This holiday season is often called the “season of giving” where we focus on sharing physical gifts, our time, and the spirit of care and compassion. While the act of giving is exciting for many people, and actually boasts physical and mental benefits, it can also be a huge source of stress. How do we get into the mindset of giving without letting stress take over? 

For many in today’s fast-paced world, the holidays are not story-book perfect. Long distances, poor health, and finances keep some families and loved ones apart. For others, the holidays are filled with financial pressures and multiple stressors. While many negative emotions can be felt leading up to and during the holiday season, there is equal opportunity and promise for positive emotions, too. Here are a few positive thoughts to help make the holidays better.

For those suffering from seasonal depression, or ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’ (SAD), the oncoming of fall and winter can negatively impact their lives more than just the inconveniences of cold weather, snow, and icy conditions. Here are some at-home solutions you can try.

After raising their biological children, Kim and her husband Jason felt the timing was right to open their home to children within the foster care system, specifically teenagers. Kim wasn’t sure where to begin her foster care journey, so she and Jason decided to Google foster care in Minnesota, and that’s when they came across Nexus-Kindred.

Anna and Mark had always wanted to adopt. In 2019, they reached out to Nexus-Kindred Family Healing to become licensed foster parents and to open their hearts and home to a group of siblings.

Gratitude can reduce anxiety, lower blood pressure, improve sleep, and make us more resilient. It also fosters our relationships, even difficult ones. It floods your heart with warmth, changes the way you think, and allows you to let go of tensions. Focusing on gratitude will shift your perspective on life, and with practice, becomes a gratitude mindset.

Am I doing anything right? This question could easily be muttered by my teenagers or by me. Daily. Hourly. Parenting teenagers is no easy feat, especially parenting teens with traumatic backgrounds. Learning to parent your teenager's inner child while they emerge as a young adult can help you navigate this difficult stage.

Healing from trauma takes time - it is not linear and there isn’t a one-size-fits all solution. For youth at Nexus-Woodbourne Family Healing’s Residential Treatment Center, healing can start to feel overwhelming and repetitive with day-to-day therapy, classes, and other group activities. Nexus-Woodbourne employees are constantly looking for ways to enrich and enhance the youths’ healing process and lives.  

Anxiety can be the most overwhelming feeling as it causes us to imagine the different things that could happen if what we fear comes true. In parenting, your job with an anxious child is to help them through the experience and not avoid it.

Let’s talk about self-care for foster parents, shall we? It’s a hot topic that is beautiful and necessary in theory and often feels impossible in practice. When each day is unpredictable, especially as many of our children deal with night terrors and other nighttime disturbances, how do we find the time and mental, physical, and emotional space to take care of ourselves?