The Chesnutt Law Firm

10/06/2026

"You can demand respect all day long, but until you earn it, you're not going to get it."

That's Gaile Osborne in our latest episode of our podcast and it reframes a lot of what we assume about parenting a child who's been through hard things.

Gaile became a foster parent in 2008 and adopted two children with significant trauma histories. What she learned is that correcting a behavior in the moment can cost you the relationship, and the relationship is the thing that actually changes the behavior over time.

Gaile is a special education teacher, advocate, and executive director of the Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina, where she helped advance the state's Foster Parents Bill of Rights.

Episode 59 is out now: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3wYB824SXpxXR4JLrJdltg?si=a65200adeb034dc0

This episode is sponsored by Guardians for New Futures (GFNF4Kids), supporting the unfunded needs of abused children in our community. Learn more at GFNF4kids.org.

From Foster Care to Family Law - A Child Welfare Focus · Episode

10/05/2026

Most people wait until something breaks to consider therapy.

Tamara Harris makes a different case in this clip: think of it as building a toolbox. You don't wait for the pipe to burst to own a wrench.

Her framing is refreshingly low-pressure. You don't have to be in crisis. You don't have to be convinced you need it. Just try it and see what you find. Worst case, you walk away with a few tools you didn't have before — and the next time something comes up, you respond instead of react.

Proactive instead of reactive. That's the whole idea.

For co-parents especially, that gap between reacting and responding is where kids either get caught in the middle or get protected from it.

That wraps our clips from this conversation. If anything here landed, the full episode is worth your drive to work. 🎧

Susan's full conversation with Tamara Harris, LCSW and Florida Supreme Court certified mediator — link in the comments.

09/28/2026

When you didn't get the attention you needed as a kid, any attention can feel like love. That's how red flags get missed.

Tamara Harris's advice: write down the characteristics you actually want in a partner. Start with safety. Do they yell? Do you feel calm around them, or braced for something?

No one checks every box. But safety isn't a box — it's the floor.

What would be on your list? 👇

🎧 Full episode linked in the comments.

09/21/2026

Kids don't learn relationships from what we tell them. They learn from what they watch.

Tamara Harris puts it simply in this clip: children who grow up feeling safe and loved, who see healthy boundaries up close, get to become whole adults. Not perfect ones (nobody gets that) but whole.

And children who grow up surrounded by fighting and discord carry that into their own relationships, often without realizing it.

That's the hopeful part and the hard part at the same time. Whatever our kids are watching right now is what they'll build with later.

So we want to hear from you: what's one thing you're intentionally modeling for the kids in your life — something you maybe didn't get to see growing up? 👇

🎧 Susan's full conversation with Tamara Harris, LCSW and Florida Supreme Court certified mediator, is out now on From Foster Care to Family Law. Link in the comments.

09/15/2026

"Our story begins in childhood."

That's Tamara Harris, a licensed clinical social worker and Florida Supreme Court mediator, and it's the thread running through our whole conversation on my latest episode.

Most of us learned what a relationship looks like long before we could evaluate it. We watched. We absorbed how conflict got handled, whether repair was possible, what love was supposed to cost. Then we grew up and took all of it into our own relationships without ever naming it.

In this episode, I sit down with Tamara Harris to talk about how those early patterns show up in adult conflict, and what it takes to stop handing them down.

We get into:
• Why looking backward is often the only way to move forward
• Recognizing the red flags you were taught to overlook
• Co-parenting vs. parallel parenting, and when structure beats communication
• How parenting coordination keeps kids out of the middle

🎧 Full episode of From Foster Care to Family Law: A Child Welfare Focus: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3UErFR1PhqincBL1TCxrFT?si=b17a2b7d18534c3a

This episode is sponsored by Guardians for New Futures (GFNF4Kids), supporting the unfunded needs of abused children in our community. Learn more or get involved at GFNF4kids.org.

From Foster Care to Family Law - A Child Welfare Focus · Episode

09/14/2026

Here's something you don't often hear from a researcher.

Dr. Frank Putnam spent 35 years finding that childhood trauma accelerates biological aging. In this clip, he brings up a study from a colleague that pointed the other direction for boys. He says it plainly, notes it used a different measure of aging, and says it needs to be replicated before anyone makes anything of it.

Then he points to the rest of the evidence, which keeps landing in the same place: children who experience early trauma age faster. Heart disease, stroke, and cancer show up at ages when they shouldn't. Lives end sooner than they should.

That's what good science sounds like. It's not certainty, but it's honesty about where the weight of the evidence sits. The weight is heavy, and it points at our kids.

🎧 Full conversation on From Foster Care to Family Law: A Child Welfare Focus. Link in the comments.

09/11/2026

Most people think of child abuse prevention as a mental health issue.

Dr. Frank Putnam argues it's also one of the biggest public health opportunities we have.

His reasoning in this clip: the long-term research keeps showing that these experiences accelerate biological aging — and accelerated aging means chronic illness arriving earlier. Heart disease. Stroke. Likely certain cancers. The leading causes of death in this country.

So the cost of child abuse doesn't stop at depression and PTSD. It shows up decades later in cardiology offices and ERs, in people who have no idea their childhood is part of the chart.

Which means prevention isn't the soft-hearted option. It's the one that saves the most lives and the most money — in the mental health system and the medical system both.

We keep funding the response. We should be funding the prevention.

🎧 Full conversation on From Foster Care to Family Law: A Child Welfare Focus. Link in the comments.

09/09/2026

Dr. Frank Putnam spent 35 years studying what abuse does to children. The finding that stopped him: it ages them.

Not a metaphor. Their biology runs fast — earlier puberty, adult illnesses arriving far too early — while they're handed situations their minds aren't developmentally ready for.

We talk about protecting childhood. This is what's actually being taken.

🎧 Full episode linked in the comments.

09/03/2026

What if childhood trauma changes the body as much as it changes the mind?

In Episode #57, I sit down with Dr. Frank Putnam, a child and adolescent psychiatrist whose 35+ years of research on the effects of childhood maltreatment has produced findings that are impossible to ignore. We're not just talking about emotional scars. Early trauma can accelerate biological aging, increase the risk of chronic disease, and shorten lives.

But this conversation is also about hope. One trusted adult — a teacher, a coach, a relative — can completely change a child's trajectory. And if we can break these cycles, as Dr. Putnam says, "We're not just stopping a case. We're stopping generations."

This is one of the most important conversations I've had on this podcast. If you work with children, love children, or care about child welfare, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3aOMFCIPWVrz8tg61M0qtL?si=ae31c84c87f4430f

(This episode is sponsored by Guardians for New Futures (GFNF4Kids), an organization dedicated to supporting the unfunded needs of abused children. Learn more at www.GFNF4kids.org.)

From Foster Care to Family Law - A Child Welfare Focus · Episode

06/29/2026

Too many family law attorneys are still walking into mediation without proposed distribution worksheets. Trust me, I've seen it firsthand all too often.

Steven Bryant said it well in Episode #55; too many firms haven't evolved, and too many attorneys are framing everything around "when we go to court" from day one instead of asking how to settle first.

Court should be the last option, not the opening strategy.

🎧 Full episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1TUAaIhFSjVGvaBSaTbVk7?si=yufuljhjT5qHglizlZrlWw