When you adopt an older special needs child things don’t always go as wonderfully as you might have imagined before adopting or fostering. Before adopting or fostering an older child, you may daydream about cooking, playing, and just spending time together. You make hundreds of plans that you cannot wait to fulfill with your new child. Then your traumatized child arrives home. Your child is resistant to bonding because of past hurts and abuse. Your child tries to sabotage the placement rather than risk being rejected again. You find family heirlooms broken, feces painted... more

Last week LuLu damaged some of Kay’s toiletries in a move of pure jealousy. It was not the first time. LuLu, in the height of her puberty, has decided that Kay is the target of her frustration. It is sibling rivalry in which the sides are definitely uneven. Kay does nothing to provoke these incidents, but her response is so dramatic that LuLu gets a “thrill” out of upsetting Kay.

No amount of explaining the logic of staying calm to Kay seems to be working. Kay’s logic is that she’s not “doing anything” to LuLu, so why should she have to put up with LuLu “doing things”... more

Happy Valentines Day! How appropriate that this day of love should fall on a “Love Thursday" for all the bloggers here!

Love is quite a concept to contemplate, especially when parenting children with challenges. It is more than the flowers, candy, cards and red hearts that adorn this holiday. It is more than the noun or adjective that it is often used as.

Love is most assuredly a VERB. And as LuLu would tell you from her recent grammar lesson: Love is an ACTION VERB, not a state of being. We refer to it as “being in love”. But that “being”... more

I’m watching the comments over on the Christian Adoption blog to my friend Julia’s post about her daughter sneaking food that she would receive freely if she just asked for it. Many of the commenters are concerned that Julia is failing to recognize a “bigger” problem or that she’s cold-hearted in imagining that her child may be headed for jail if these behaviors continue.

I can see where she’s coming from…and I feel her frustration. LuLu doesn’t steal... more

I read about some interesting research on praise today. I found this information in the blog written by the founder and Chief Learning Officer of K12, Bror Saxberg. K12 is the curriculum provider and administrator of the Georgia Virtual Academy. This blog talks about a study done by Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford on praise of 5th graders.

The experiment went like this. They gave 400 5th graders a simple puzzle quiz in which everyone did well, and got praised. Half the group was praised with “you’re so smart”... more

I am not a liar and I do not appreciate being made to look like one. I based my decision to allow my daughter to attend an after Christmas party on lies. However, at the time I made the decision I did not know they were lies. I found out the night before the party that she had lied and it was too late for her to call them. Therefore, I decided to take her to the party and let her explain in person why she was unable to stay. I asked her to preplan what she was going to say and then I let her practice on me. I told her not to worry about messing up because I would be... more

Should our children with special needs, especially those with traumatic pasts, be worried about what Santa might or might not be bringing??? I’m pondering this and once again realize that those of us parenting challenging children may be in a no-win situation.

Julia, writing over on the Adopting a Sibling blog and Nancy over on the RAD blog have both written... more

Every four and a half minutes, an American dies from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.) It is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. COPD is a serious lung disease. There are 12 million people diagnosed with it and an equal number of other people may have COPD and not be aware of it. The tubes that allow the air to get in and out of the lungs get partially blocked causing the person with COPD to feel short of breath making it difficult to breathe. Your doctor can perform... more

Our 10-year-old daughter has been struggling for over a year now with lying and other sneaky deceptive behavior. It all seemed to start when the adoption took a lot longer than any of us thought it would. However, around the same time her birth family stopped communicating with us despite our efforts to engage them in activities or correspondence. Therefore, the actual cause of her new troubling behavior may have been mixed.

For a while, she thought that if she were bad enough, we would send her back to her birth family. Of course, that wasn’t our decision... more

Do your children stick up for each other and tell you, the parent, that you are not being fair when you are berating one of their siblings? While I find it annoying, it also warms my heart to realize how much they actually care about each other. It demonstrates that a real bond has been established between the siblings. It also indicates a transition from being preoccupied with self, to thinking about the needs of others. I believe it also indicates that your child has developed a level of trust in your relationship.

If you have adopted children who are older... more