When you’re on the foster and adoption journey, marriage can get super challenging. This show is meant to help you rebuild or strengthen your marriage so you can be the parents your foster or adopted children need you to be.
We’re discussing the hurtful practice of minimizing your spouse’s needs, thoughts and feelings, and how to do a better job of prioritizing them.
Understanding Your Spouse's Perspective
The importance of empathy in marriage, especially under the strains of fostering.
The Impact of Minimizing and Undervaluing
Negative consequences of not fully acknowledging your spouse's needs and struggles in a fostering environment.
We’ve all heard it. "Date your spouse." "You need date nights!"
Let's flip the script and introduce something we call “Connection Night.”
The Benefits of Connection for Foster Parents
Fostering can be incredibly rewarding, but also challenging, and maintaining a strong relationship is essential.
Connection nights offer:
In this month's episode, we’re discussing how to recognize and navigate grief together in marriage because grief is such a big part of the fostering and even adoption journey.
We have a very special guest with us, Dr. Melody Aguayo!
Dr. Melody is a parenting coach with a huge heart for families and children. With many years under her belt, Melody's seen it all: from high-risk kids needing a guiding hand, to those neurotyp...
In part 2 of our “Identity outside of fostering” series, we cover traps to avoid and how our self-perception shapes how we communicate.
Today, we’re getting into some deeper things concerning identity, and we want to shed some light on the traps or dangers of how we see ourselves to help all of us make better decisions in our lives and especially in our marriages.
We’re approaching this from the perspectiv...
In this episode, we’re talking about finding an identity outside of being a foster parent.
What is identity
Joel interviews MaryBeth (the main parent in our family)
In this episode, we’re talking about recognizing and working through bad responses to each other as a result of stress and things that trigger you.
Stressors of fostering:
We’re talking about the pursuit of selflessness, doing hard things, pain, sacrificing, or in other words, costly love.
Why are we talking about this? Because this is what we’ve all chosen by fostering, and it's not easy. It wears at everyone so we need perspective that helps us be strong and .......well, just keep perspective. We think this episode will accomplish that.
This episode isn’t a “5 keys to XXXX," or How-to episode,...
We're talking about splitting the mental load of being a foster parent, challenges and how to support each other.
Taking care of your mental and emotional health is so important when you’re pouring out a lot as a parent and facing different challenges and stressful situations day in and day out and you can quickly become like an engine running without oil.
Part of keeping your marriage first is helping each other mentally and emoti...
Today we’re picking up our series on setting healthy boundaries with family and friends.
Setting boundaries can be one of the hardest things for people to do but one of the most important.
The difference between walls, boundaries and healthy boundaries
Why are healthy boundaries so important?
In part 1 of our series on setting healthy boundaries, we’re talking about (cue dramatic music) setting healthy boundaries with family and friends.
This can be one of the hardest things for people to do but one of the most important.
We cover:
We pick up where we left off last month on developing a mindset that will best serve you in your marriage and when you’re fostering.
Now let’s get back into some key mindset and character traits that have served us well.
1. Kindness (or jocund :))
Definition - the quality of being friendly, genero...
When you’re doing hard things like fostering, developing a healthy mindset is everything.
We’re talking about developing a mindset that will best serve you in your marriage and when you’re fostering.
Understanding how we think is vitally important because our behavior, decisions, reactions and emotions all come from it
Some key mindset and character trai...
On this episode, we’re talking about when you feel like a failure as a foster parent and how to manage through that.
Types of situations when foster parents often feel like a failure:
Deciding if you should foster is a life-changing decision for everyone involved. We give our best advice on how to communicate about it especially when you’re not on the same page.
Communicating about this can be a big struggle for couples
How the initiator of the conversations...
In this episode, we’re in part 2 of discussing the importance of understanding personality styles through the lens of DISC.
High S
(S) Stabilizing, Amiable, Democratic, Patient
Where they’re gifted:
Caring deeply for others
Steady and stable
Predictable
Friendly
Sympathetic and understanding
Great listeners
Patient
Very loyal
Weaknesses or how they contribute to conflict:
Becomes disabled by conflict
Hates change
Struggles saying "no"
Internaliz...
On this episode, we’re talking about the importance of understanding personality styles through the lens of DISC.
Why this is important
DISC 101
We all send and receive information the way we prefer to send and receive it
Natural vs. adaptive styles
We all have D, I, S, and C but people t...
In this episode, we discuss being on the same page with your parenting in your Fostering Marriage.
Parenting approac...
In this episode, we’re talking about supporting each other in the struggles of fostering in a wholistic perspective.
1. Physical
2. Spiritual
It’s easy in fostering to lose focus on making your marriage the higher priority. Learn how to change that mindset and keep your marriage priority #1.
Today we’re talking about making foster parenting fit your marriage, not the other way around.
What holds couples back from keeping their marriage the higher priority:
In a Fostering Marriage, you’re faced with stressors, emotional struggles and hard decisions that can chip away at unity. Learn how to keep or create unity in the midst of challenges.
If you listened to Episode 0, welcome back and we’re thrilled you’re here!
In this episode, we’re ta...
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.