Stepparenting 101: Debbie Ausburn Helps Us Understand Your Role in a Child's Life

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:00:05

Welcome to the D shift podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get the shift started. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the D shift. I am so happy that you found time to come in and listen to this conversation we're going to have today I am meeting with Debbie Ausburn. And she is a former social worker and lawyer who has worked with youth serving organizations, which is kind of cool because being an ex teacher, I think that's kind of cool. And but your specialty now is really working on blending families, step parenting and foster parenting. Did I get that right, Debbie?

Deborah Ausburn: 00:00:54

Yes, you did. I still actually do a lot of work as a lawyer for youth serving organizations. But a big focus of my practice. And my side gig, I guess maybe a good way to call it is working with a blended families, the lessons that I've learned being a single foster parent.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:01:16

Wow. So So I'm curious what got you into this, because that's kind of a unique area to be focusing in on.

Deborah Ausburn: 00:01:25

So well, it's a result of my having career add. I started out as a social worker, as you mentioned, I added a probation officer with juvenile court. And frankly, I just burned out, I just got tired of dipping out the ocean with a teaspoon. And so I retreated to law school since arguing as well, I consider it a skill set rather than character flaw. So going to law school was a good logical step. But I kept my passion for working with kids. I, while I was in law school, I worked as a house parent in a group home near there. And then I've just done a lot of volunteer work. And when I got out of law school, I actually worked for a while as a federal prosecutor on an Indian reservation, prosecuting crimes against children. And then when I just wrote long story, I ended up in private practice. And I discovered that there are a lot of youth serving organizations out there that need advice, they get sued. I also can help them at the front end, I do a lot of work right now with child protection policies to prevent abuse incidents and claims. So it all sort of my my career add all sort of resolved itself into a unique niche.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:02:55

Well, hey, I got you beat. I went from working, having a degree in agriculture working in a packing plant, to becoming a teacher to now doing Divorce mediation, so there are divorce mediator and divorce transition coach, so we both got the same condition. So so first of all, I want to tell you, thank you for what you do, because you are absolutely right. I do I did for a long time do parental termination of parental rights mediation. And so man, those are tough. So I so respect the people that do what you were doing. So with your focus now. Look, you know what let's let's take a bit of a transition here from maybe where I was first going, because we're talking about this. Let's let's talk about the impact of trauma on kids, either from seeing kids that you're working with that have been through the foster system, which there are some wonderful foster families out there. And I so I admire them and salute them. But there's also some really crappy ones, too. So what what do you see about kids and trauma coming out of the foster system, or into a good home from a bad foster system? So

Deborah Ausburn: 00:04:08

well, it just got a little bit of pushback. I think kids who go through divorce suffer trauma to absolutely, yeah, we tend to normalize that because some many kids go through it. But one of one of my mantras is as a step parent or as a foster parent. The thing that our kids have in common is we're not the person they want in their lives. They want their intact biological family. Yes. So with foster with foster kids, many times our people who don't understand they haven't been in the field actually can always tell someone who's been in this field for a long time, versus someone who's new. Because when people outside say to us, oh, your kids are so lucky. People who who are new in the system We tend to take that and say, yes, our kids are lucky because they came out of a bad home into our really good home. Those of us who've been in the field for a while, know that our kids don't think they're lucky, know that they're living with strangers. And people who no matter how nice we are, we are not the people who are supposed to be there. And that is, so they come from trauma that caused them to be taken out of their their homes, being involved with the foster care system is that additional trauma, all in an oven by itself, which I could wax eloquent on that it traumatizes the kids and the foster parents, and just everybody involved. And then they no matter how wonderful the foster family is, there is always the issue of fitting in somewhere where you just don't feel like you quite belong.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:06:01

And you were absolutely right. So thank you for pointing that out. That kids can experience this same sort of trauma, going through the divorce. And this is one of the reasons why I strongly encourage my clients do not get into a new relationship until your kids are okay with what is going on in the divorce because or not that they're ever going to be okay with the divorce but that they have adjusted that they are okay that mom and dad are living in two separate homes, they know they're going to have time with bomb and time with debt puddings do not throw a new partner or a new dude or dudette in on top of these kids, trying to deal with the fact that, like you said, they're intact biological family is no longer there in their lives. So thank you for pointing that out. Yeah,

Deborah Ausburn: 00:06:50

right. Yeah, you have to wait until your kids are at least stable or some reasonable facsimile. Whatever plateau you can find, just find some sort of plateau for them. And then you can get on with your life.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:07:08

Yeah. And and the way to do that is not to ask your kids, are you okay? If I start dating, that is that I'm sorry, that's stupid. Your children don't tell you, and you make the evaluation and determine whether your kids are healthy enough for that. So I know I've probably pissed somebody off saying that. But that's I mean, I really, really do believe that. So

Deborah Ausburn: 00:07:30

yeah, they're just some decisions that we as adults need to make. Yeah. And we, we have to make decisions for our lives and for our kids. And we don't, this is one thing I do see single parents do this, without realizing it. But they turn the kids into the adult in the relationship, they give the kids too much responsibility for making decisions. And it happens a lot in divorce families. My husband, though talks about when he was in a family, his parents didn't divorce. This was back during the 50s and 60s, but his dad was on the road all the time. So my husband ended up being the one under the sink, fixing the plumbing, doing all sorts of adult responsibilities, because his mom was slightly immature. And he was the he was just the oldest boy in the house. So we do that without even thinking about it.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:08:33

Well, and and you know, sometimes grandparents and aunts and uncles or family friends, you know, will say to say to a child, you know, if a single mom, a young boy, they'll say, you know, you're the man of the house now, or a single dad looking after maybe younger girls say, hey, you know, your response, you have to really step up and help your dad around the house. Know, their kids, they wouldn't be doing that if you just stayed together. They shouldn't be doing it because you have divorced. So

Deborah Ausburn: 00:09:06

yes. And to bring this rabbit trail back, I found myself as a single foster parent, I had teenagers. Because, again, a long story, I had more skill sets than your average and teenagers are just more challenging than average. So I ended up with teenagers. But I found myself it was just easier to hang out with my kids sometimes that it was to find single people with free time to go to a movie or dinner with and it wasn't that I was turning them into adults. But I realized I was counting on them too much for a social life. And I had to go back to doing parent child things with them dinner and a movie to decompress from our week and that sort of thing. And encourage them to get out with it. err, peers, and I had to do the work to get out with my peers. Yeah,

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:10:03

that's the real key with it, you know, with the teenagers because it is easy to become really inward focused, if you go through, and particularly since our people are listening to a divorce that are that are probably listening on the podcast, it's easy to kind of, especially older teen kids to kind of find things to all do together. And there's a very positive side to that we're not saying yes, do things with your kids. We're saying Don't make your kids, your peers. That's exactly responsible for your social, social interactions, and getting out and doing things. So stuff we've talked about, don't do this. And don't do that don't do this. There's some really good things that parents do. And I know one of your areas of specialty is helping maybe parents understand either step parents or foster parents, and even biological parents how to help kids become more resilient to things that are going on what what do you think are some things that may be some strategies that parents could tap into to help build that natural resilience for kids?

Deborah Ausburn: 00:11:07

Well, one of the things that parents can do and is understand the role that step parents are going to play. And this was one thing I learned as foster parents, when I say that you're sort of my extended mantra is, you are not two step parents and foster parents is, you're not the person just supposed to be in your kid's life, you never will be. And that's okay. So, I would say, as parents understand that, that your partner, no matter how wonderful they are, there will never be a one to one replacement in your kid's life. So but the role that you can set your, your, your partner up for is to be a mentor. And there are study study after study out there that shows that the there are a lot of factors important for resilience in helping kids overcome different kinds of trauma. But the one thing that consistently shows up in 95% of studies as the number one or number two correlation for resilience is having an adult outside the family who serves as a mentor for that child, right. And I'm afraid we lose that on many levels. Because, you know, when we find a romantic partner, we tend to want them to become the father or the mother for our kids, because there's so much better than our ex raishin. And definitely, definitely, and, and, and, of course, I think that I'm much better at everything my husband's ex is, and rational people all agree with. But, but my job is not to replace her in my kids lives, I never can, but I can be a mentor to them in in very important ways. And so that's something that, you know, parents divorcing parents could realize, and what they need to look the relationship they need to look for, the best they're going to get, and the most healthy relationship is going to be in again, most cases is going to be a mentor, ship. And that's what they need to work towards. If they don't have a significant other, it who can take on that relationship, then they need to find one in their, their circles for activities or something. Now, I do a lot of work in in abuse prevention, and I understand the whole fear of grooming kids for, for sexual abuse. And I also understand that if you'd look at, you got on the internet and say characteristics of people who've ruined kids for for sex, the list is going to overlap a lot of the good characteristics of of mentors. And it's very difficult to, to, to understand the difference at but I what I don't want is for us to be so worried about what is actually statistically a small percentage that our kids are going to be groomed. We get so worried about that, that we we shut them off from what we know is one of the best ways to help them recover from the trauma, right? But at the same time kids who suffer trauma are also at higher risk for future abuse. So this Short version I would say is you just the boundary line is boundaries, if you get an adult who starts pushing the boundaries with your kids, and who starts telling your kid trying to isolate the kids from the family, either physically or emotionally, those are the two red flags that you need to watch for. So you have a coach who takes all the kids out for ice cream all the time. That's fine. You have a coach who's taking just your kid out for ice cream all the time. That's a red flag, you need to find another mentor.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:15:31

Right. Right. And and I think that's, I think that's so true. And I think it's good for single moms and single dads to be really hyper vigilant. And let's, let's just acknowledge that there can be that that grooming is not just men that at all, yeah, you can be grooming young men or other young girls. So you really can't judge it. You really need to think big picture. And so I appreciate you saying that, Debbie, I think that's really important. And I think you're right watching it, is there a disproportionate interest in the child? or spending time with the child or, Hey, you go out shopping all take care of the kids, okay? Occasionally, that might be really nice. But if it's a pattern, and the other thing I think right is talking to your kids ahead of time and saying really supporting them and saying, Hey, if something doesn't feel right, you come and talk to me. First time it happens. Let you know, right? So that that

Deborah Ausburn: 00:16:28

classic situation I had, that doesn't happen. I had a friend call me classic situation. Single mom said I've got this coach who the kids really liked him. But my son came home and said, No, he took a few of us today to this sort of strip kind of show wasn't really a strip show. But it was kind of close. And I was uncomfortable. And he told us not to tell anybody when we got home. And I said, Oh, all right, doc, I can just check off the red flags. Just a few kids going to something edgy pushing boundaries, and telling him not to tell parents just Yeah, to keep it a secret between all of us. Yeah, that's, that's a problem. Yeah, that's a huge problem. And now gotta find another coach.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:17:15

And that's the part that what I'm hearing is that, first of all, your friend must have done some really good things with her son, because her son King tells her right away. So that's super positive. So that's the kind of that's the kind of thing that that that we're talking about that part of that resilience is having a parent they know they can trust and come talk to. I like the idea of mentorship. I think that's really phenomenal. And sometimes, do you find that even that mentor could be like a grandparent or an uncle or a family member? It doesn't does it have to be outside of the family or it's outside

Deborah Ausburn: 00:17:47

the immediate family? So the trick is someone who's not 24/7 authority figure, right, and someone that they can confide in who can give them advice, and then they can go back to their 24/7 live. So it's just someone other than parents in the home. Okay.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:18:06

Yeah. I love that. I love that idea. So I know, one one thing that you had talked about, I've heard you talk about this before is one way commitments, what what is like a one way commitment, and that kind of caught my eye or my ear when I was listening to it so

Deborah Ausburn: 00:18:23

well, when when we work with kids, we have to understand that, that we have to make a commitment to them that they may or they may want to but they're not capable of, of reciprocating, and again, part of this is because we're the adults and they're not. So there's just is no child who has the emotional wherewithal to, to love us as much as we'd love them. When I hear this from from parents all the time, you know, my, my child just doesn't understand how much I did for him. They don't appreciate me. Well, no, they doubt their kids. They're not going to. So give up. You just have to wait 20 years for them to appreciate it. So there is that level of if you're going to take care of kids, it just has to be a one way commitment. But then the other thing is, again, with kids from have experienced trauma, they just it's really hard for them to trust people. And the only way that they're going to trust you is for you to just be there. i My youngest steps on when I married his dad was he was still pretending and he was extremely nervous every time my husband and I would have any sort of discussion that sounded like a disagreement or any just Pretty much anything, he would just get extremely worried. And I talk in my book about one night when he was putting him to bed and he said, Debbie, when when you and dad broke up, we're gonna be breaking up. And he said, Yeah, well, what? If you in debt racked up? Can I come live with you? I was flattered. I was appreciated it but I understood he was so nervous about his future that he was, you know, trying to put all the hedges in. Yeah. And a few years ago, I asked him when he quit worrying about that. And he said, Oh, I don't know, maybe 10 or so years that, you know, that I just didn't worry about a school. Why did you quit worrying about it? For a minute and said, Well, you're still here? Yeah. The proof is in the pudding. But it wasn't anything brilliant. I said it. And of course, I'm a lawyer. So I said lots of brilliant things. It was not no words that I use. It was simply the fact that I didn't go away. And and that's what it takes with our kids is to just always have their back and always be there. Now. These one way commitments, I do always want to say they are not unlimited commitments. We have to have healthy boundaries and a whole nother topic. But they are, they are one way commitments. And in the sense that I always told my stepson instead, I was referred to him as my sons. But I've always said to them, No, I'm not your mother, you have a mother. But you are my son's. And it is just that one way commitment. I am there. And they don't have to consider me there. I'm just always there.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:22:01

Yeah. And I love that idea that as the parent, you can say, this is what I'm committing to you. But you're not. You don't expect that that same feedback. And I think that, you know, that's one thing I used to do the the parent education classes, the court ordered ones co parenting and it always amazed me when parents would say, you know, we got his hers and ours, and I love all my kids equally, and every kid knows that that is b s there is you have a different relationship with your biological children than your husband's children in the app together. We're humans. Of course we do. You know, so kids are fairly intuitive about this kind of stuff.

Deborah Ausburn: 00:22:44

Right? Right. Right. They're pretty faded.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:22:47

So we have covered a ton of information. In you have such a such an area of expertise. I, we haven't had anybody talk about this kind of stuff on the show before. So thank you for because sometimes this isn't easy. Sometimes people don't like to hear some of these messages. Do you find that?

Deborah Ausburn: 00:23:04

Right? Yeah, I do. I do. And especially, that's one of the reasons I sort of got involved in doing the book and the blogs because I had so many friends who just are making so many mistakes. And I was fortunate in one sense, I made all of my mistakes with foster kids. So when I got married with my stepkids, I was able to, to learn from from all of those mistakes and just watching my you know, listening to my my friends say i i Just one common thing, you know, as well, I just I just don't like my husband's kids. Well, okay, I've, I've had plenty of foster kids I didn't like, but you commit to them, and you care about them, and you love them anyway. And I think every kid, anyone who's raising a kid knows that 13 to 15 they just the aliens take their brains, and there's just not likable people. So if it happens to have to wait for the aliens to return their brain see? Exactly,

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:24:15

exactly. And that usually about 18 or 19 that kind of all clicks back around sometimes 20s But So Debbie, we have covered a ton of information. What do you think or what would you like people to focus on or to keep in kind of in the in the front of their minds when they turn off the podcast and go on about their day?

Deborah Ausburn: 00:24:36

Well, I think with your audience of of divorced people, there's a couple of things. One is the studies showing that kids who, whose parents have been in high conflict divorces, and his parents have high conflict relationships. Those kids suffer more trauma and have more problems than kids for Low conflict divorces, definitely you're going to have some trauma. But, but the more conflict there is, the more trauma there is for kids. And then the second one, I would say, again to parents going through this is, and I would, I would never second guess parents who decide to divorce. So when I say this, it is not a criticism, it is just a statement of fact, your divorce is rocking your child's world. Yeah. And you have to give them time to get their feet back under them. And there will be all sorts of horror and terrible, obnoxious reactions from them. Or they may go the other direction, if I saw, there's my foster kids, and try to be perfect, so that they can fix the situation. And that, of course, they only have stamina for that for a few weeks, maybe a few months, if you're lucky. And then everything will hit the fan. So just understand that that that the get kids are resilient, but it is it's not resilience, not their natural state when you are tearing the world apart. Yeah.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:26:11

And just supporting them and providing them the resources. And I like the idea of the mentors and everything else that you mentioned. So, Debbie, if people want to find out more about what you do, or get get in touch with you or get a copy of your book, what what do they do?

Deborah Ausburn: 00:26:27

Well, there are two websites. One is raising other people's children.com, which is has my book and it also has links to my blog. And then there is raising other people's children.blog.bl og, which is where my blog is, and it's on my website, and they can find out more than they ever wanted to know.