My 14-year-old adopted daughter turned to me aghast. “Why are you trying to make me fail?” she asked. “Why are you accusing me of trying to make you fail Lyn,” I asked softly. “If I had not given you the cinnamon rolls what would you have done?”

“I would have waited until nobody was looking and I would have stolen them,” she actually responded honestly.

“Well Lyn, when you take things without asking, your parents don’t trust you. I don’t like what not trusting you does to our relationship. Therefore, I want you to have all the sugar you want so you are... more

I must be an old timer, if the tune in my head today is Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now. But it’s the background music as I mull over the conversation I had with a friend at dinner last night. She’s a close friend, and she works as a special needs parapro at a local elementary school, doing an awesome job of handling some very challenging students.

She was telling me the story of a student who has returned to their classroom after moving for several months to another school district. The grapevine says that the other district kicked the child out for... more

I have been trying to teach my daughter who is now 14 how to write a sentence correctly for the past six years. I suggested that she read her sentences aloud to know if they made sense or not. She informed Super Dad last year that she refused to use that countermeasure because it was just plain stupid. Her refusal to use this countermeasure has increasingly irritated me as she has worked through five copies of the same third grade grammar and language books never showing improvement.

Everyday, I would look at her work and say the same things. What goes at the end of a sentence?... more

You know, we spend a lot of time discussing our special needs adopted children’s bazaar behaviors and our frustration at their inability to modify their behaviors. These adopted children seem unable to eliminate their problem behaviors even after their parents have consistently responded and doled out consequences for years. My friend and peer in parenting, Rachel, recently made a great point. We parents cannot seem to get it through our heads that consequences will not work with these children, so we continue to dole them out and frustrate ourselves. Another of our respected... more

Does your adopted child lack impulse control? Our 14-year-old daughter with fetal alcohol syndrome, who we adopted at the age of six, sure does. While that has been clear to Super Dad and me for many years, it was blatantly obvious today. She took credits (I’ll explain below) two days in a row for hugging her parents and saying, “I love you,” when she hadn’t done that. Now, if you were going to take credits that you didn’t earn, would you choose that one? Obviously, your parents are going to know if you hugged them or not. I believe it is the result of her lack of... more

Actual conversations that took place today, between my 14-year-old daughter Lyn and me, her adoptive mom. She has fetal alcohol syndrome and learning disabilities and I am homeschooling her.

“Hey mom is this rug dirty?” Lyn asked.

“No, it isn’t” I responded.

A couple of hours later I was putting laundry in the washer and found the rug in the hamper. “Lyn, why did you put this rug in the laundry hamper? You asked me if it was dirty and I said no,” I reminded her.

“Oh, I thought you said yes,” she says with a blank stare.

Lyn is... more

Baby sister was screaming. Our eight-year-old son, Ty, ran to the kitchen holding her and crying. He tearfully said that she got hurt. The 14 year old, Lyn who has FAS, was standing behind him. I looked at her and she said, “I accidentally hit her.” I snatched my baby up and looked at her. Her eye was swelled shut and there was a small cut, just under her eye, that was beginning to bleed. I grabbed an icepack from the freezer and held it to her eye while I dropped into a chair. Baby sister continued to scream for the next 30 minutes while I held the icepack... more

I have been having some frustrating conversations with my 14-year-old daughter who has a learning disability and fetal alcohol syndrome, FAS. Lately, whenever I ask her a question about something, she tells me what she is currently doing. That is frustrating because her response has nothing to do with the question that I asked her. Whether this has something to do with her learning disability or her FAS I don’t know, but I do know that it only started last week. She has been part of our family for 10 years.

Yesterday, for example, she was outside playing army with... more

A reader recently shared her frustration with me about the 24/7 of living with a daughter with fetal alcohol syndrome. A question that plagues many of us parenting children with fetal alcohol syndrome or other learning disabilities is “Are they really confused or choosing to not cooperate?”

My husband and I have had this discussion many times during our 14 years of foster parenting. He has maintained during the entire time that the problem is confusion. He patiently redirects and gives simple directions one at a time so task can be accomplished... more

Well I finally did it. After 24 years of parenting, I finally left a child behind. It happened at church after Vacation Bible School. It wasn’t the baby or toddler as you may suspect, it was the Lyn, the 13 year old with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I’ve mentioned in some of my other blogs, on living with fetal alcohol syndrome, how she frequently requires a personal invitation to join us.

It was the last day of VBS so my family had to stay after and clean up since I am the program director. We couldn’t leave until the entire church was clean... more