Foster Cline is co-founder of the Love and Logic Institute with Jim Fay. A child psychiatrist, physician, international speaker, and author of many books on parenting and dealing with difficult children and their families, Dr. Cline has worked with parents and children for over forty years.
Through his psychiatric practice Dr. Cline has worked with numerous families dealing with issues related to chronic illnesses and other special needs. He has taught extensively for the University of Northern Colorado, Colorado State University, and other institutions of higher learning. The North American Council on Adoptable Children presented him with an award for Outstanding Contributions to Children.
Dr. Cline graduated cum laude from the University of Colorado and earned his MD degree from the University of Colorado Medical School in Denver. He spent his medical internship in the Gorgas Hospital, a federal hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. He completed his adult and child psychiatric residencies at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. Cline and his wife, Hermie, have raised three birth children, adopted one child from residential treatment at the age of eight, and fostered three children.
Click here for information about presentations by Dr. Cline.
To schedule Dr. Cline to speak, contact Bonnie Burnett at 303-979-7525.
A Personal Note from Foster
Here I sit here at the computer, writing to you good parents, watching the snow fall gently, and taking a swig of chocolate milk.
In the back of my mind I’m aware that my pancreas is going to have to pump out a bit more insulin, but I think my system can handle these chocolate carbs, despite my diabetes. Still, I’ll prick my finger in about an hour and check my blood glucose level on the meter inherited from my daughter. Dealing with chronic illness means being increasingly aware of one’s own body. It takes a little extra effort and a little more responsibility. I can handle that, and I want to make sure my blood sugar reading never creeps up near the level that sucked the life out of dear Melinda.
It’s one thing to write about caring for children with chronic illnesses and it’s another thing to live it. It’s one thing to know that death greedily waits to snatch some of our children, and it’s another to have experienced the end of the wait.
Alone late on a Saturday night, and with thinking that was probably fuzzy from the deadly levels of sugar that coursed though her body, Mel fell to the bathroom floor, where she was found by others who were concerned when she didn’t show up for work on Monday. Amidst the grief, a more agonizing pain would like to claw its way into the sorrow: self-incrimination. “What more could we have done?” We remember the happy phone calls during that last week, and our often-asked question, “How’s your diabetes doing, Mel?” And we remember her laughing reply, “Don’t worry about it, Dad. It’s all under control.”
Then came the phone call. “Melinda was found dead in her apartment this morning.” Shock, pain, and grief. However, except for stabs of healthy self-examination, the torment of grief was not augmented by the angst of guilt. We had been Love and Logic parents. And when times get tough, and life deals our children difficult hands, that knowledge – that we were Love and Logic parents - helps us cope.
After adopting Melinda at age eight, we had raised a daughter who, most of the time, truly turned out to be responsible, respectful, and fun to be around. Not that the road was easy or without moments of frustration. Not that there weren’t bumps. You see, Mel had disrupted other adoptive homes before we adopted her. She had spent a well-earned three-year stint in residential treatment. But we look back and laugh at the bumps, and, in retrospect, enjoy the anthills of issues that loomed like mountains at the time. Like other parents who have lost children – parents we have interviewed in this work - we remember the good times. We rejoice in the life that was shared with us. But what carried the day was the knowledge that we did things right! I hope this knowledge will carry it for so many of you,
Amidst the joy of life, our beloved children will experience both the rumblings and occasional magma of life’s inevitable volcanoes. They will be burned as we have. But let them always have an optimistic, self-assured, can-do attitude, which is the hallmark of children who model their lives on loving, effective parents.The use of Love and Logic will never guarantee an inevitably happy outcome but it will always provide you with the comforting knowledge that you showed your love by using predictably effective tools and techniques in an unpredictable world.
I wish you all the relaxing Love and Logic knowledge that will facilitate your children’s transition to adulthood, and that they will never take the rebellious path to spite you; that they will never live a life of blame and accusation because of an entitled upbringing; and that they will never lack the ability to cope because you continually rescued them.
