What is one of the most frequent complaints foster and adoptive parents make about parenting their traumatized children? If you said lying, then you have probably experienced it from parenting your own adopted children. At a recent support group meeting I attended, the speaker shared that she didn’t understand why foster and adoptive families get so worked up about lying and stealing. In her 30 plus years of experience as an adoption professional, she said that she has come to realize that all children lie. Lying is especially common in traumatized children, even after... more

On Saturday, my day revolved around attending and presenting at the first conference put on by the Northwest Georgia Adoptive and Foster Parent Association. It was a great conference. And the organizers of the event (two foster moms and several others who helped) were cool, calm and truly organized.

My topic was “Attachment 101 – Basic Attachment Issues for Children with Traumatic Pasts.” Interestingly enough, I was the third person on the agenda to speak on that topic…speaking in the last slot of the day.

So, I arrived early enough to hear one of the other... more

“All is not lost,” says an article in the July Science Daily that reports that through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital were able to see significant differences between the brains of children suffering from PTSD and those who have not. This gives me hope on a day I’m feeling rather hopeless after visiting a still raging and volatile LuLu. To know that they’re making progress on what I consider... more

It’s happening more and more in response to LuLu’s explosions…I shut down. By the time I got us safely home from church last night, I was wiped out. I had plenty of other things to accomplish this evening, as it was only 8:30, but my brain was mush. And my body could barely move.

I actually snuggled and consoled LuLu, and she calmed down, only to flare again, so I gave her the additional medication she takes when she can’t calm down, and hurried her off to bed…mostly because I had had enough!

I can’t describe the “shut down” feeling to those who haven’t... more

Monday night I went to a free support group meeting for foster, adoptive, and kinship families. I confess, I haven’t attended one in years, but I have been feeling a little desperate and depressed. The biweekly support group is led by a social worker with at least 30 years of experience in special needs foster care adoption, a MSW, and years of private therapy experience with internationally adopted traumatized children. The topic for the week was lying and stealing. She gave us a challenge and I am sharing it with you. Try Dr. B. Bryan Post, PhD, LCSW techniques for two weeks.... more

I can’t keep from blogging about it. September 11 is a significant day. Around here it’s my wedding anniversary. And that glorious memory was forever altered six years ago. I’m sure each of us has clear memories of that day, also a Tuesday.

As is now typical in our stressful lives here, September 11, 2001 was just one more piece of a high level of stress in our personal lives. On July 31 of that same year my father had died of a massive stroke. Still reeling from that, I sat dumbfounded in front of the TV and computer like many Americans. I had an appointment in downtown... more

If you are parenting children who experienced abuse and neglect in their early lives, do you eventually begin to feel like you are experiencing Déjà Vu? You know that feeling that you’ve experienced, seen, or said the exact same thing before. Do you find yourself getting frustrated, angry, and losing your patience because you’ve gone over the same thing so many times?

I have found myself saying the exact same phrases, so often, that I have actually considered recording them. Then I could have about six different “play buttons”... more

Children consistently exposed to severe stress have real changes to the hippocampus of their brains according to a new study. If you are parenting a severely traumatized child in your home, you probably already know that their brains function differently than a healthy child’s brain. You’ve probably already seen the impulsivity, agitation, hyper-vigilance, and avoidance behaviors exhibited in your home by a child with untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Finally, you have proof! Researchers at the Stanford University School... more

One thing is for sure, that attachment problems in adoptees are related to trauma. Many in the adoption world now accept the thinking that children with attachment issues get those attachment issues because they have been traumatized – by abandonment, abuse, neglect, lack of appropriate caregiving or stress factors relating to the reasons they were placed in foster care or for adoption. So the two issues – attachment and trauma, have become inseparable.

Realizing this, the organization I work with, ATN (Attachment & Trauma... more

In the beginning, LuLu’s reactions to us were so abnormal, shocking and overwhelming that it was virtually impossible to figure out what was going on with her. All we knew is we had a non-sleeping, self-hurting, tantruming toddler.

One thing that age and the acquisition of language has done is it has enabled her to tell us what she’s thinking. And her healed attachment has given her the ability (sometimes) to trust us with her inner most thoughts.

One of the oddities that still remains is her inability to accept a compliment. Children... more