, but […]
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Episode #2 Building Positive Relationships Part 2 Sweet! We made it to Episode 2. Benefits of building relationships Foster kids need someone to show them that they care. Youth are more willing to listen to you and work with you. Relationships make it so you can teach life skills to your foster kids. Role […]
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Episode #1 Building Positive Relationships Part 1 Our podcast is FINALLY live! Oh Yeah! Building Relationships is the KEY! Some people foster to adopt We foster to foster Basically we don’t really want to adopt because it doesn’t fit us. We tried once, but that didn’t work out. No matter how long you are going […]
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