Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Rebecca Unedited: Surviving Summer
Rebecca shares how intentionally noticing positive moments and seeking connection opportunities with her children is transforming her summer parenting experience, despite the challenging start.
• Summer began with significant struggles, including a moment when Rebecca needed to leave the house after a lawn chair broke in her hands
• Progress with one child who historically couldn't participate in simple conversations without going into fight/flight/freeze mode
• Celebrating her young son's decision not to "scream like a pterodactyl" during a frustrating moment
• Working through attachment challenges with her daughter who typically ignores her after absences
• Finding simple connection points through pool time, popsicles, and tech-free activities
• Embracing the "1% change" concept from James Clear's Atomic Habits – small, consistent changes that alter trajectories
• Meeting children at their comfort level for connection rather than forcing interactions
If you're trying intentionally to notice positive moments or create connection with your kids this summer, I'd love to hear about it. Drop a comment on our Instagram page or send me an email about what you're hoping for this summer.
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Hi, thanks so much for joining us today on Behind the Curtain, honest conversations about foster care and adoption. I'm your host, Rebecca Harvin. I've been thinking about this particular Rebecca unedited episode and it kind of struck me that most people would show up thinking that they're going to, like, impart wisdom right, and certainly I'm assuming that you're listening to this hoping for a little bit of wisdom and therefore not waste your time, and I rarely feel like that's anything that I have to offer other than to share what I'm doing. Some of it is really helpful and some of it is really human. I guess maybe that's they're both human, Um, and that's just a human experience. I don't know. I I'm struggling with that. My perfectionist nature, um, struggles with the not great sides of being human. So, um, but you know, sometimes we're just knocking it out of the park and other times we're struggling to cross the finish line or crawling across it. And I don't know about you, but summertime, um, in the Harvin household kicked off with a bang um, and not in a good way, like in a way that I was sending a text to my friend. She's asking what I wanted to do and I was like I want to be, not here. I want to be somewhere else, very different.
Speaker 1:The first weekend of summer was so hard for me, for our family in general, but for me in particular. Um, so much so that by Saturday night I actually just left. I don't ever do that, Um, it's kind of not, it's probably in my nature to do that, but I make sure that I don't, um, make sure that I don't just kind of sporadically leave. But that Saturday night I did. I was repositioning a lawn chair that I had just purchased on Facebook Marketplace a week before and it fell apart in my hands. And it didn't fall apart because I bought the wrong lawn chair. It didn't fall apart because I bought a broken lawn chair. It fell apart because it just took one week for my kids to trash the progress that I'm trying to make in the backyard. And that moment where I'm standing there with the head of the lawn chair, it had already been a horrible day. So it took me about one second to realize that I needed to exit stage left and I needed to do it immediately. Not my best moment, but it certainly prevented really bad moments from happening. I don't I never know why I'm telling you guys stories like this, other than to say that, if your summer started off rough, you're not alone.
Speaker 1:We barely made it through the first weekend of summer in my house. I have done a quick little trip to Michigan with two of my boys, and if you're in Michigan and you're listening to this, I am sorry that I didn't tell you. I barely told anybody in Florida that I was leaving. I booked the tickets about a month ago, when I again needed to be anywhere, but here, preferably 1000 miles away in God's country, and I figured I would be nice and I would bring two of my kids. And plane tickets were extremely cheap. Thank you, Allegiant. If you don't, if you can pack everything that you are bringing with you into a backpack. Round trip tickets were $94. So no, they were cheaper than that, because all three of our tickets were less than $250. So extremely cheap options. So extremely cheap options, and so that's what we did.
Speaker 1:I took two kids. I thought it would be great. I thought it would be fine Great might be an overstatement. I thought it would be fine. I was going to one of my best friends, so I knew I would have a good time.
Speaker 1:I underestimated, though, that one of the kids that I was bringing with me is the kind of particular that is. It's not five o'clock, it's 501. He's that kind of a kid and if you just heard me say that and you audibly groaned or sighed um, yeah, yeah, I have one of those. You have one of those um, that goes across the board. For him it's not just something as simple as time, it's very particular. He's very, very particular. And the last time that I traveled with him, separate from the whole family, so some of my kids idiosyncrasies actually kind of blend in when we're all together, the eight of us. But you know, that's the point of traveling with just one or two kids is you get to spend time with them and they kind of get the stage Um, so the last time we were in New York city for a couple of days and it was exhausting, then like I remember coming home and being like, oh my gosh, he didn't stop moving, he didn't stop talking, he walked diagonally in front of us the entire time.
Speaker 1:He is a highly neurodivergent kid and it was all on display for all of the days. But I thought like, well, that was New York City, and New York City is like overstimulating, and New York City is like overstimulating. No, ma'am, I was wrong. This time we were visiting my friend who lives on a farm and there wasn't a city to distract him, so all of that was just directed at the humans in his proximity. Needless to say, at one point my fingers were flying on a text to my husband back at home, threatening to never travel with him again or whatever, and it was a lot, but this kind of incredible thing happened, and that was on the last day. His body relaxed, his brain relaxed, his mannerisms relaxed, Um, apparently he'd heard me the previous days and he took notes, and by the last day he was able to really um be around other people in a um pleasant way. It wasn't perfect, right, by any means. He's not perfect, he's a kid right, by any means. He's not perfect, he's a kid Um. But I could see his body and his brain relaxing and the best part for me was that I noticed um, instead of just saying like, ah, he was miserable on the trip. Um, I noticed, I noticed that he had good times. He wasn't altogether frustrating or frustrated right, and that's kind of what I want to talk to you about today.
Speaker 1:I don't know if this falls under the category of wisdom or it's just what I'm doing and what I am, how I'm intentionally spending my summer, and that is with this act of noticing. It's how I've spent the first few weeks. It's how I want to spend the next several weeks. I want to build this habit of paying attention to when things are going right and noticing it, really truly pausing and paying attention. We are in a hard season in my house, so it's never going to be hard for me to notice when everything feels like it's falling apart. In fact, that's just kind of the standard. It's what I assume for most days, which is what makes it even more important to notice when it does go right, Like just this morning.
Speaker 1:Before I'm recording this, I have been working with one of my littles for months months now, about being able to participate in a parenting conversation, Meaning like when I ask a question like hey, whose bowl is this on the counter? That's just like a question and not a you're going to get in trouble, or you're going to get in trouble, or you're going to get yelled at, or you're going to get anything. And before you say like, well, you know, maybe she was yelled at at one point, whatever, no, she's hasn't. She's been with us for a long time, five years now, and I know how I respond to these conversations, right. So like hey, is this your bowl on the counter? Great, Put it in the sink.
Speaker 1:Something as simple as that turns into fight, flight or freeze and can throw her off for minutes, large chunks of minutes, hours the day sometimes, and you can just imagine how disruptive this is to normal life when a question as simple as whose bowl is this on the counter? Can turn into that hey, who used the bathroom and didn't flush the toilet can disrupt a day. So we've been working for months on how to participate and today, earlier, I was picking them up and this thing had happened at this place where they were, and I got into the car and, to be fair, I had responded a little bit poorly and I made some snap judgments based off of previous character traits and her sister was like hey, that's not actually what is happening here, and so I reversed really quickly and said inherent nature in this season of her life. She started to go downhill and I said hey, you're not in trouble, I just want to have a conversation with you. This is where you show up in conversation. And you guys, she did it. She, with trembling, a trembling little voice and little trembling lips, and like a little bit of tears, she struggled her way to the surface and had the conversation.
Speaker 1:And because I'm paying attention to noticing, I paid attention to noticing. Does that make sense? Because I've been, because I've said to myself like, hey, I want to notice when something goes right, I want to notice when something I've been working on with the kids for a long time our youngest screams like a pterodactyl, so much so that I'm not the only one who says that. Some guy in Yellowstone last summer, after one of my youngest screams, was like oh, that sounds like a pterodactyl. And I said, yes, that's exactly what we call it. And I'm like you can't do this. In kindergarten We've got, you've been doing this for years. He's been doing this the whole time. He's lived with us. He came as a baby.
Speaker 1:His toddler years have been fraught with this scream and I'm like you can't, we're knocking this behavior out. And so I've been working on it. Well, there was a situation a couple weeks ago where he would have pulled the scream, but instead he was still upset and he went around the corner and had a whole pity party to himself. But he didn't scream. And I looked at my husband and I said I like mouth so he wouldn't hear, so that, like our youngest wouldn't hear me. And I was like he's not screaming, and just sitting there and noticing, oh, this work, this consistency that I've been doing in parenting is paying off. This consistency that I've been doing in parenting is paying off and this no-nonsense tolerance towards the scream is paying off. And noticing and going, okay, we're making forward progress and today, sitting in the car having it, I was you know, you can't be like I can't show too much in that moment, but just sitting there, going, she's doing it, she's having this conversation and it's really hard but she's doing it. So freaking proud of her.
Speaker 1:The same kid struggles so much in attachment. You've heard me talk about this before in attachment. You've heard me talk about this before Um. And it's the kind of stuff where, like you, just go, I really I kind of hope that this pans out and um, it's going to be a roller coaster until it does Um. She likes to ignore me if I've been gone Um.
Speaker 1:So and she did, she totally did Um, but a couple of days later it took her a couple of days of kind of completely ignoring me. But then a couple of days later she made appropriate bids for connection. Um, I'm using that word appropriate there on purpose, because the difference is striking when she's making bids for I would say attention and some people nicer than me would say connection, but it doesn't look or feel like connection. It looks very disruptive and demanding and this time it was not. It was just a bid for connection.
Speaker 1:And my job was not only to meet her where she was at and to connect right, but it was also to notice it, to go oh, she's making a bid for connection and it doesn't. A, it doesn't make me want to claw my eyeballs out and B it's like actually really good and it feels good and it feels nice. Guys, I cannot tell you how much improvement that is Now. My other job was to maintain a level heart and head and spirit when she blew up later in the day over very small things because she had done this big, huge thing. Does that make sense? And it's to go. Okay, I'm not even going to engage with that, I'm not going to get bent out of shape over it, because she did this emotional marathon earlier in the day and I noticed we have a pool.
Speaker 1:We got a pool for the summer and I said to Brad the other day it took us a little bit to get the pool up. It took us a little bit to get the pool filled. Holy moly, when you have a decent-sized pool it is thousands of gallons of water. It took two days of the hose running constantly. God bless my JEA bill. But I looked at Brad and I was like, if the rest of the summer goes like the last three days, this is going to be the best money that we've spent in years.
Speaker 1:Because our house was and dare I say it, dare I say it pleasant to be in for the hours on end, Hours on end. I I could have missed it, I could have slipped by, but it didn't because I made a point to notice it. But also, guys, I can't tell you the last time that our house was pleasant to be in for hours on end when the whole family was home at the same time, For two reasons One, I think it happens very rarely, but two, because I don't notice it when it's happening. So I noticed and I took a breath and I was like, okay, here we go, the overwhelm like when you notice things, when you're noticing the good and not just the miserable. It just it doesn't change right, Like it doesn't change the percentage of unpleasant things that is significantly higher. It just makes it to where, when I look at that percentage, I have the ability to say, yes, but it's not all bad. Look at this.
Speaker 1:And then I have a treasure trove of memories in my brain where I have paused and noticed the next time that my brain wants to tell me that we're not making any forward progress with this one kid. I have another part of my brain that has locked away. Oh no, no, that's not true. She, she was vulnerable. That's a huge win for her. She showed up in conversation. That's a huge win. And I and I go oh okay, I go, okay, we are making progress, I can breathe, it doesn't feel as hard.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I'm trying to be really intentional about this summer and that I've just kind of noticed, in that I've said it a couple times and I have made it a point with one of the kids is that I want to be really intentional about using this summer to connect, to find moments of connecting with my kids, not to put the entire pressure of being in a different place of attachment than we are. But, like last week on the podcast, I was talking about how we're keeping one of the littles home this summer, Not just because she doesn't really do well in day camp although that's a huge reason but also so that she can just get some one-on-one time with her parents and her older siblings. Right, she is solidly a middle child. She is the most middle personality wise of the six. So anytime that I can put a spotlight on her it's a win in my book. I mean truly like my prayer used to be God please don't, please, don't. Let me forget her in the madness of raising this family. Like don't let her become an adult and have these stories of abandonment upon abandonment because her parents didn't see her. And he answered that prayer when she started school and she got moved to the front burner based off of like neurodivergence and her behaviors in school. Right, but outside of all of the advocacy that I am doing for her and all of the different therapies that she has to do and everything like that, I just want to see her as a kid. I just want to know who she is as a kid. I want to delight in her as who she is, and not the work that I do in parenting her. Does that make sense? And in the same way, I want to find some moments this summer. This is not like I'm not trying to make this a gigantic goal, but in simple things like saying yes to getting in the pool with them when they ask me to. I did that this weekend and I was like you know, this is great. Actually, this is wonderful. Now I got in the pool with him a different time and the number of times that I was splashed in my face or hung on in a pool where it doesn't have a deep end, so put your feet on the ground I eventually was like I'm done, I'm getting out now because it was miserable. It was a miserable experience for me, but two kids in the pool and me on a float tanning was lovely. It was lovely and I thought I can do this. I can say yes and do this.
Speaker 1:Simple things like, you know, grabbing an ice cream cone on the days when they have to come into the office with me, letting them come to the office with me instead of deciding that that's too much of a headache and putting the burden on you know, paying a babysitter or paying our oldest to watch them. It's simple stuff like, I don't know, stocking our freezer with popsicles and having regular popsicles and having regular popsicles over the summer. You're not going to believe this, but we rarely stock those stick popsicles you end up talking about. They're ubiquitous with summer, they're the very epitome of what summertime should be. We never have them, Unless they're at, like, a friend's house where my sister keeps them stocked, you know, and so maybe that changes this summer. Maybe this is like the summer of popsicles. I was looking at my older kids, who have been home for less than a week and are glued to their phones and tablets less than a week and are glued to their phones and tablets, and I'm like maybe we're going to do some tech free time and not spend our summer on the phone. Maybe and I don't know, I haven't thought this one through terribly much but maybe I'm getting off of social media for the summer and just focusing on being present, being here, reading books I mean, I read books all of the time but taking the kids to the library, you know, and making it, making it this summer with my kids, Um, it's not going to fix everything.
Speaker 1:This is, you know, at Haven we talk about a 1% change. It comes from um James Clear Atomic Habits. I love this book. I love it, love it, love it. But more than the entire book, I love this idea, this kind of rule of life, and that is a 1% change in trajectory. Over time changes the trajectory. It changes the course of your life. A 1% change, Consistently done over time, changes the course of your life. The example that he uses in the book is that a plane taking off from Los Angeles that puts in their thing that they're going to New York, If there is a 1% change in trajectory, that plane lands in Washington DC.
Speaker 1:Now, if you've listened to this podcast or if you have come to a retreat, you have heard me talk about this. I can't get away from talking about this, right? Because the thing that I'm talking about today is not these grand big changes. It's going hey, what did I notice about my kids today? Just asking that question. This is obviously better if it's stacked with a different habit that you're doing, like brushing my teeth Every morning. When I brush my teeth, I'm going to tell myself one thing that I noticed about my kids the day before.
Speaker 1:Now. For me that doesn't work, because I want to notice my kids in the act of it. So maybe for me it would be something like every day when I eat lunch I'm going to remind myself of something that I noticed in my kids, to remind myself of something that I noticed in my kids, or I'm going to stop and notice my kids. Yeah, I like that one, Maybe I'm adopting that one, but it just kind of like links. Now, you guys know how my brain works. So I like externally process everything.
Speaker 1:But that's this idea, that's this like I'm not doing huge changes Our houses. I don't have this expectation that at the end of the summer our house is wildly different, my marriage is wildly different, the kids are wildly. I don't have that expectation. I have made some big changes that I hope over time will pay off. But for this summer I'm looking at these 1% changes. I'm going to notice when it's good in my house and I'm going to intentionally look for ways to connect at the level that my kids can connect with and at the level that I'm okay connecting with right, which means I'm not looking for this all of the time, I'm just looking for it some of the time I'm not engaging, like my daughter that likes to ignore me if I've been gone. I'm not chasing her down. I used to. I used to be very like this is what's good, this is what's healthy, Like we're going to have, we're going to. I'm going to make you connect, I'm going to make you connect with me. That doesn't work, and so instead I just give her her space.
Speaker 1:Kids and I are snuggling in bed watching a movie. When I come home from a trip, which is quite often what we do we snuggle either on the couch or in my bed. I turn into a starfish. Kids touch every limb of my body, even my big kids, and we will watch something on TV. And I know that it's going to happen. I'm prepared for it to happen.
Speaker 1:I come home knowing that my kids have a deficit of connection and she doesn't. Well, she does, but she's not going to. Okay, I'm not going to insist that you do. I'm going to meet you at your level of connection, which is to wait and meet. When you do come two days later with a bid for connection, and that bid for connection was her coming and sitting. I was in my bedroom and she came and sat on the other side on the edge of the bed and I was like, okay, and she didn't say a word, she just sat. I was like, all right, I'm going to meet you right there and then I'm going to invite you a little bit further in. And we did this dance for a while actually, until eventually we made it to the point where we could not looking at each other, but I could just reach over and hold her hand and we just sat there holding hands. That was huge for her and for me, but meeting her where she's at is how we got there. So, anyhow, that's a rabbit trail and we're not there all the time, Don't even. That's a. That's why I shy away from wisdom, because if that was how our relationship would be, I would have no complaints, but it's not.
Speaker 1:So, on that note, um, I hope you guys you guys are having a good summer. Have a really good summer. If you want to join me in my 1% of noticing when things are going well and then also connecting, making bids for connection with your kids, can you let me know, Maybe drop a comment on our Instagram page, which, even if I do take a social media break on my personal accounts, will still be monitored, or shoot me an email? I would love to hear what you've got going on this summer, or just what you're hoping for what you want this summer to be. So maybe go have a popsicle. I hope you guys have a great week. Talk to you soon.