Recently a friend and I were sharing embarrassing moments in public caused by our adopted special needs children. Some of the coping skills our children learned during the years of neglect and abuse can certainly cause questioning glances and rude comments.

Our teenager, Lane, feels embarrassed every time our four-year-old has a meltdown in public. He seems thoroughly disgusted by the fact that she does not embarrass me with this behavior. I’ve explained to him that I do not control her behavior, she does, and therefore I do not need to “own” her embarrassment.

However,... more

I was fascinated by the article that described the Creative Growth Art Center, in existence since 1974. Its purpose is to give people with severe physical and mental disabilities the opportunity to develop as artists. And now, 30 years later, it seems that many of the center’s artists have indeed become mainstream.

The artists here are all adults with disabilities, mostly developmental disabilities such as autism or Downs Syndrome, but others have physical or psychiatric disorders as well. When... more

Whew! Another long weekend is over! Another three days out of school survived! In households all across the US there are parents of children whose disabilities make them very challenging to parent, who are breathing an exhausted sigh of relief.

Tomorrow is back to school (even for those late-to-start school districts). Friday afternoon and evening brought a flood of emails from panicky parents wondering how they were going to make it through the long weekend. Some had specific plans to do “normal” Labor Day activities (camping, beach, cookouts, visiting relatives).... more

Parenting Special Needs Children blog proudly announces the addition of a category: Resource Tuesday. In this category we will profile an organization (business or non-profit) that provides resources special needs children and their families, or adoptive and foster children and their families. We hope that this will provide an active resource list for parents seeking information, but also provide some ideas of how you can “give back” through volunteer and donor involvement with any of these organizations.

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There IS life outside of LuLu! I’m always kind of surprised when it hits me, as it’s easy to get myopic focused on her. The problem is that anything not LuLu-related is often relegated to the back of the stack. Now that we’re trying to get back into the swing of school, I forgot just how many hours out of each day that takes me. Not only are there the 4+ hours of actual instruction, but there are the lesson plans, researching the materials, getting things set up. Just like any other teacher.

But there is still so much to do. Beyond being LuLu’s teacher,... more

Are you parenting a special needs child through the miracle of adoption? Do you have your own webpage, or blog where you share information about your child’s adoption, special needs, and parenting challenges? Are you interested in connecting with other adoptive parents of special needs children by sharing the link to your personal blog or webpage with us?

Sure, you like connecting with Julie and I (Julia) on our parenting experiences with our special needs children, or you wouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t it be encouraging to interact with other parents of special... more

I will be the first to admit that a teenager at home can be very helpful. Each child in our home has a household chore to complete everyday and of course, the more difficult jobs are assigned to the teenagers. But, do you have any idea how peaceful your home can be when every teenager is away at camp?

Three of the teenagers left this morning for a glorious week of camp. The fourth teenager leaves on Friday for a 10-day mission’s trip with our church’s youth group. This will be his third mission’s trip with nearly the same group of people.

Of the... more

A reader recently made a comment on one of my blogs that I feel compelled to address in depth. Usually special needs adoption through a state agency includes a subsidy. In some states like Michigan and New York, that subsidy is equal to the foster care rate. Other states, such as Florida, Oregon, and Texas have fixed subsidy rates for special needs adoption, which are considerably lower than their foster care rates. There is also a special needs adoption credit currently available on Federal Income Tax in the United States... more

My early morning flight out of Tampa yesterday was more invigorating that a cup of coffee. Squeezed in like sardines (the flight was FULL), I sat in the same row as a woman from Paris headed to Baltimore and a grandfather headed to Maine. As we all chatted about where we were going and why, the conversation casually turned to children. When the man asked our seat mate how old her son was, she responded that he was 28.

“Twenty-eight was how old my son was when he died.” And this began the story of how this man’s son had died of an overdose of Methadone,... more

I don’t usually weigh in on the whole birth mom/first mom name game, mostly because my daughter, having been abandoned to an orphanage and adopted internationally has a better chance of winning the lottery than she does of finding the woman who gave birth to her.

Still, we do talk a great deal about LuLu’s birth/first mom. For most of her life with us, we’ve referred to this woman has LuLu’s “China mom”. Politically correct or not, it was an identifiable way to her, and to others when she said it, about whom we were speaking. Lately, LuLu’s... more