H4HK FAQs are designed to answer questions kids and teens ask when facing difficult situations and circumstances in their lives.

When your parents split up, it’s easy to blame them and be angry about it. After all, they (or at least one of them) didn’t ask you what you wanted. Chances are you have been angry about that at some point. You might have talked to someone who suggested that you need to forgive your parent(s). But, how? What does it mean to forgive? Why would you even want to?

What is Forgiveness?

Sometimes we choose not to forgive because it seems like offering forgiveness is saying, “what you did is ok.” The truth is, that has nothing to do with forgiveness. The dictionary (dictionary.com) defines forgive as:

“to cancel an indebtedness”

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When it comes to medical care, foster parents operate in a strange sphere – a kind of medical no man’s land! Because I have two biological kids, I was accustomed to a fairly standard procedure when it came to the seeing the doctor. When they were sick or needed a well-check, I’d call ahead to the doctor to schedule and appointment. On the day of, we’d check in, show an insurance card, see the doctor, pay a co-pay, and come home with a sticker (sometimes multiple stickers). It was pretty standard. Now that I’m a foster parent, the relative simplicity of those visits is now a thing of the past. Those were the good ol’ days!

Now, I’m sure the rules vary from state-to-state (as everything in the foster care system does), but in my home state of Pennsylvania, here’s how it looks…

First, birth parents have the right to always be present at medical appointments (as they should). But, honestly, it can be awkward. The kid might be cranky, the doctor NEVER knows who to talk to, and it can easily descend into an opportunity for the bio parents to visit with their child instead of participating or engaging in the appointment.

Some of the best advice I ever received in terms of drawing everyone’s focus back to the medical appointment at hand was to earnestly ask for the birth parent’s opinion on something. For example, Continue reading

Over time many children of divorce have a change of attitude about things. Many will get bitter and some will have attitude problems. After the initial shock of their parents being divorced, having time to process the divorce, adjusting to two homes and when the stress dies down, some children actually find joy in life.

How do they do it? How can they find joy in the midst of trials and even tribulations? In the article, The Grateful Brain we read,

“Gratitude, particularly if practiced regularly, can keep you healthier and happier.”

The article goes onto talk about misconceptions we’ve had about gratitude.

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September is Suicide Prevention Month and we are introducing a series of H4HK Cheat Sheets to help people to better understand the issue of suicide and how they can help. Check back each Tuesday for the rest of the month for additional cheat sheets. This first sheet covers Suicide Risk Factors. The text is included below and a printable pdf version can be accessed by clicking the picture above.

Introduction

Risk Factors for suicide are those things about a person and their circumstances (many of which they have no control over) that statistically make them more predisposed to attempt suicide. They are different than warning signs which are specific behaviors which may indicate a person is contemplating suicide. It is important to consider both the warning signs (which are current and specific to an individual) and the risk factors (which are historic and based on a person’s circumstances and experiences) when assessing the risk of suicide.

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Part of the issue with advocating for the children of divorce in this country is that divorce is largely viewed from the wrong perspective.  As adults, we have a tendency to view the act of divorce from the perspective of the parents.  To truly effectuate change in the way the children of divorce are ministered too, we need to begin to look at divorce through their eyes.

Allow me to explain.  When parents get divorced, they tend to see the event from their own perspective.  From their point of view, the divorce may be welcome relief or even a tragic occurrence, but eventually the parents “get over it” and move on with their lives.  For children, divorce is not merely an event that happens in their childhood, but a trigger that changes the course of their entire lives.

In the book Between Two Worlds, Elizabeth Marquardt writes:

For too long, the debate about divorce in this country has been dominated by the adult perspective on divorce, with some adults charging that divorce is unjustifiably rampant and others retorting that divorce is a right that no one can question.

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H4HK FAQs are designed to answer questions kids and teens ask when facing difficult situations and circumstances in their lives.

When people get divorced, relationships suffer.  Obviously, your parents’ relationship is different, but it can also hurt your relationship with one or both parents.  In some extreme circumstances, a parent may decide they don’t really want anything to do with you anymore.  They can do this by their actions (spending little time with you) or come right out and say it.  The relationship suffers or dies because one of your parents isn’t interested in investing the time in having a relationship with you.  This is unfortunate (tragic even), and you don’t deserve it, but if you do find yourself with a parent who doesn’t really seem to want to spend any time with you, you have to tackle that issue before we discuss ways of staying in touch.

You can’t make your parent want to spend the time with you that you might want to spend with them.  Should they want to spend time with you?  Yes.  Is it unfair that they are no longer acting like a parent? Yes.  Is it your fault that they don’t want to spend time with you? Absolutely not!  Here are some things you need to remember and try if you find yourself with a parent who “just doesn’t have time for you:”

1. Be realistic. Is it true that they aren’t spending any time with you, or is it just the case that they aren’t spending as much time with you as you would like.  Many times after a divorce, schedules get hectic and parents end up working longer hours and running around more. The lack of time may be the result of that, and they may be missing spending time with you as much as you are missing spending it with them.  In that case, hang in there. Explain to them that you miss spending time with them and wait for this season to pass.  Try not to let the current distance harm your future relationship.
2. Don’t blame yourself.  You can’t change your parents.  You didn’t make them the way they are, and you can’t make them switch.  You can ask, but you can’t snap your fingers and make it happen.  Understand that their decision not to spend more time with you is exactly that – THEIR DECISION.  It is not a reflection on you as a person or as a son or daughter. Do not take the blame for someone else’s decision.
3. Accept the fact that you can’t make your parent(s) change.  Your Mom or Dad may never be the kind of Mom or Dad you want or feel like you deserve.  You might never have the relationship with your parent that you feel like you should have. This isn’t as easy as it might sound, but once you finally accept this as true, you can spend your time trying to forge whatever kind of relationship you can based on who your parent is rather than who you want them to be. It also allows you to move yourself from being captive to an ideal to free to go on and become the person you want to be (something you do have some control over).
4. Talk to your parent.  What seems very obvious to you (that they aren’t spending enough time with you) might not even be on their radar.  What’s the worse that can happen – they could confirm what you already believe (that they don’t want to spend time with you). That will hurt, but at least it will be out there on the table!
5. Give it time.  Just because your parent doesn’t seem interested today doesn’t mean that it will never change.  Hopefully they will come to their senses and want to reverse the current trend. They may even come to the realization that they have hurt you and work to make up for that. You can’t make it happen (see #3 above) and you need to accept the current state of things, but that doesn’t mean that you have to abandon all hope.  People change.  Sometimes it is for the worse, but many times it is for the better.
6. Find a trusted adult you can talk to. You won’t be able to replace your “missing” parent, and you shouldn’t try, but it’s important that you have adults in your life that you trust who can help you with things that your distant parent should be doing.  It might be an aunt or an uncle, a family friends or someone from your church, but on the lookout for someone you can talk to and learn from.

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We write a lot on Hope 4 Hurting Kids about how to how to help kids understand emotions like anger and different coping mechanism for dealing with anger. This short video from Life Noggin will help you to understand the science of anger and what happens inside your body and your brain when you’re starting to feel angry.

For more awesome resources for learning about and dealing with emotions, please visit our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Emotions Help Center.

We’ve often discussed how stressful it is being a single parent. A lot of ideas have been given about how to minister to single parents and their children. One subject that hasn’t come up is the issue of the possibility of a single parent with a terminal illness or a disability. How can you help a single parent in one of these situations?

Most single parents don’t plan ahead for such a situation. Most of the time they are barely surviving and yet the necessity of them having to face their fear of death or a disability might become a real concern. I know when I was a single parent the possibility was always in the back of my mind,

“What will happen to my kids if something happens to me?”

At the time, I was clueless about what to do. I wish there had been a church or some church leaders close by that could have helped me sort through the legal issues in a situation like this. In my particular case I knew the kids would be able to go and live with their dad, but I hadn’t really thought through much more than that. He lived in another town, and that would have meant a lot of changes for my kids.

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September is National Suicide Prevention Month. Last week, we received the following e-mail:

With September being ‘Suicide Awareness Month’, I have been putting together a list of resources to share with our after school program. One of my helpers found this guide:

Healthy Mind and Healthy Body: Suicide Prevention Guide

www.whitesandstreatment.com/healthy-mind-healthy-body-suicide-prevention-guide/

Would you mind including it on your page? My helper’s name is Kristin, if you would like to add that. She’s 11, and I thought it was a great find for her!

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Welcome back as we continue our “Sunday Morning Strategies” series designed to help you to accommodate children of divorce and children from single parent homes in your Sunday morning children’s ministry. Today, we start to tackle one of the most visible issues you will likely face in your ministry – discipline and the child of divorce.

• Children of divorce live in a world where they feel like they have no control over anything. Oftentimes, that leads to them acting out or lashing out in their behavior. They misbehave as a means of getting attention and as a way of exerting the little bit of control they do have left over their lives. You have likely seen these discipline problems in your ministry and dealt with these kids, yet you may never have realized that the root of these problems was in dealing with family disruption. In the coming weeks, we will look at specific things you can do and techniques you can use in terms of discipline and children of divorce, but before we do that, it’s important to step back and take a broader view of the issue of discipline and children of divorce.

What Is Discipline?

At its root, discipline has to be about discipleship. It’s right there in the root of the word. We when we talk about any discipline, whether for the child of divorce or otherwise, it is important to keep the goal in mind. The goal must be to disciple the child – to guide them and teach them to make right and God honoring choices. Discipleship, and therefore discipline, has to be about the heart of the child. As such, the ability to discipline boils down to relationship. Continue reading