Foster Parent Book Recommendations
Listed below is a selection of booksyou may find beneficial to read. These include informational books on Biblical parenting and marriage, biographical memoirs of former foster children and books for foster kids to read themselves. Ask your family consultant about particular books that relate to you and the children you will be fostering.
For Parents:
The Out of Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder
Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.
This book offers “comprehensive, clear information for parents and professionals as well as a drug free treatment approach for children.The revised edition includes new sections on vision and hearing, picky eaters, and coexisting disorders such as autism and ADHD, among other topics.
The Out of Sync Child Has Fun: Activities for Kids with Sensory Processing Disorder
Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.
Each activity in this inspiring and practical book is SAFE—Sensory-motor, Appropriate, Fun and Easy—to help develop and organize a child’s brain and body. Whether your child faces challenges with touch, balance, movement, body position, vision, hearing, smell, and taste, motor planning, or other sensory problems, this book presents lively and engaging ways to bring fun and play to everyday situations.
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind
Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.
This book “offers a revolutionary approach to child rearing with twelve key strategies that foster healthy brain development, leading to calmer, happier children. The authors explain—and make accessible—the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,” which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids throw tantrums, fight, or sulk in silence. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth.”
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
This book “includes fresh insights and suggestions as well as the author’s time-tested methods to solve common problems and build foundations for lasting relationships, including innovative ways to:
- Cope with your child’s negative feelings, such as frustration, anger, and disappointment
- Express your strong feelings without being hurtful
- Engage your child’s willing cooperation
- Set firm limits and maintain goodwill
- Use alternatives to punishment that promote self-discipline
- Understand the difference between helpful and unhelpful praise
- Resolve family conflicts peacefully
ReFraming Foster Care: Filtering Your Foster Parenting Journey Through the Lens of the Gospel
Jason Johnson
Foster parents face a unique set of circumstances and experience a wide array of emotions that few can relate to. Their journey is one of equal parts beauty and brokenness, joy and heartache, excitement and exhaustion. There is no textbook on how to be a foster parent, no formula, no simple three-step guide.
But there is hope—in God’s capacity to bring great beauty out of tragic brokenness. This is the gospel—the lens through which you can filter your foster parenting journey and ultimately find the strength, motivation, and courage you need to be sustained along the way.
ReFraming Foster Care is a collection of reflections on the foster parenting journey designed to help you do just that—find hope—and to remind you that your work is worth it and you are not alone.
The Foster Care Survival Guide: The Essential Guide for Today’s Foster Parents
Dr. John DeGarmo
This book is “a guide to surviving the lifestyle of a foster parent filled with personal stories, practical tips and advice, and even humor and emotions.”
Grace Based Parenting: Set Your Family Free
Dr. Tim Kimmel
This book “recommends a parenting style that mirrors God’s love, reflects His forgiveness, and displaces fear as a motivator for behavior. As we embrace the grace God offers, we begin to give it-creating a solid foundation for growing morally strong and spiritually motivated children.”
Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families
Jayne Schooler, Betsy Keefer Smalley and Timothy Callahan
“Wounded Children, Healing Homes provides help for adoptive and foster parents of children who have been emotionally wounded by abandonment, rejection, and other traumatic events. Often parents enter an adoptive or foster experience with high expectations, lots of love to give, and expecting love in return. But often the case is that traumatized children need special handling and parents need education on how to handle their challenges. This book offers solutions and encouragement for parents as they lead their new child toward healing and wholeness.”
The Foster Parenting Manual: A Practical Guide to Creating a Loving, Safe and Stable Home
Dr. John DeGarmo
“The Foster Parenting Manual is a comprehensive guide offering proven, friendly advice for novice and experienced parents alike. DeGarmo describes what to expect from the process, how to access help and how to ensure the best care for your child. He tackles thorny issues such as children’s use of the Internet and social media, managing contact with birth parents and how to support your child at school. Most importantly, he provides advice designed to help your child feel safe, secure and loved.”
Christie Erwin
“Every foster parent knows how hard, yet rewarding, it can be to care for a child with a difficult past and an uncertain future. Christie Erwin has been a mom, in the middle, for countless children over nearly two decades. In this poignant and insightful book, she honestly shares the reality of making yourself vulnerable to the pain and indescribable delight of giving your heart away to a child. If you have ever considered foster parenting and just aren’t sure you have what it takes, let Christie’s inspiring, faith-filled story assure you that there is One that can and will equip you with all you need.”
Practical Tools for Foster Parents
Lana Temple-Plotz
“More than half a million children today live in out-of-home care, and many have special problems. The need for well-trained, loving foster parents has never been greater. With this book, Girls and Boys Town offers these committed people the professional tools they need to not only care for foster children but to actually help them get better.”
Jim Fay and Dr. David B. Hawkins
“The Love and Logic approach is the foundation for this book. This approach has helped millions of people raise wonderful, responsible children. Now we’re taking all that wisdom, which works so well with kids, and applying it to adult relationships. * Do you feel like there has to be a better way to interact, instead of arguing, with co-workers, significant others and any other adult in your life? * Do you ever struggle in your relationships with friends, family, co-workers, or significant others? * Do you feel like relating just shouldn’t be this hard? This book gives you a powerful toolbox filled with tried and true techniques that have proven useful to millions of people. It is guaranteed to make a profound difference in the way you communicate with others in your life!”
Love and Logic Magic When Kids Leave You Speechless
Jim Fay and Charles Fay
“For years, parents have asked Jim Fay and Dr. Charles Fay for specific words they can use when kids leave them speechless. The book is finally here! Twenty-three chapters include parent-child dialogues and plenty of information about how to handle the most frustrating things kids say.”
MEMOIRS
Mary E. DeMuth
In this moving spiritual memoir—Thin Places—Mary DeMuth traces the winding path of thin places in her life, places where she experienced longing and healing more intensely than before. From surviving abuse as a latchkey kid to discovering a heavenly Father who never leaves, Mary’s story invites you to a deeper understanding of your own story. She calls you to discover new ways to look for God in the past so that you might experience him more profoundly in the present.
Ashley Rhodes-Courter
An inspiring true story of the tumultuous nine years Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent in the foster care system, and how she triumphed over painful memories and real-life horrors to ultimately find her own voice.
Kathy Harrison
The story of life at our social services’ front lines, centered on three children who, when they come together in Harrison’s home, nearly destroy it. It is the frank first-person story of a woman whose compassionate best intentions for a child are sometimes all that stand between violence and redemption.
For Children:
Unstoppable Me: 10 Ways to Soar Through Life
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
The 10 important lessons in this book include the value of taking risks, dealing with stress and anxiety, and learning to enjoy each moment. Each point includes an example showing how a child might apply the concept in his or her everyday life.
You’re Here for a Reason
Nancy Tillman
This book shares that “not only are we loved, but we also matter. In this tender and timeless read-along book, Tillman reminds us of this message in beautiful illustrations as children and animals interact with acts of kindness.”
Patrice Karst
Specifically written to address children’s fear of being apart from the ones they love, The Invisible String delivers a particularly compelling message in today’s uncertain times that though we may be separated from the ones we care for, whether through anger, or distance or even death, love is the unending connection that binds us all, and, by extension, ultimately binds every person on the planet to everyone else.
Maybe Days, a Book for Children in Foster Care
Jennifer Wilgocki and Marcia Kahn Wright
For many children in foster care, the answer to many questions is often “maybe”. Maybe Days is a straightforward look at the issues of foster care, the questions that children ask, and the feelings that they confront. A primer for children going into foster care, the book also explains in children’s terms the responsibilities of everyone involved – parents, social workers, lawyers and judges. As for the children themselves, their job is to be a kid – and there’s no maybe about that.
Murphy’s Three Homes, a Story for Children in Foster Care
Jan Levinson Gilman
Murphy, a Tibetan Terrier puppy, is told he is a ‘good luck dog’ – he is cheerful, happy, and loves to play and wag his tail. However, after going through two different homes and an animal shelter, Murphy starts to feel like a ‘bad luck dog’ who nobody wants. Murphy’s Three Homes follows this adorable pup through his placement in three new homes, as well as through his anxiety, self-doubt, and hope for a new, loving family. Finally, Murphy is placed in a caring foster home where he feels comfortable and valued.
Zachary’s New Home, a Story for Foster and Adopted Children
Geraldine M. Blomquist, M.S.W. and Paul B Blomquist
This story for adopted and foster children describes the adventures of Zachary the kitten, who is taken from his mother’s house when she is unable to take care of him. It follows Zachary as he goes into foster care, his adoption by a family of geese and his feelings of shame, anger and hurt.
Finding the Right Spot, When Kids Can’t Live with Their Parents
Janice Levy
Finding the Right Spot is a story for all kids who can’t live with their parents, regardless of the circumstances. It’s a story about resilience and loyalty, hope and disappointment, love, sadness, and anger, too. It’s about whether life is fair, and wondering what will happen tomorrow, and talking about all of it. And finally, it’s about what makes the spot you’re in feel right.
The Star, a Story to Help Young Children Understand Foster Care
Cynthia Miller Lovell
The Star follows a fictional young girl, Kit, who is taken from her mother to the safety, and different world, of a foster home. On Kit’s first night in foster care, she becomes friends with a star outside her bedroom window. The star tells Kit about other foster children it has seen. Through the story, the star is a source of comfort for Kit as she experiences many emotions and adjusts to all the new things in her foster home.