Sarah’s Intro

As a parent to a young adult who was adopted through foster care and also is the parent that goes through attachment interviews and experienced supervised visits and phone calls with a child at a residential facility, I am uniquely poised to discuss what it is like to be the observer and observee in parent/child interactions.

Professionally, I’m a Certified Parent Coach® whose passion is helping families with children who have experienced trauma or struggle with attachment.

I started The Foster Lane Parent Coaching in 2016. My goal: Use coaching to help others avoid some of the parenting challenges my own family faced.

I’ve spent over 1,500 hours researching trauma, children’s brain development, parenting strategies, and foster and adoptive parenting. I successfully completed the graduate-level Parent Coach Certification program through the Parent Coaching Institute®, have completed the initial training in Theraplay™, and continue to attend conferences on trauma-informed parenting.

We talked about Sarah and her wife’s story, and their journey to becoming parents. 

Things we talked about on this episode:

• attachment styles, how they are formed, and how they affect us today. 
• ACE’s
• Reaction vs. Response
• Training your brain to regain control
• Creating Cooperation vs. Compliance
• Mindset shift 

Sarah’s Links

The FosterLane Website

@thefosterlane on all Socials

Book Recommendations

The Power of Showing Up by Dr. Dan Siegel

The connected child by Dr. Karyn Purvis

The Connected Parent by Dr. Karyn Purvis

The Explosive Child By Dr. Ross Greene

Foster Care: An Unparalleled Journey

Find All Our Links Here

https://linktr.ee/fostercarenation

Patreon

https://patreon.com/fostercarenation

Website

Connect with us on our Facebook Page

https://facebook.com/7timedad

Connect on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/fostercarenation/

Transcript

Jason Palmer 0:03
Foster Care nation. Listen up, we have some exciting news to share, we’re going to offer up our first ever webinar, if you’ve ever been curious about what it takes to be a foster parent and help kids in hard places. Join us on February 18, at 5pm Central for our free, no obligation webinars, we’re going to share our hard earned knowledge and experience with anyone who has ever wondered about helping kids from hard places. If you’re interested, go to foster care nation.com and sign up for our newsletter. This is where you can get the details and the links to join us so that you’ll be able to ask any questions you have in the question and answer section. Now, I know what you’re thinking,

webinar, free, no obligation webinar, it sounds like there’s a sales pitch at the end. I’ve listened to a lot of webinars, guys, I know what you’re thinking, I don’t have anything to sell you. I don’t have anything to sell you. I promise, I don’t have anything to sell you today. But what we are going to do is try and support you and help you join us in our mission to help kids. And if that’s what you’re interested in, come see us. I promise you, we’re not selling anything today, we’re just going to offer up our experience our knowledge, and try and help some people who are interested in helping kids. As you can tell in the background. I have some kids, they’re here, they’re noisy, and I’m not even going to try and quiet them down at this time. Because I’m not going to get that done. They’re wound up out there. But you know what they’re happy. And that’s what we’re looking for. We’re just trying to provide a safe place for kids to try and help them to some of their traumas, some of their things and make this world a better place. And if you want to join us on that mission, we welcome you to show up February 18, at 5pm Central. Like I said, foster care nation.com, sign up for the newsletter. And that’s where you’ll have all the information. Thank you so much.

Foster Care nation, listen up. This is

Unknown Speaker 1:56
foster care.

Amanda Palmer 1:58
journey.

Jason Palmer 2:02
Strength for the powerless courage for the fearful hope and healing for wounded hearts. Welcome back to foster care and unparalleled journey with Jason

Amanda Palmer 2:29
and Amanda.

Jason Palmer 2:31
Today’s guest is Sarah Salisott. How are you doing today? Sarah?

Sarah Salisott 2:35
I’m good. How are you?

Jason Palmer 2:37
I’m doing really well doing really well? Well, you’re one of those interesting people, I run across some time to kind of falls into our world and matches up with some things, you know, like foster family, adoptive family, trying to help people who are trying to help kids and trying to figure out how to help bio families. That’s a pretty big order. What in the world? What made you decide to do all that?

Sarah Salisott 3:02
I don’t think all of it was decided in a day. I think it is an interesting progression. Definitely. So my wife and I decided to be foster parents a little over five years ago. And it was through our first placement. We welcomed in two little boys. And we needed help. We need support. We need a lot of information about trauma and brain development, and parenting children who’ve experienced trauma and our workers. And everyone said, well, you’ll figure it out there in your house. And that wasn’t gonna fly for me. So the last five years have been my reaction to that experience.

Jason Palmer 3:51
I hear you there. Okay. Well, I am in the process of creating a a little program to try and help people understand how to get into foster care. I was doing some research on on the questions that people have. And just jumping around some of the forums. You just said something that I think answers a question for a lot of people. And I know it’s not a huge part, but it’s a part because this is life. You said you had a wife.

Now, the state didn’t have any problem with that, I assume?

Sarah Salisott 4:20
Well, our licensing agency didn’t have a problem with it. And our first placement, not an issue. Nobody cared. And we weren’t married. So the only part that was really discussed in that regard was if we got to adoption, only one parent would be able to adopt. And that was less because we were two women and more because we were an unmarried couple.

What was interesting was our first placement was fine. We switched agencies, and we switched to treatment level foster care, and we were

meeting a.

She’s about nine at the time, a nine year old and she was potentially going to move in. And that worker actually said, we need to talk about the elephant in the room. And I’m like, all right, okay. You know, I don’t in foster care, there could be a lot of them. I don’t know what it is. And she’s like, well, this child’s mom and dad don’t seem to care. But you know, your two women. And we’re like, oh, okay. How is that an elephant in the room? What are we doing here?

ahead of time that there was two women in the room. It was she was aware, but she actively tried to do everything in her power to have the child placed in a heterosexual relationship.

And it was really interesting and really odd. And that was our only experience where we were othered.

Jason Palmer 5:59
Wow, that’s interesting. And what part of the contrary on? We live outside of Milwaukee? Okay. Okay. So not entirely rural? I don’t assume, because, well, we’re in a rural area. And, and, you know, we’ve dealt with plenty of people over the years. And I personally, there’s there was a radio talk show host once that I love what he said, You know, he says, I don’t really personally care how you choose to titillate your offices, you know, I care whether or not you’re a good human. And that’s, that’s realistically where I always fall. But we’re in Rome, Missouri, and you’re going to find some people with some differing views. And so I think it’s interesting to see how people are approaching that these days. Because, let’s be honest, if heterosexual couples are the only people who are supposed to foster kids, we need to get more heterosexual couples on board, because we’ve got a half a million kids.

I don’t think we can afford to start making random decisions based on someone else’s lifestyle, to start rejecting kids. It means sort of help.

Sarah Salisott 7:03
And the child in question had a significant level of needs, and behavioral challenges. So it wasn’t just a matter of like, oh, we’ll find another family, we’ll find another place, it was a matter of we need to find the right home to be able to provide the appropriate level of care. So if they would have excluded us who had like an extensive amount of training and what was necessary, I don’t know who they would have found.

Jason Palmer 7:38
Yeah, and that’s why I’m always blown away when they choose these random things to try and disqualify people on. And the reason I really want to bring it up is because as I was doing some research, I find that that question comes up more often than not, you know, what about, you know, who my partner? Is that okay, is the state going to allow that? And I honestly don’t have the answer as to what every state does. But it assumes that, you know, your state’s okay with it, I’m pretty certain Missouri is okay with it. It looks like it’s the sort of thing that still makes sense for people to go out and choose to take care of kids, if that’s on their heart.

Sarah Salisott 8:13
I think it’s less about the state because there’s anti discrimination laws. So there’s something it’s actually very timely to have this conversation, if you look to the Supreme Court, in the Supreme Court case that was going about whether or not two moms could be on the birth certificate. And that’s a whole nother conversation about whether we should be changing birth certificates, but we’re not going to that one right now. But it’s less about the state as a whole and more about the individual organization and the individual placement workers within that organization. Because the placement agency may have a policy like you find the best fit for that child. But it’s still a human interaction. There’s still a person with their own biases, placing a child, and that’s where the work has to be done.

Jason Palmer 9:12
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m glad we, you know, we can flesh it out just a little bit just in case anybody does have questions around that. That’s, that’s something I think it’s important to realize that regardless of who you are, if you’re good person, and you’re not known for hurting kids, and you don’t have any sort of terrible violent felonies on your record, that’s, that’s really what we’re looking for is people who can do that. So. So yeah, that’s awesome. Um, you mentioned that you’d had some extensive training in trauma. And that’s one of the things that we talk about a lot because our house is full of it. We we live in trauma. And so I totally understand what you say when when you mentioned that, but how about for the listeners what sorts of trauma are you talking about? What have you seen in kids in care and and how you use that to help them

Sarah Salisott 9:59
so I think There’s so many different types of trauma. And actually I teach a class on trauma. It’s even available on my website for download. But there are many different types of trauma, whether it be abuse, neglect, emotional trauma, or anything is generational trauma, historical trauma, community trauma, like, there’s so many different aspects and so many different directions to come from. And I think it’s learning how that impacts relationships, how that impacts brain development, how that impacts body responses, and just the ability to respond to different situations. And the books that I have behind me, a lot of them are on trauma, and brain development and parenting.

Jason Palmer 10:54
That’s, that’s a big bucket of stuff to learn, isn’t it?

Sarah Salisott 10:59
Yes, it is. I’ve spent over 1500 hours consuming content on trauma, attachment, and brain development. And there’s a lot more out there.

Jason Palmer 11:12
15 $100 is a lot, but I’ll be honest with you. Sometimes I wonder how much more you learn when you do exactly what you chose to do and became a foster family yourself and adopted a girl I know you, you have an adopted daughter in your house. And man, you learn a lot that way too.

Sarah Salisott 11:33
You do. And I think it’s having the children in the home, which is why I wanted to learn, which is why I wanted to grow. Because each child as a foster parent, they bring a unique set of positives and challenges into your home. And learning how to respond to that unique blend of their history that you don’t know and will probably never know, is just worth diving into. And our daughter, we adopted her when she was 16 and a half. And she’d been in out of home care for eight years. And we were not her first placement. I think that’s the best way to say that. And just learning all of the information that I’ve learned helped us to respond well to her in our home. And we haven’t experienced the struggles that she’s had in, in other homes previously. And I think it has to do with the fact that sometimes love isn’t enough.

Unknown Speaker 12:39
That’s exactly right. Exactly. A lot of people think, Oh, I’m gonna get these kids and I’m just gonna love them and everything’s gonna be fine. You know, we’re gonna make it every day and love is gonna be there. And it’s just going to be great. And that’s not the case.

Jason Palmer 12:55
Yeah, I can’t tell you how many different parents I’ve heard say that. They, you know, they were just gonna love them and think that was enough. And it’s counterintuitive to say that love is not necessarily all these kids need. We need, we need to educate ourselves.

Sarah Salisott 13:09
Well, and it’s unfair to think that we could just love trauma out of someone, when we think of our interpersonal relationships as adults. I can’t just love my wife, I need to communicate with her. I need to respect her. I need to help her when she needs help. You know all of these different things we do that for our intimate partner relationships we put in the work or they fall apart the same thing is true for children.

Jason Palmer 13:40
Yeah, that’s an interesting correlation you bring up you know, we go out and we choose our mate right? At least in this time in this country, we do it 10 years past and other places. Maybe they were arranged marriages but that’s kind of what we’re doing an arranged marriage when when we work through adoption and foster care, because these kids didn’t pick us. Trust me, I’ve been reminded that by kids more times than once Exactly. I’ve been reminded that by my own Bible kids a time or two but they didn’t and I love with the way you set it. You need to put in the work

Sarah Salisott 14:17
and they deserve it. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:19
well they notice when you don’t Oh, yeah, you know the way hell you Yeah, I mean kids have no chill

Jason Palmer 14:28
wait your kids have no chill are ours are all calm and people never mind that part. I was telling you before we started about the banging noises and all the hollering that goes on in our house.

Unknown Speaker 14:37
Yeah.

Jason Palmer 14:39
You know, you’re right, though they don’t have any they don’t have the ability might even be the right word, the ability sometimes to just sit back and take a deep breath because a lot of these kids have been through things we don’t understand. Their foster care nation. We’d like to take a quick minute to step out of the podcast here and ask you guys For a little bit of support, if you could share an episode with people, friends, in a group, with family, anywhere where there’s somebody who would like to hear this, also, if you’d like to join us and support our mission, a couple dollars a month would be really helpful. You can find us on patreon@patreon.com slash foster care nation. Now back to the show.

Sarah Salisott 15:22
Well, there’s a book that you can take a look at, um, it’s the plan B approach by Dr. Ross Greene, the explosive child, and the explosive child, the principles are that children do well when they can. And so when you see maladaptive behaviors, you see explosive behaviors, you see problems, it’s not necessarily because they’re willfully trying to be disobedient or disrespectful or rude. It’s because they’re struggling. And if you find out why they’re struggling, and what help they need, and you fix that problem, you don’t have to address the negative stuff. So it’s kinda interesting.

Jason Palmer 16:07
Yeah. But But finding that for a parent is not always is not always the first thing we choose. No, it’s not our forte jerk reaction, because our parents told us, you know, just sit down, shut up, behave. Kids should be seen and not heard about your parents, but mimer of that generation, you know, it wasn’t anything to them. Specifically, being bad parents, it was nothing like that it was more that that was the generation that they grew up in.

Sarah Salisott 16:31
Slowly, it falls into we tell, we yell, we act, I’m going to tell you to sit down, I’m going to yell at you to sit down, I’m going to grab your arm, and I’m going to put you in a different room. And that’s what a lot of parents do, where they’re responding to different situations. And that’s why Dr. Ross Greene’s approach is just it’s so different. But it is helpful for children who have experienced trauma.

Jason Palmer 16:57
Now, we’ve discussed this before, with a lot of people. And I mentioned it again, the responses to trauma that seemed to work for most parents look a whole lot like letting them get away with it. And that’s what I hear a lot. What do you have to? How would you respond to that? Are you letting them get away with bad behavior?

Sarah Salisott 17:17
No. So I kind of an enigma, people get really confused about my parenting style and how I help people through my coaching. Because I tell them that if you work on the problem, the behaviors will go away. But that doesn’t mean you will eliminate expectations, it means you actually can have much higher ones. You would be amazed at the things that the children in my home have been like, yeah, okay, I’ll go do that. And I’ll and I’ll do it now. And the reason isn’t, because I’m like this magical parent, it’s because I find out where their struggles are, I removed the struggles. And then I have expectations, and I celebrate when they meet them. So it’s just like kind of this combination. But a lot of people actually with that book, the explosive child, they take plansee approach of like, Oh, just eliminate the expectation. And it’s like, well, then your child is running your home and no one’s happy and everybody’s miserable. And everybody complains.

But yeah, well,

Jason Palmer 18:29
let me ask you, how would you How would you tell people to approach that because so you have a teenager who may or may not be a little bit, a little bit upset at the moment and doesn’t really want to work through it. And they don’t want to, to listen to what you have to say, and you’re in the middle of that hard moment. And you know, of course, you’re going to scream and holler until you’re horrible and stupid. That was in the last 48 hours. I’m certain I’ve been told that. It’s, it’s just kids, right? Like, we’ve dealt with that for a lot of years. A lot of parents get really upset about that really triggered by that. How would you approach that if you have a kid who’s doing that to us treating you horribly, who’s telling you all these horrible things about you? And you can tell that they’re, they’re triggered up in their own fight or flight space, and you’ve got some sort of trauma coming out? What’s the best way that you would recommend for people to approach that?

Sarah Salisott 19:18
So the first thing is there’s this phrase, there’s a meme that goes across the internet, about how it’s the parents responsibility to be the safe shelter, not join them in the storm, and I totally messed that up. But you definitely mentioned you have to find out your own trauma response and what you’re bringing to the situation. So if your children calling you an idiot and telling them they hate you, if that’s a hot button for you, then you’ve got to take care of you before you can address what they’ve got going on. Because otherwise you’re just going to escalate the situation more and more and more until a repair needs to happen. Now we had a situation our daughter had moved in, I would say about six months before at this point. And she the other homes that she’d lived in, there were big explosions, much like you’re talking about a lot of yelling, a lot of throwing a lot of I hate you. And we hadn’t really seen it, we’ve done really well. And I asked her to clean the bathroom. Not a big deal. It was her chore. This was not any anything out of the ordinary. And all of a sudden, there was just screaming and yelling, and so much anger and stomping around. And I reacted, not responded. And I got frustrated, and I got mad. And then I remembered, wait a minute, I teach people this, I got to take a breath here. And I just stopped reacting and responding to anything she said. And I took 10 deep breaths. And I realized, wait a minute, she’s a child. It’s my job to teach her how to respond to stressful situations, and my yelling at her isn’t going to help. So I took some deep breaths, and I looked at her and I said, You’re really upset right now. And I took the four s approach. So the first S is safety. So just the ability, there’s no physical issues, there’s not no glass or anything like that physical safety. And then there’s emotional safety, where she can talk. And then I did scene, which was labeling her emotions and really getting to what was going on inside of her. Like, you know what, this probably isn’t about the bathroom. Like, what is she really mad about right now? Because this is so weird. We have a huge reaction to a really little problem. And like you’re really upset. I wonder if earlier in the day, like things were really hard. And she’s like, yes, and just went off way in this other direction. Am I okay? This is nothing to do with the bathroom. It’s got nothing to do with me. And once she felt seen, I helped her feel soothed. That’s really frustrating. You’re so mad. You don’t want to clean the bathroom right now. Because you feel like things are not fair. And life just sucks for you. Because you had to move to this new city. And you’re so focused. And this is all just really, really hard and helped kind of home her back down, gave her a little bit of some breathing room kind of relaxed, we all come down, gave her a hug. And I said, Okay, so you feel better now? And she said, Yep. And I said, Great. So go clean the bathroom. And that’s where people miss it is sometimes they do like all of the really great stuff to get calmed down. And they don’t want to follow through on the expectation. But that didn’t go away just because you got upset, and we had to like calm the situation down. And because she was heard and understood, and she realized that she was still loved. She cleaned the bathroom did a great job. And then everything was okay. And I think that’s the really big thing, the four S’s and then still requiring the expectation.

Jason Palmer 23:30
You know, it’s funny as you as you say that I’m reminded of a book I read a while back by a man named Chris Voss. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Chris Voss or not. He has a book called never split the difference. It’s a read a lot by business professionals, of which I am not one. But it came in really handy because a lot of what he says kind of mirrors what you’re talking about. But what Chris Voss his background, where he comes from, is he is the let me get this right. He was the lead the lead hostage negotiator for the FBI, international kidnapping team. He used the same skills with terrorists.

Sarah Salisott 24:09
Honestly, I see a lot of parallels.

Jason Palmer 24:14
I’m with you, because they’re wanting things that don’t seem natural or that don’t line up to our expectations. And it looks crazy. And we don’t know what’s going on. And suddenly we’re we’re dealing with a miniature terrorist in our house.

Sarah Salisott 24:31
Or terrorist that’s bigger than you.

Unknown Speaker 24:33
Yes. We have a few that are bigger than I. Yeah,

Jason Palmer 24:37
I’m not a little guy and I’ve got one that’s bigger than me. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we have a son who is what is he Six, five ish, I think.

Unknown Speaker 24:45
Yeah, he’s a big guy.

Jason Palmer 24:47
Six, five, like, right to 60 to 55 something like he’s a big dude. And let me tell you, he and I have had been in those moments and I’ve been nose to nose with him when he was 14 actually. We were nose to nose one day. And I realized at that point, this boy is 14, he can look me dead in the eye. This is scary. And I knew none of this stuff at that point, you

Unknown Speaker 25:09
know, we were we were still learning. You know, and that’s one thing that’s, you know, I would like to say that we did not get a whole lot of training when we were foster parents was being trauma informed. We, we were not, we had to learn that. And we had to learn real quick and fast. And we learned the hard way in several situations. You know, a lot of people talk about trauma now. And it’s very forefront, which is wonderful. But 10 years ago, when we started, people weren’t talking about trauma, and they weren’t talking about mental illness, and everything was just kind of swept under the rug. And you didn’t talk about these problems, and you didn’t share them with people. Because if you had these problems, you were doing something wrong. As a side?

Jason Palmer 25:53
Well, I think it was almost 13 years ago, we’re older than you think we are. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 25:58
I mean that every day. I’m older than dirt.

Jason Palmer 26:00
But you know, when we when we started this that many years ago, people weren’t really talking about trauma much. And you had to go search for it to find it. And now there’s a lot of people talking about it. And I can see where the value of that is. And we’ve learned some of those skills over the years. And there’s a reason why my kids think I’m calm now. And my older son, my oldest boy, who’s CJ is what 22. Now, he has stood in this office when I’m dealing with a kid in the middle of a meltdown. And by the time I calmed them down, they walked out and my son looked at me goes, where was this guy? When I was done?

Amanda Palmer 26:36
Yeah,

Jason Palmer 26:36
yeah. So it’s, it’s not something we’re naturally built with, you know, that’s culture doesn’t teach us this, our parents didn’t teach us this. They did the best they had with the information they had. And now it’s our job to do that and go out and find help like that.

Sarah Salisott 26:49
When you mentioned biological children, or typically developing children, children who have not experienced a significant amount of aces, you can parent them differently. It might not be ideal, but it won’t end up potentially, as hard or as volatile as as a can with someone who’s experienced trauma. And, as you said, the Media TV, our friends or family, it’s not the life that they live, typically. So it’s not what they understand. And so they give well intentioned advice that often misses the mark. But, you know, it’s, it’s because people No, no,

Jason Palmer 27:34
absolutely. And we had, you know, we had kids of that age bio kids that I managed to do everything wrong. Like all of that I was way wrong. I was raised in a home where where dad’s word was that that was God’s word. You know, it’s my way or or you can, you can go find another place to live, if you like. And, you know that that was kind of the end of it. And we didn’t have a clue about this stuff. So we’ve really been benefited by some some people who’ve who’ve handed us some knowledge. And, and a lot of it was just hard fought experience for us. We’re really trying to short circuit that for other other parents, especially new foster parents coming in. Because if you’ve not heard this stuff, if you’re not doing it, if you’ve never experienced it, had somebody train you and teach you, man, it’s just not an intuitive. So, you know, when you’re a foster parent coach, right?

Sarah Salisott 28:28
Yeah, yeah, I work with foster adoptive and biological parents.

Jason Palmer 28:31
Okay. Okay. So you have a lot of experience or so when you work with those families? What how do you how do you like just introduce this topic to them in a way that they can hear it? Because as parents who do all the wrong things, I can speak as an expert here. It’s really easy to just shut that out. say, No, I’m not doing that, that that’s that’s that Whoo, crap that doesn’t, you know, that’s just some college educated idiot came up with that plan, and it doesn’t work. I’m really good at that. So what do you say to them to get them to listen that, hey, this is real, this is important. And you should you should pay attention here.

Sarah Salisott 29:03
I hit them where it hurts their own attachment, and their own their own responses to relationships. So I find that we can impact or I can impact a parent child relationship a lot more by impacting adult to adult relationships. And so the first set of coursework that I would say that I go through, or content that I go through, is attachment related. So I show them a video from the 1960s research that Mary Ainsworth did, showing secure attachment. And then I have them do an attachment, an adult attachment questionnaire, where it gives their percentages for their attachment style. And then I tell them, how each attachment style is created, and what it looks like in children and in adults. And they all of a sudden, they’re like Yeah, are they cry, like, Oh my gosh, that was me. That was my dad telling me that it’s my way or the highway. And you know, now this is here. And, you know, I didn’t even realize, you know, I decided when I was 16, I was never going to be that parent. And somehow I’m that parent. And then I take them through some exercises from parenting from the inside out, which is really how our experiences as children, and the parents, we experience how they become us, as adults, and how we bring that into our interactions with our children. Because really, when everything is going great, when you’re not tired, when you’ve just eaten when everybody’s doing well, anyone can be the perfect parent. Of course, you can respond to some drama by, you know, working through it, and being responsive, and just being so caring, and it all goes away, and everything is great, and everybody hugs and Kumbaya. But when you’re tired, and you’re hungry, and someone’s been having a temper tantrum for the last two hours, because who knows why, all of a sudden, maybe you don’t respond the way you would like to. And that’s your attachment style coming out, and that your history coming out. So the majority of the people I work with, I also say they need to be in therapy. Because Imma take from today and go forward. And a therapist is going to work on what brought you to today. And so that combination really makes a huge difference.

Jason Palmer 31:49
Oh, I bet I bet. You know, when you’d mentioned attachment style, what does that mean? Their foster care nation, if you’d like to find yourself in a group of like minded people toward Facebook, and you can find us@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care you, Jay. We’ve got a group over there where we talk about foster care, we talk about adoption, we talked about all the things related. If your podcast player allows it, you can also reach out hit that subscribe button. So you get notified every week, when we put up uploads. Every Tuesday, a new episode comes out. We’d love to see you next week. Now back to the show.

Sarah Salisott 32:27
So your attachment style is your way of relating with other people in the world. And there’s four primary attachment styles for children, and some say different ones for adults, but we’ll just go straight forward this way. There’s the secure attachment style, which means when you were between birth and one, if you cried, you had a need your caregiver met that need. They were responsive for you, you learned that adults are trustworthy. And then there’s avoidant. There is ambivalent, and there’s disorganized. Which means you cried you had a need and your needs were dismissed, you’re fine, you’ll be okay. There’s no need to be worried. And I’ll give you something to cry about that sort of idea. Or your needs were inconsistently met. So sometimes they met your needs. Sometimes they didn’t. Or sometimes your parent was loving and sometimes they were scary. And depending upon how that all played out, impacts and shapes how you respond in all relationships for the rest of your life.

Jason Palmer 33:44
Well, I’ll I’ll go ahead and just play this game just a little bit. Because, you know, and full disclosure, my dad and I got along great. Especially after, after I got out of the teenage years, we got along great for lots and lots of years. He passed away a few years ago from cancer. But as parents go, my dad didn’t have a dad. While he did his dad passed away at a very young age. My father was I think seven years old when his dad died. So he didn’t have any real good examples to model from. And so when I was born, if I was home with dad, dad’s idea was if he’s crying, and his diapers clean, and he’s not gonna take a bottle, well, then I’ll put him in a crib. Turn the radio up loud enough. I don’t have to hear it. Close the doors on hear him cry and walk out. Now, how does that affect somebody like me 43 years later, if I’ve never dealt with any of that.

Sarah Salisott 34:42
It teaches you that other people can’t be relied upon, which ultimately teaches you to not ask for help. It teaches you to very often not accept help and it really impacts relationship. In that regard, and it creates a high level of anxiety in relationships, where you very often push people away. And

Jason Palmer 35:13
have you have you been in my mailbox lately? Because I feel like maybe you’ve been stealing my mail and reading it.

Sarah Salisott 35:21
No,

Unknown Speaker 35:22
no stealing your mail. It’s

Sarah Salisott 35:23
interesting because they did this research back in the 60s, between moms and their infants around the ages of 12 months old. And they determined that they fell into one of these four attachment styles. And they followed up every 10 years, and they have been following up. And to your point, if nothing was worked on, that same attachment style that they saw in that 12 month old is the same attachment style they saw in a 40 or 50 year old.

Jason Palmer 35:55
Wow, that’s really interesting. Let me ask you this question. Because obviously, like I mentioned, me and my dad get along great. It’s been five years since I lost him, I still pick up my phone to, to call him once in a while, you know, when something big happens, I was, I was recently on a, I was recently somewhere doing something I’m gonna be a little bit ambiguous here because a nondisclosure agreements, I don’t know when this episode will air, or when, when all this other stuff will come out to light. But I know that in the middle of that, the first thing I did it at the well, at the end, when everything was done, I knew the outcome. And I had some something I’m going to call somebody, it was either call my wife or call my dad. Right? Like, he’s still that much a part of the mentality. So how do you and some of this, to be fair has been worked on? Do we have a therapist, you know, we, after we lost her God, we lost our oldest daughter about five years ago. And so we have with therapists, we see a guy on a regular basis, because that’s what we need. But we’ve worked through a lot of that sort of stuff. But without that, is that person, is that child as an adult, doomed to that to that fate? Or is there a way that as a parent, you’ve got a one year old, and you realize, hey, I’ve been doing this thing. And this isn’t the healthiest thing. So now I have a seven year old, what can I do differently.

Sarah Salisott 37:14
So that’s the beauty of being able to grow. And that’s the beauty of being a human, your brain is constantly building new neural pathways, you can rewire your brain with therapy. A lot of people use cognitive behavioral therapy to create new neural pathways. And really just work yourself. So that goes back to the parenting from the inside out. If you have a 14 year old child, and you want to have a different relationship with them, it’s not too late, as long as both people are interested. And that book, parenting from the inside out from Dan Siegel. It takes you through a number of exercises to really think about and make sense of your childhood, so that you don’t repeat it. It takes you through brain science. And it’s really interesting. And I’m going to be doing a free book club. So in 2021, so if anyone wants to join, they’re more than welcome to join. But the idea is, you don’t have to have a perfect childhood to have a perfect relationship with your loved ones. You just have to work it out. You have to figure out that narrative.

Jason Palmer 38:33
Well, I love that. And you mentioned you just mentioned that you’re going to have that. And you’ve also mentioned the another program you have on your website. And I don’t think we’ve mentioned it yet. It will be in the show notes for anybody who wants to find it. It is the Well, why don’t you tell it what it is? Because I’d had to find it my notes here and it’d be easier just to have you give it to it. So why don’t mess it up?

Sarah Salisott 38:53
It’s nice and easy. It’s the foster lane calm.

Jason Palmer 38:57
That’s pretty easy. I love easy web addresses. Yes, no slashes or dashes or underscores or nothing. The foster lane.com that’s, that’s the okay. So that’s where people can go to find the information in the book club as well.

Sarah Salisott 39:12
Yes, the book clubs not on there yet. But as we’re recording this, go get it up there. That way, by the time this comes out, it’s there. We’ll go through a chapter each session. So you don’t have to like read the entire book, I find that can be a little overwhelming with parenting books to have to read it all and then discuss it in an hour and a half. So for all of my book clubs, we read a chapter for each time that we meet. And then there are a number of courses on there. And you can sign up for my newsletter and get an excerpt from my book that’s coming out as well.

Jason Palmer 39:46
Awesome. So, as a foster parent, you know, once we step back into the end of the foster mom world, what have foster kids taught you that maybe you weren’t ready to to learn Before they showed up and said, Oh, hey, I have wisdom for you to gain.

Sarah Salisott 40:06
Yeah, that I can’t control every outcome. That is, the biggest thing they taught me is I can have a very clear idea. I can plan things out like nobody’s business. And I don’t have control of that. Exactly what that’s gonna look like. And that’s okay. And that’s actually not going to end the world.

Jason Palmer 40:30
It took me a long time to learn that I can’t control everything, I think.

Amanda Palmer 40:35
I think in some aspects, we’re still learning that I think we always will be. Yeah,

Jason Palmer 40:40
yeah, that’s true. That’s true. So you’ve been a foster parent. Now for two years? You said no, five years, five years, five years? Yes, you have four foster kids come through. Have you had all boys or girls, what’s been the mix the age range.

Sarah Salisott 40:57
So when we first got licensed, we were like everybody else. We wanted tiny little kids. And we wanted one tiny little kid. and fostering agencies, they don’t care. So they called us for multiple sibling sets. And we accepted a sibling set. Their ages were birth to about five ish. And then we went through this idea of like, we’re not treatment foster parents, like we’re just regular foster parents trying to figure all of this out. And after those children moved on, we decided well, I mean, if we’re going to be treatment level foster parents, we may as well be licensed as treatment level foster parents. So we went from level two foster care, which is just general foster care, average child that’s in the foster care system. And we bumped our license up to level four, which is children with significant needs. And we were licensed for teenage girls with mental health struggles. And we’ve had a few of those as well.

Jason Palmer 42:06
You were licensed for teenage girls with mental health, mental

Sarah Salisott 42:11
health struggles.

We actively signed up for that,

Amanda Palmer 42:16
wow.

Jason Palmer 42:20
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 42:22
That’s a pretty big plate.

Sarah Salisott 42:23
It is what it is. And we found out that we’re actually pretty good at it. So not great, we make mistakes, but we’re pretty good at owning up to our mistakes, which goes

Unknown Speaker 42:35
a long way. You know, I have found so often with my children, when I can admit to my children when I’ve made a mistake, and I come to them, and I say, Hey, you know, I didn’t handle myself the way I should have. Or, you know, I acted in a way that I’m not proud of, you know, our children are pretty receptive of that, because they can learn that I’m human, too. And I’m not perfect. Because, yes, you know, people like to think that they’re perfect. And we’re not perfect, I’m not perfect. I don’t always handle situations the way that I should

Sarah Salisott 43:11
know, nobody does. And actually, I’ve given so many book recommendations, but I’m going to give another one. The power showing up by Dan Siegel, that is quite literally the principle, the premise that you don’t have to be a perfect parent to be a great parent, you just have to repair when there’s been a rupture in the relationship. ruptures are going to happen. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to scream, you’re going to yell you’re going to walk away, you’re going to do something that you don’t find ideal as long as it’s not harmful. And you’re going to make up for it. And you’re going to say like, Oh, I made a mistake and I want our relationship to work through it. And that’s what matters.

Jason Palmer 43:55
Okay, I’m still stuck on the the teenage girls with mental health. Because I mean, let’s just be honest, that’s that’s a struggle for most people. teenage girls can be a real challenge. I’m not saying teenage boys can’t be. We’ve had five. Well, we have five boys. Two of them haven’t gotten to the teenage stage yet. But teenage boys have their own specific set of troubles anyways, but teenage girls well, mental health struggles is a I mean, most people will look at that and go um, yeah, I haven’t got my sainthood yet. I’m not ready to handle that. So what made you feel like that was the place where you needed to be.

Sarah Salisott 44:34
We met a child. We met a teenage girl with mental health struggles. She came to our house for respite and respite state paid babysitting like she came to our house for a number of weekends and a number of holiday breaks and things along those lines. And it just seeing her be calm and have a safe place meant something, and it mattered. And like you said, I have a lot of knowledge in my back pocket. And so I was able to respond to a lot of the bigger things that came out. And I realized that I’m actually pretty good with those big hard conversations and those big scary conversations. And the last point really, is what you said. Nobody wants teenage girls. Nobody wants teenage girls with mental health struggles. And so if we hadn’t met this child, we probably would have stayed fostering littles. And we would have stayed fostering littles for a really long time. And she truly changed the trajectory of our life. And she eventually joined our family, and she eventually was adopted by our family.

Jason Palmer 46:03
Wow.

Unknown Speaker 46:05
And I mean, we we’ve said it before, with each child that has come to our house, we have learned something different. Each child has taught us something specific that we didn’t know, before, we didn’t understand. And kids have a way of doing that they have a way of opening our eyes and opening our hearts. And that’s really awesome that she did that for you. And your wife,

Sarah Salisott 46:30
she’s actually the reason I’m, I’m a parent coach. And she’s a reason I’m a parent coach to biological parents, because she taught me the importance of families of origin and honoring families of origin, and that there’s not a lot of support for them as well. So this little girl, she had a lot of wisdom to bring to our home, and she brought a lot to our home. Definitely a lot of wisdom.

Jason Palmer 47:03
So I have to ask, I asked everybody who’s crazy enough to step into this journey? What was it about fostering, that seemed like the place that you want it to be? Because for some people, it has to do with, you know, wanting to have kids or wanting to help kids. And for some people, it has to do with, with their family of origin. They grew up with it, or, you know, what was your reason for? For wanting to step in?

Sarah Salisott 47:29
For me, it’s a multi level answer. So there’s lots of pieces that that kind of go into this. Number one, my childhood wasn’t good. I had a lot of struggles. And my life trajectory was changed by people outside of my family of origin. And I wanted to be that for someone else who could could need that. And my wife really wanted kids. And, well, we’re a gay couple. It’s not like we just like Yeah, okay. Um, a little bit more planning goes into it. So we had to have a conversation about what building a family would look like, for our family. And I was of the mindset, I really pushed the fostering angle, she wanted children, and she loves me. So we went in this path. And I said, You know what, there’s a lot of kids that need a safe place, either for today for this week, for this month, for this year, forever. And maybe while we figure out what forever looks like, we can be a safe place for some kids for a while. And bless her heart. She said, Yes.

Jason Palmer 48:51
Well, that’s awesome. So when I know you said, you didn’t have an awesome childhood, were you ever in foster care yourself? No, I was not. Okay. Okay. It’s really interesting, because your story mirrors my wife’s story. She was never in foster care. She should have been. But she was never never picked up into that system. And that has a lot, I think to do with the reason why we’re where we’re at right now.

Unknown Speaker 49:16
Well, absolutely. You know, because there was a few, a few choice people outside of my family that had they not have taken an interest, my life probably would have been in a completely different, different way. And I was not set up for success.

Jason Palmer 49:32
That’s one way of putting it. And without diving out without diving off. Yeah. Try that again, without diving off into our own therapy session there. That’s probably a really good description of it. Yeah. Well, you mentioned a couple things before I wanted to step back to you mentioned aces. I think that’s something important I, I know what that is, I think, but I would rather have somebody talk about it. Who knows what they’re saying for sure. So why don’t you just explain that to the listeners but aces are and how that how that impacts?

Sarah Salisott 50:01
Absolutely. So aces is an acronym for adverse childhood experiences. And it’s a questionnaire. It’s a standardized questionnaire, there’s 10 questions you answer. Has this ever happened to you as a child? Yes or no? And a couple of the questions, it’s, as either of these things happen to you, yes or no, every yes is an ace. And a lot of people have only had one adverse childhood experience, maybe their parents got divorced, maybe a parent was incarcerated, maybe there were other struggles, you know, they moved around a lot of things along those lines. And the children in foster care system have often experienced four or more adverse childhood experiences. And the reality of the situation is coming into foster care is also an adverse childhood experience.

Jason Palmer 50:56
Okay, yeah. And I’ve heard of that. In the past, I’ve heard actually, there’s a TED talk out there, I can’t remember the name of the lady who gave it. But a TED talk about exactly that. So people want to kind of dive off into that aces is a really interesting thing. And if you’re familiar with Ted Talks, just go to YouTube, type in Ace, AC E and Ted Talks, I’m sure you’ll find it. It’s really interesting how many kids really were had some trauma in their life that they didn’t realize was trauma. You also mentioned that part where you’re learning with your kids how to react versus respond. Can you define those two, because I think a lot of people don’t understand the difference.

Sarah Salisott 51:34
Absolutely. So reacting and responding is really about the thought that goes into it. When you react, no thought goes into it. Naturally, we react to situations, if I’m crossing the street and a car is coming, and I see that car, I’m not going to think about like, Oh, I don’t want to get hit by this car. So I’m actively going to take a couple steps back, I’m going to react and I’m going to jump, I might hurt myself. Because when you’re reacting, you’re not necessarily thinking everything through, you’re just trying to get out of that situation. Or you just have a natural reaction. And for a lot of people, it’s fight flight or freeze. And, or faint, depending upon your thought process on that. And so a lot of people react by fighting, if I come at you with something, a lot of people react with defensiveness, or anger or frustration, or throwing things or punishments or things along those lines. Some people react by freezing, they shut down, they gloss over, they don’t respond at all, you can be like, no, are you there, what’s going on, and some people run, and whether that’s I need to go into my room for a little bit, or I need to go for a drive or I need to go for a walk, it actually does boil down to the reptilian part of your brain saying you need to survive this stressful situation. Responding is going, Okay, I’m not in physical danger here, I’m going to use some of the information that I have. And I’m going to fight that part of reaction. And I’m going to stay here and I’m going to face this. And for me, that’s often pulling on my training about brain science and empathy and all of those different pieces and being like, oh, wow, they’re having a really hard time. So I need to be calm here to be a support to them. And that’s something that a lot of people have to work on in therapy is their natural go twos. Because if someone tells you No, and your natural reaction is to tell them to go eff off. Something to think about because your fight response is really there. And being able to slow down to actually respond in a way that you’d be proud of, is really struggling.

Jason Palmer 54:10
So what is the best advice you can give somebody to begin to learn how to respond versus react because you mentioned this, I think this is important to know that sometimes reactions are important. There are times when there’s physical dangers and reaction is important. But you know, we don’t have too many things trying to kill us these days. Learning to react or learning to respond instead of react is really important in a modern culture and civilized society where we’re not supposed to just reach out and try and kill the person who were angry at. So what’s the best way for somebody to start that journey?

Sarah Salisott 54:49
We talked earlier about the fact that you know, your childhood doesn’t mean you have to be that parent. Just because you’ve been a person, a reactive person doesn’t mean you have to be that person. And forever. And the same rules apply and how you get there, you have to train your brain. So the homework assignment that I give people is you have to pay attention your body. Like if you feel that tightness in your chest or that ball in your chest or like, feel your face going scrunched in, you’re angry. You’re not allowed to respond for five seconds, no matter what if, I mean, obviously, if you’re about to get hit by a car, your house is on fire, you need to take care of that. But if someone tells you No, you have to count, even if you have to, like take your fingers out and physically show yourself that you’re getting the five. And then think about what you want, what you want to respond with. And with positive things with struggle, you know, with frustration, any of it. And a lot of people tell me, you know what, I made it to one, and I’m like, Oh, great, wait, you waited a whole second, like, You’re, you’re working through it, and you kind of have to grow and get to usually about five seconds, the rest of your brain can catch up. And you can be like, okay, maybe I don’t want to say I hate you forever and slam the door in their face. Okay, maybe that might be an overreaction. But I tell them to wait five seconds.

Jason Palmer 56:22
That’s great, because I wasn’t always good at that. I’ve learned that lesson over the years. Fortunately, I’ve had plenty of kids to teach me that, that some of my reactions weren’t necessarily healthy. Yeah, that’s what I wanted.

Sarah Salisott 56:39
And I’ve got a really easy thing to show you the difference between reactivity versus receptivity and our natural brain responses. Okay, all you have to do is sit there. No, no, no, no, no. What did your body start doing there? If you could feel in your body, what did it start to do? Oh, I

Jason Palmer 57:05
start to have some some muscles tense. I

Amanda Palmer 57:07
know that Yeah. tensing.

Sarah Salisott 57:09
Yeah. Like your muscles tense up, your stomach might get a little frustrated, your heart beat quickens. Your body is reacting to that. Now, if I say yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. How does your body start to respond?

Unknown Speaker 57:33
definitely feels a lot lighter.

Jason Palmer 57:34
Yeah.

Sarah Salisott 57:36
So if we think about how we want our children, to learn how to respond, we have to find ways to say yes, versus No, because I, you just told me when I say no to you, you want to react, your body tenses up, you get frustrated, you’re not going to be your best self. And we can’t expect that from our kids. So what you do is you find a way to say yes, I really want this cookie. Oh, cookies are a really good idea. Let’s have them on Saturday after dinner. That is a no, you don’t get a cookie right now. But it’s framed in a yes mindset. And then it opens them up to being able to respond in a positive way. So just like you’re training your brain, how to be able to respond, you can train your children’s brains to respond as well.

Jason Palmer 58:32
Well, if we can train kids brains will be in pretty good shape. Yeah, first, I got to train my brain. And it was a lot of training. I feel like it’s the one who’s in in the doggy behavioral school who’s in the bad class

Amanda Palmer 58:47
some days.

Jason Palmer 58:49
But because, you know, that’s, that’s the thing is we weren’t we weren’t taught to stuff as kids, and we’re still learning it. And so many people are busy telling us that it’s it’s not necessary. It’s, you know, it doesn’t work, blah, blah, blah. And typically, it’s just people who, who want to jump on that train them, I’m in charge, you need to listen to me now. And that works really well when you have a one year old. Because if they don’t listen, you can reach down and pick them up and put them where you want them. Usually, somewhere around to that starts to become a challenge. Oh,

Sarah Salisott 59:21
well, and you have to figure out do you want compliance? Or do you want cooperation? Maybe you want compliance? Maybe you want your kid to just sit down? Shut up and do what you say. Most often, as adults, we want cooperation. Like we want them to happily come along and do what we want them to do. And depending upon what you’re after, in the moment depends upon your response as well.

Jason Palmer 59:48
You know, that’s interesting. I had somebody Why should the meat tell me this here while back in it. I’ve shared this with a lot of people is in those moments. I think what what has served me best is to constantly ask myself the question Are you trying to win the argument? Or would you rather win their heart? And that’s the mantra that I have to constantly keep inside of me because I can win the argument. I don’t care if you’re 1515 year old can can be pretty good at arguing, but I’m better. I’m 43 years old, I have a lot more experience, I can prove you wrong in a heartbeat. But at the end of it, what do I gain? I put a 15 year old in argument. And now I have a kid who’s mad at me who hates me who this who were all the behavior stuff I’m looking to change, it’s not going to change because? Because I won.

Sarah Salisott 1:00:36
Right? And do you want them in your life today? Or do you want them in your lives in the future? Yeah, because that changes it.

Jason Palmer 1:00:43
Yeah, because there’s, there’s an old country song I can’t remember who sang, it might have been Tom t Hall. We’re talking old, old country. And I think the song was called the winner. And the guy goes through it’s kind of a story. So many talks about how, you know, there was the fight in Barstow where, you know, I knocked out to his teeth, and he only knocked out of me, one out of me, so, so I’m the winner. You know, I fought this guy, and I got cut into this. And I got that, but he got it worse than me. So I’m the winner. I think sometimes we forget that. We not only have to have to question whether or not winning is our goal, but really pay attention to the amount of, of the price that we’re paying in order to win the argument. Right? Because if the price you’re paying is a relationship, in order to be right, man, is it worth it with your kids?

Sarah Salisott 1:01:33
Hmm, well, it’s relationship. It’s respect. It’s future receptivity to anything you have to say, A, it’s the butterfly effect. You may address the situation today, but what is the setting up for in the future? And like you said, you might be able to do with a five year old, but eventually that child’s gonna be bigger than you, potentially. And what are you gonna do then?

Jason Palmer 1:01:59
Well, my dad, my dad always said, Boy, you might get bigger than me and stronger than me. You might even be able to watch me someday. But I’ll always know where you sleep. And I’ll bring a two by four with a rusty nail if I need to. But that’s, that’s the mentality he was raised with. You know, and like I said, I, I hate for anybody to hear it and think I’m trying to talk bad about my dad, because I love my dad, we were we were really close. But that’s just the way he was raised. And so many of us were raised under that same mindset that it’s really hard to make that mindset shift. And I think, you know, Carol Dweck talks about mindset a lot. And she’s got a book, I think, just called mindset that’s worth reading. But that mindset is seems to be the most powerful piece for us to learn to wrap our eyes, our minds around. And, you know, what do you say to people when you’re dealing with a mindset like that, that comes from the way that that kids were raised in the 60s and the 70s? And well, yeah, I guess I was one of those kids raised in the 70s. But I mean, how do you how do you get parents to wrap their mindset around a different sort of a mindset that’s going to help them be a better parent,

Sarah Salisott 1:03:13
give them another assignment. And usually, this idea comes out of people telling me, my kid always fill in the blank, my kid always lies, my kid always throws a temper tantrum, when we go to the store, my kid always pushes all of my buttons, my kid always takes too much. Whatever it is, we as people very often always situations. And so the assignment around mindfulness, and really retraining the brain is okay, your brains already going to go there. But what you’re going to do is you’re going to write down three to five times that the opposite happened. And so three to five times that your kid accepted limits three to five times that your kid didn’t frustrate you today, three to five times, you didn’t want to scream at your kid today, whatever the shift is, that we’re going to start with, and it trains your brain. And the best way to look at why it works is I don’t know if you garden or if you have a hobby. But if you really focus for me, it’s pulling dandelions, like pulling weeds. If I’m out there, and I am pulling them away, for the next week, when I’m driving around, I see him everywhere. And that’s because I’ve trained my brain to look for them to make it easier because your brain wants things to be easy. So we do that in all aspects of our life. And if we focus on where our kids fall short, we will never be lacking for opportunities where they fall short. So we have to retrain our brain to find areas where they’re successful. And that might be uncomfortable. It might be hard. But once you do, it’s, it’s absolutely, it’s absolutely impactful.

Jason Palmer 1:05:13
You know, it’s funny, you mentioned that, number one, that’s an awesome way to garden. We used to have a garden, we don’t anymore for a reason. But you know, the, I used to say this to my kids, and I think my son was 12. Before he got kind of got it. But I always told him, anytime that you say always or never, you’re always wrong. And he was probably 12 before he said, but you said you’re always wrong. That means it’s wrong to and I’m like that, right? Always and never are almost always wrong. There are very few things I find in my life that either always or never fall into a category. So that that’s that’s a really important mindset shift that I had to make. Like I said, with my kids, he was probably 12, before he realized the irony of what I was saying, and I don’t think he appreciated the joke as much as I did. But if you’re a dad out there listening, just just know that your kids aren’t always going to appreciate your humor. That’s why they have dad jokes, right? I’m totally guilty of dad jokes a lot. But yeah, it’s a that’s a mindset shift, I think really makes a big difference.

Now,

you were talking about books from Dan Siegel. And I’ve heard his name before. And one thing I want to make sure I do is get some of those listed on the show notes here. How do you say you know how to spell his last name? I should ask that first.

Sarah Salisott 1:06:39
Yes, yes. So it’s Dr. Dan Siegel, s, e, g, e, l. And you really can’t go wrong with any of the books that you’re looking for. But the ones I recommended were parenting from the inside out. That’s what it’s gonna be the book club. And then I talked about the power of showing up and that one just came out in January. So a lot of people haven’t read that one yet.

Jason Palmer 1:07:06
Now, he did a lot of work with Karen Purvis too, didn’t he?

Sarah Salisott 1:07:10
He did. So her book, The connected child, and now the connected parents that went also came out in 2021. And she does tbri. So a lot of their work goes together, because Dr. Dan Siegel is about attachment and brain science. And Karen Purvis is about relational intervention, which utilizes attachment science,

Jason Palmer 1:07:36
okay. Okay. Well, did you have anything else that you wanted to make sure you got in here today, to do well, to let the audience know what you have coming up or any other information or wisdom that you want to make sure they hear?

Sarah Salisott 1:07:49
I think I gave you enough book recommendations to get most people through a year. So we’re gonna stop there, even though I could just keep going. I guess I’d say like, if you’re interested in a free resource, join the book club, that will be starting in 2021. And if the episode comes out, and the first chapter of the Book Club came out, that’s fine. Join whenever and pop in as you’re able. And I gave a couple of the tips from my book. So it is welcome to the foster lane parenting advice from a coach who’s been there. That’s what the publisher, they’re designing the cover right now. So that’ll be out in the spring. And I have a number of trainings and what you were talking about earlier made me think of one, I have a training on my website, that’s called 10 things you should have learned in pre placement training, but didn’t. And it’s really basic. It’s a fast training. I think it’s like 20 minutes long, but it hits kind of those pain points that experienced foster parents have. And I asked a community of almost 3000 foster parents, what the 10 things they wish they had learned. And I have a couple other trainings on there as well.

Jason Palmer 1:09:04
Great. We’ll make sure we get them in there. Amanda, did you have any other questions before we bring this to a close?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:10
I don’t think so. It’s been wildly interesting, though.

Jason Palmer 1:09:14
A couple questions I’d like to throw in here right at the end. If you had a magic wand to fix one thing in the foster care and or adoptive system, what would you fix first?

Sarah Salisott 1:09:25
savior ism. The idea that we’re here to save the children. I would fix that in a heartbeat. And I would be happy to stop there. But that idea of We Are the saviors to children and we’re taking them from a bad situation and we’re just magically making everything better because we’re going to love them and that’s just the way things work. And that is the perfect recipe for more trauma for both the foster and adoptive parents and the children. Second trauma is real. So I would definitely fix that situation. And the other one is more robust wraparound services to keep children in home. And because there is significant trauma in children coming into the foster care system, there is a time and a place. Obviously, I’m a foster parent, I want to add that support. But really, if I could help kids go home faster, or not leave their home, that would be something I would absolutely do.

Jason Palmer 1:10:32
Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, those

Unknown Speaker 1:10:34
are both really, really important. In fact, me and Jason talk about it quite often. But that’s one of the one of the things that bothers me so much is when someone tells me, oh, there’s a special place in heaven for you. And, you know, things of that nature, because I’m a foster parent.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:49
Hmm,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:50
no, I’m not a great person. Just because I’m a foster parent. That’s not what makes me great.

Jason Palmer 1:10:55
If you think God’s making a special spot in heaven for me because of that you don’t know me very well. Because I have my fair share of flaws. Don’t call him and I said that. She might not believe I said it.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:09
After 20 years, I’m certain I know most of your false.

Jason Palmer 1:11:13
What’s one thing that you wish people knew about you in your journey that you think that they don’t understand

Sarah Salisott 1:11:20
how much work I put in. People look like social media, everybody thinks everything is perfect. And I, I protect the hard parts of my children’s stories, with everything that I possibly have. Which means the closest people in my life, my, my in laws, my parents is my family that I’m very, very close to now. They don’t know the hard stuff. They don’t they don’t know what keeps me up at night. And you know, all of those different pieces. So I wish people knew how hard it is and how many foster parents cry at the end of the day. Because being a trauma mama is hard. And it is stressful, and it is exhausting. And we still show up to do it. And it’s it’s important that kids deserve it.

Jason Palmer 1:12:19
I don’t think I’m gonna argue with any of that, except the trauma mama part, because I might take offense, if people start calling me that.

Sarah Salisott 1:12:28
Papa is fine. It

Jason Palmer 1:12:30
doesn’t have the same ring. I’m just gonna say that now it’s been foster parents, one of the things that we’ve learned is that support is really, really important. You’ve got to have some support in your life. And and to be fair, and just fully transparent. Amanda and I we don’t have a whole lot of support. Our families of origin, neither one are really places we reach to for support for for this and we don’t have we’re in a rural area, we don’t have a lot of people close to us. So we have a smaller support network, for sure. But it’s important to have that around you in whatever fashion you can. So what does support look like for you as a foster mom?

Sarah Salisott 1:13:06
It’s a two part answer. So our family and friends have been relatively supportive. We live in a densely populated area. And we know a lot of people in the foster and adoptive world. So I have a robust online presence of other foster parents that I work with, and just chat with him vent with and talk about the positives and all of that. And I also lead a support group, every other Monday for foster and adoptive parents. I’ve had people from both coasts, in the United States join. I’ve had people from other countries join. And really, it’s open. It’s on the website. So if you all would like to join. There’s a lot of people from the LGBTQ community who come at different points, but all are welcome. And the support group.

Jason Palmer 1:14:00
That’s amazing. That’s amazing.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:02
Yeah. So we’ll have to look into that.

Sarah Salisott 1:14:07
Yeah, come join us. It’s every other Monday.

Amanda Palmer 1:14:09
Tomorrow. It’s

Sarah Salisott 1:14:10
my biological parents support group but the week after, jump on it, zoom.

Jason Palmer 1:14:16
Yeah, you will. And that’s amazing thing about this whole COVID thing. Everybody wants to talk about the bad stuff. But COVID has taught us that we don’t have to be next door to to be with each other. We can, we can do all this stuff. Just like we’re sitting across the table. And it’s amazing, and it’s one of the few real benefits it’s come out of all this.

Sarah Salisott 1:14:38
Absolutely.

Jason Palmer 1:14:40
Okay, foster care nation. Thank you for listening to Sarah’s story. Now take her knowledge and wisdom to heart so you can create love and healing in your family and community. Be sure to come back next week. We have new episodes every Tuesday. If you’d like to share your story as a guest you can reach us at foster care uj@gmail.com you can connect with other like minded people. facebook@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care at uj. Don’t forget we have a Patreon where you can support our mission for as little as $5 a month. It’s at patreon.com slash foster care nation. The links to everything is in the show notes and on your podcast player or at foster care nation calm and as always,

Unknown Speaker 1:15:20
you are so super awesome. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:28
Thank you. Thank thanks