Relative Caregivers Self Care

• Taking care of you will help your child
• Taking care of you will help you parent
• Your child needs you to take care of you

What we face:

Child trauma: This is not the child you thought you knew.  Take tame to become reacquainted with the child.  With a sense of curiosity and wonder, ask "who is this kid?"

Off-time parenting: This was not your plan nor your first choice.  You're going back in time instead of retiring.

Grief and loss: Some mad/sad stuff happened to get us here.  It will take some time to mourn before moving on to the next chapter.

Parenting from the inside out:  Who are you?  You are not just a grandparent or relative caregiver.  You are a person first, a partner second, a part third, and then there's friend, neighbor, citizen.  Let's get our priorities straight.  These children cannot be the center of our lives.  It's not good for them and it's not good for us.  When we keep parenting in it's place and focus on ourselves we are modeling and teaching what we want our kids to become.  Whole and healed.  This is about perspective, not perfection.

This is a marathon not a sprint, with the finish line in sight we know it takes patience and perseverance not speed.  There have been some ups and downs on this course that take grit and guts.

This is a road trip not a racetrack.  We're not driving in circles ad we're not her to win trophies.  We prepare for breakdowns and flats.  We stop for the roadside attractions and weird food.  We get los and off course before backtracking and correcting our route.  And sometimes we wind up in places we never thought we'd see.  Like planning for California and winding up in Kansas.  And it's only in retrospect that we see the value in our journey.