Trauma Recovery and Kinship Care: Evidence-based Strategies for Rural Caregivers

Challenges of grandparents raising grandchildren

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What happens when the world's best trauma science is trapped behind academic paywalls while the families who need it most are starving for real tools? Today's guest, Dr. Cristal Bador, is a translator. After a decade as a federally funded researcher, she's bridging the gap between clinical data and the kitchen table. We aren't just talking about getting by today. We're auditing the biological and psychological infrastructure required to build a true sanctuary in the wake of disaster and addiction. It's time to move past the shame and into the evidence. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing through adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. Okay, it's true confession time again. I spent yesterday afternoon feeling like all I wanted to do was watch my plants grow. I felt guilty about it, like I was wasting work hours until I realized I was experiencing a total system overload. Like many of you, I've tried to will myself out of exhaustion, forgetting that sleep and rest are biological requirements, not luxury items. My conversation with Dr. Badour hit me in the gut because she reminds us that we cannot support a child's dysregulated brain if our own motherboard is redlining. Dr. Bador has seen how systems fail rural families, but she's also seen the incredible power of community connection. This episode changed how I view my own rest and how I talk to my grandkids about the family risk of addiction. It's a masterclass in shifting from a moral-failing narrative to a systematic recovery strategy. Welcome, Dr. Bador, to the show.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Thank you so much for having me, Laura.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

You describe yourself as a translator. I want you to share with us what it is that you translate and what led to your interest in studying Appalachian, Kentucky, and the infrastructure of kinship care.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So I am a serve a few different roles. I'm a researcher, I'm an educator, I'm a professor at the University of Kentucky. I'm also a clinician, so I provide therapy, uh trauma-focused therapy to people who need it. And I also spent a lot of my young childhood in rural areas that were really underserved. I also personally, at one point in my life, lived in New Orleans uh during Hurricane Katrina. And so was really personally impacted by a community large, community-wide disaster.

Research and community outreach in Appalachia

SPEAKER_01 4:00

And I started uh when I came to Kentucky, there was a lot of really wonderful research and partnerships that were happening for people in rural Appalachia, which is kind of our neighbor down the road. And uh, while I started to get involved in that work over there, they had a horrible flood event. And I found myself thinking of the ways I had personally been impacted by trauma and all the years of research I had done on how to support people who'd been impacted by trauma. And I thought, well, maybe I can take some of this research side and the science language and start talking to people in communities and find ways to bridge the gaps and use language that makes sense to people as we do as researchers is we kind of keep the science behind gates, if you will. And I think a lot of the times the information that can be really helpful to people just doesn't get to them. And so that's where I think that role being a translator really started to come in is how can I bridge those gaps?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

I I would love to hear your opinion about why rural communities often lead the way in informal kinship. How can the rest of the country learn from that?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

I think it's one of the really amazing strengths of rural areas that people in cities don't always get to have the benefit of, in that small communities, people not only know each other, but they know each other's families uh from generations. I think about this in I moved into a rural community when I was young, and I was one of the first people to have moved there in anyone's recollection. I went to the very small school where everyone's parents and grandparents went to the same school, right? And um people often engage across generations in community gatherings and faith-based organizations and churches, and there's a very strong sense of community in a lot of rural places in terms of um we take care of each other, uh, and an extended sense of family. And so I think that there are some real differences culturally in in some rural areas in terms of how connected that like broader system of families can be, especially when something happens and and there's need to step in and support loved ones outside of the small nuclear family.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

What do you think, as grandparents raising grandchildren, we can learn from that?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

I I think that I think this is true for for anyone raising children, but I think especially for grandparents who are finding themselves maybe in a phase of life that they didn't expect and and needing support in new ways than they did before. We are we thrive on connection as humans. And especially when we find ourselves thrust into roles that we didn't expect, our needs for support and community really can increase. And it can be hard to find those same types of connections when we are in that new role. And I think that learning from ways in which people are more connected, particularly in this day and age where we're increasingly, I think, removed from each other because we're so connected online instead of in person, that we're getting to those roots of a real human connection really, really important to make sure that grandparents who are finding themselves in this new role are getting the support they need as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

I know you've done a lot of work with trauma. And most of the children that we are working with have experienced trauma, whether it's death or parents that are incarcerated or drug addiction. What do you think is one of the most important things that we can learn about changing our goals to support a child that's been through trauma?

Providing support for caregivers

SPEAKER_01 7:43

What a great question. You know, I think when we work with children, when children come into our lives who've been impacted by trauma, we're very quick to think how can we get them the support they need? How can we get them working with a therapist or working with someone who's knowledgeable in this space to help support them? But we as caregivers need that support too. Uh and so I think one of the biggest things that grandparents can do is make sure that they're getting the support that they need to not only be knowledgeable about the unique kinds of challenges that the children that they're caring for may be struggling with, but also that they're getting the emotional support to be able to navigate that effectively for the child, but also for themselves so that they can remain healthy and and and engage uh in the caregiving in the way that they'd like to do. So I think we often don't necessarily think about supports for ourselves when we're trying to support others. But um I'd say that's probably one of the most helpful things because when adults are given helpful information and and equipped with the knowledge of how does trauma work in the brain of young people, how might it affect the way that they communicate, the way that they manage their emotions, the ways that they learn, then we're in a better situation to be able to help support them and also to be more understanding if things are difficult as they navigate that process.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Well, I've certainly noticed that for my granddaughter, especially who has learning disabilities, that there's a lot of she's coping with a lot of guilt and a lot of shame around her inability to keep up.

unknown 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Socially she's behind and also academically. And I think a lot of us struggle with how we help them cope, not just, I mean, I know that encouraging them to be just who they are, but there's also um a need for uh a struggle with how much do we medicate them, how much do we make them fit in, or help them fit into this very hustle culture that we've that we we want them to live up to those expectations. Have you learned anything that you can share with us about what you see has been most successful in in helping those children adapt or or discouraging them from trying to adapt?

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah. Yeah. I think this is a real tension, right? Because we want children to be able to thrive in the structures of school systems and um later and jobs and relationships. And so there is uh one on the one hand, we really kind of want to help the support them so that they can thrive the best in those structures. And at the same time, like it's okay to think outside the box and to recognize that although it might be a challenge, like you gave the example in reading for your granddaughter, that that might be a challenge. It might be something that we work to support and help find where what is her capacity, what is her potential, advocating to make sure that um she's getting as much support in that role as possible. Because many times as caregivers, we end up being advocates, right? For for the children who we love. And then also recognizing that it's okay to be different and that there are ways that children can learn to thrive in other settings. And maybe it's that reading, reading maybe all always be difficult, but there's, I mean, kids are so amazing. They come, they come equipped with things that we don't ever necessarily even notice. Like maybe they have just a really strong understanding of music if reading doesn't go, you know, if reading's not their area, or maybe they love to dance, or maybe they love to build things and some of these other strengths that aren't necessarily the things we first think of with our kind of uh common school structure, uh, can be things that can help children really thrive and build confidence in other areas, even if they might be feeling like they're struggling a bit in one domain.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I think that's important. I it's so important. I mean, all this high quality self-help is really great. But I also think some of these children we we want our children to become almost too resilient to to fit in in uh we we see them success in sometimes I think the wrong way.

Deciding on granddaughter's education

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yes. Instead of thinking, you know, my granddaughter came to me the other day and she said, please don't tell any I mean, she she is not going to be passing third grade and she's already been held back a year. So I had to make the decision to say, Yes, I want her to go ahead and go into fourth grade, but she has um an IEP, so she'll get all the she's in special education. And because of social reasons, yeah, she's she's very tall, she's already struggling with a sort of a fantasy world that's that we're working on with her therapist. So staying in a very younger age group or class is is, I don't think, going to benefit her. But I also told her, you know, if you are never a good reader or you always never get above the level you're at now, then there will be things that make you happy. And there are things that make her happy, and she's incredibly brilliant in particular settings. And um I think that's something that in a more rural culture is we are more supportive of. You know, if we have if we have a daughter that doesn't become the son that don't that that are not in city government, let's just say, but they're um one of the best. I mean, she's uh brilliant with animals in a rural setting, she could be a farmer or she could be a veterinarian. I mean, I don't know how she would get through veterinarian school, but she's passionate about animals and I she's so I think this how can we take that uh uh how how can we view help them view their success differently?

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Such a good question. I think that it's helpful. I mean, one thing we know is that with kids, modeling struggle, I think is really important. I think the messaging that everything's okay, you'll be okay. I mean, there's a space for that, but also honesty with kids and that if there are spaces where they may struggle, it's okay to struggle, that we all struggle and we all have strengths and we all have areas that are not strengths for us and that we have to continue to work toward. And the example of reading, you know, reading may never be something that comes easily to you and that that that's okay. And you and you wanna keep working at it, right? Because it's an important part of what we have to do in a lot of our day-to-day.

Encouraging diverse career paths

SPEAKER_01 14:40

But that doesn't mean that, like you said, it doesn't mean that you're not going to have a beautiful future. And then we think about what are the things that you really do excel at so that we can help support you to pursue those options and those opportunities and to recognize that that there's not a one path. And I I tend to agree with you that I think that our our kind of hustle culture puts a lot of pressure on young people today nowadays to think that there's kind of one path and that's the right path. And it's not, and it's not the right path for a lot of people. And, you know, on in one of the hats that I wear, I uh I work with college students and I see them as they're navigating this transition into adulthood and thinking through what am I gonna do with my life? And I've kind of gotten all these messages about well, this is the path, this is what I have to do. I have to succeed, I have to, you know, lead these certain jobs and roles. And part of what I try to do with them is well, well, but do you want to? Like, is that really the life that you want for yourself? Or is that the life you've been told or you've gotten the message that you should want? And I think that's an important conversation to have with all young people and to talk about again, bring it back to like it's okay to struggle and it's okay to explore the places that you do thrive in and that bring you joy and bring you a sense of purpose and meaning. And for some people that might be very reading-oriented activities, and for others, that might be something very different, like connecting with animals in various different roles. I mean, I think that's a beautiful example of what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

And in rural communities, many people don't have a lot of the material belongings that that I see sometimes people that have less or are less or or living on less income-wise. Poverty is more mental, wouldn't you say, than it is materialistic.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Well, we certainly do see that um, you know, oftentimes in research we tend to look at income and we think about that as the real indicator of poverty. And and of course, that maps on to poverty, but we do see that income doesn't always map on to the way people perceive their situation. And so even for people who do have very little, if if we look at it in terms of objective money concern, you know, access to money resource, that the perspective on what do I do with those resources, how well aligned is it with my values, with what I care about, with being able to spend my time doing things that matter to me, feeling connected in my community, feeling connected in my faith, if that's important to them, that we see that that affects their sub more subjective experience of, you know, how am I doing in this world in terms of resources?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah, I think that's great, important to point out. Now, you I I know when I read a little bit about you, you talk about the importance of moving from the bitterness of why did my child choose drugs? Because a lot of these children come from parents, have addiction issues. Why is substance use a predictable outcome of system failure? Yeah. And how do we change the rhetoric around that?

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah. Yeah. So substance use is is a complicated experience in our society because we've really treated it for a long time. Instead of treating it like a disease, we've treated it like a moral failing. So we've often thought about substance use as like a lack of willpower, or if people cared more, they would make different choices. And we know that that's unfortunately just not how substance use disorder works. We know that substances actually change the way our brain processes information, processes reward and risk, and our the actual neurons and the structures inside our brain start to change over time as we use substances. And so to think about someone who is being impacted by that, just making a different choice is kind of akin to asking them to have a different brain.

Rethinking substance use disorder care

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Um, and I think when we shift our way of thinking about it to consider it that way, we can have a bit more uh, we can step back a bit from uh kind of looking at ourselves, maybe especially as parents, and saying, you know, where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently? And also think about, well, people who have status disease disorder have a disease that needs a lot of support. And when we think about managing other chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, we never think about that as like, oh, you just need a 30-day inpatient stay and you'll be great, good to go. But we do often think about that with substance use disorders. We think we'll just help you get clean and then send you underway and you should be fine. And that's even if people can access that care in the first place. Um, we have a lot of systems in place that put barrier after barrier after barrier to people cutting down on their use, to receiving the mental health support that often is what's needed to help people stop

Barriers in substance use recovery

SPEAKER_01 19:52

using drugs. To then when people have used drugs, they maybe gotten involved in the legal system or have barriers to getting back into jobs or other roles, have had issues where their children have been taken away, right? All of these systems set up more barriers that make it difficult for people to recover. And and so we really do see, particularly with substance use disorder, that it's a broad base failing of many different systems, unfortunately, that can start really early, even for young people who are starting to use drugs and trying to navigate the world. And a lot of times, use of drugs and alcohol are a way that people cope with stress and trauma and not knowing how else to manage those symptoms. So rather than thinking about it as how can we support them to have a different tool, we often kind of put them in this bucket as their lesson.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

I know that the conversations that I have with my grandchildren, I help them understand by explaining to them that their parents have not been able to cope with being parents. They're struggling with raising themselves.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah. So I'll share a personal example related to this, and that my husband, and I think he would feel comfortable with me sharing this, is that he actually has not used alcohol in over a decade as a result of um some challenges navigating alcohol and made a decision before we had a child ourselves that that was you know something that he needed to change in his life. And so we have frequent conversations with our son, who's eight, um, about alcohol and other drugs. And most people might think, eight, you're having these conversations at eight. And oh, yes, we're definitely.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

I don't think it's abnormal at all.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Yeah. But I think some people do. They think like, well, we got to protect children from these conversations. And of course, we need to talk with kids at a level that makes sense for them, that they understand.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

But we want to talk with kids early so that when they are faced with these questions themselves, do you want to try a drink? Do you want to smoke some marijuana? You know, those things that they they kind of know what they are. They know that they might be at more risk because there's risk that runs in their family. So the way we talk about this with our son is in the very same way that my family also has a risk for heart disease or cancer. Our family has a risk for substance use disorder. And there are differences that we all come into the world with. And for those of us who are at higher risk, we have to be more careful about our choices. And so we talk about making choices, making safe choices, making potentially unsafe choices around drinking and around use of other drugs. And we we start that conversation really early because when it gets to the point that the decisions start to be hard, we want it to be very normal and just a regular part of conversation so that our son feels hopefully more comfortable to talk with us about those decisions when it does come to that point.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

I love that because it is something that we fear talking about with them at a young age. But these children have been exposed to parents that they've lost because of drugs and alcohol. I agree it has to be careful the way you have to present it to them. But I'd rather it was something familiar than something scary. And we don't talk about that. It's taboo.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

That's right. Because that can be when we have those taboo messages, kids and if they don't know why, then it can lead to a lot of questions about is this something I should be afraid of? Is it something I should feel shame about? Um, and if I can't talk about it now, well, if this comes up in the future, then I'm definitely not going to talk about it, right? So these are all kind of messages that we might give to kids in an effort to protect them that are sending a message that it's not okay to come to us. And we want them to come to us, right? We want to be a place for them to explore and think these things through.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

And I think it's an exposure that they have at a younger and younger age nowadays. Yes. So if if a child is looking for comfort and friendship and companionship with someone that's offering them that with drugs or alcohol or any kind of substance, then they may tend to lean towards that as a form of of uh self-love or seeing it as self-love. Right. If there's anything that you'd like to share with the audience, what would it be about about kinship caregiving?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah, I think that it's really I think it's important to keep in mind that families look different and

Managing unexpected family roles

SPEAKER_01 26:53

that they're going back to the conversation that we had before about how there's no one right way to be and live a full and meaningful life. I think there's no one right way to be a family. Um and that, especially when people find themselves in positions that they were not expecting and roles to love people and support them and care for them in ways that they weren't expecting, that it's okay to have both positive feelings and love, and also to have pain and difficulties that go along with that, and that that's a normal part of the process. Um and that they don't have to be alone in going through that, and that it can be really, really helpful to have someone yourself that you can talk with to help navigate those things and to not kind of keep it, maybe keep it inside or feel feel guilty if you feel like, you know, some days I think this isn't really what I signed up for because it wasn't. And that doesn't mean that you don't love that person any less or are providing any less of a wonderful family for them.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Thank you. Where can the audience find out more about you and the work and your research?

SPEAKER_01 28:02

So they can find me at my uh online platform at www.scienceforsurvivors.com, and they can find the research that we're doing uh at the University of Kentucky Department of Psychology.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Great. And I'll put those links in the show notes too. Well, there are three questions that I'm asking all of those that I'm interviewing this year for the book. It's a systematic question, a taboo question, and a policy question. Okay. So my systematic question is: you've seen how culture and stigma create silence. In kinship care, we often stay silent about our grandchildren's origins or their parents, which we've already talked about to protect them. But I that silence often breeds shame for the caregiver and for the child. So, how do we name the trauma without destroying the family's dignity?

SPEAKER_01 28:53

I think it depends on where we're naming it. So I think there are some situations where we don't owe anyone an explanation for why we're parenting our grandchildren. And there are other situations where we may want to share that information. And I think deciding as a family how you want to share that and convey that in a way that feels good and comfortable for you and for your grandchildren, I think is really, really critical because as we've talked about throughout this conversation, there's not one right path. And you don't owe anyone else an explanation for how you came to be as a family.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

The taboo question that I have is we talk about the exhausted caregiver. I know you you do a lot of research on spe on sleep disruption. We rarely talk about the biological impact of chronic sleep disturbance. This week, I was having a system overload because I felt like I just had to take time to stretch and watch my plants grow. You know, and why I just don't know why it is that we feel like we're wasting time when we can't will ourselves out of exhaustion. And what does science say about why we must prioritize our own rest to save the kids?

SPEAKER_01 30:06

That's absolutely right. Yes. Yes. You know, we everyone we deprioritize sleep so much. We'll sleep when we're dead, right? Like that, why do we say that? Actually, we'll die sooner if we don't prioritize our sleep and we know how incredibly critical it is. And we're very quick to protect our children's sleep and want to make sure that they get the rest they need. But we expect ourselves to just go and go and go. And we know that we can show up better in terms of our physical health, but also in terms of our emotional health and our ability to be present and to be emotionally connected with the people we love, if we do prioritize our sleep. So, in some ways, I think if we it's it's sort of a prioritize yourself to prioritize others, if we could do one thing to really help stabilize that, it's really to take care of our sleep.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Thank you. I agree with that. The policy question that I have for you is if you were the COO of the country and had to redesign a rural health clinic or a CPS visitation room using the Science for Survivors framework, which emphasizes, let the audience know that it emphasizes safety, trust, and empowerment. What's the first paywall or barrier you would tear down to restore safety and dignity to kinship families?

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Oh, wow, what a question. There are so many. So how do I think about the first? I think one of the first things

Creating welcoming mental health spaces

SPEAKER_01 31:31

I would think about is making spaces accessible and welcoming. It's really overwhelming when people are having to navigate the mental health system, navigate the child protective system. And particularly in rural communities where there are few resources, people are having to often go to a place that's associated with a lot of stigma and bring their car into the parking lot where everyone in town knows their car. They might feel like, what are people gonna think about me? Is this a comfortable, safe place? What's gonna happen in here? And then oftentimes they walk in and it's like a concrete cell with no windows, no warmth. And these are spaces that um people are having to navigate oftentimes some of the hardest journeys of their lives. And we want to empower people with what should we expect here? We value you, you deserve to have dignity through this process. How can we make you as comfortable as possible? And equip you with the ability to drive the ship on how this conversation is gonna go, um, what supports you actually need, how can we make you most comfortable as we navigate this process? And I think those are those might feel like a drop in the bucket um with all the larger systemic issues that we need to navigate, but they're also, you know, fairly easier changes that we can start to think about to help make people's experience more positive.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, yeah, I agree. There's just so much stigma around it, and yes, and yet not addressing it is is is ignorance, really. We're ignoring the obvious. Well, uh thank you so much, and I really appreciate the work you're doing. I know that all of us that are listening are looking for ways to be supported in the world and to help these children have something better um than their parents did.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and your wisdom with all of your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Join us next week for episode 127 with Latif Ganem. Lati is a certified trauma-informed

Preview of episode with Latif Ghanim

SPEAKER_00 33:41

coach and former corporate communications executive who spent 15 years advising leaders in high-pressure boardrooms. She realized that the same patterns showing up in the office, reactivity, over control, and defensiveness were showing up even more intensely at home. We'll be discussing why parenting doesn't create your reactions, it exposes them. We're going to help you connect the dots between your childhood conditioning and your current triggers so you can break the cycle of guilt and burnout. This mission continues, folks. We are 2.7 million strong, still nurturing and still here. We're the ones translating pain into power, building sanctuaries in the middle of rural reality, and prioritizing our own healing so we can lead the next generation home. Your rest is a strategic asset on the balance sheet. Keep nurturing, keep leading, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.