Mirroring Each Other
Have you ever walked up to someone who was laughing really hard and you started laughing too, even though you didn’t know what that person was laughing about? Do you find yourself yawning when you see your child yawning? Have you found yourself cringing when you see someone getting hurt on a movie screen? There […]
Strengthening Our Children’s Stories
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.” Jonathan Gottschall Stories. We love the stories we find in books and movies. We love the stories we find in books and movies. Our culture spends significant amounts of time […]
No Replacements Necessary
“How would you feel if Grammy walked away from you? I feel like I wasn’t wanted.” This is what one of my daughters tearfully said to me about sixteen years after she was adopted. We were standing in our family room on the day of a school discussion that triggered big emotions. She was asking […]
Parenting Endurance
“Perception is the dictator of endurance or how hard something is.” – Alex Hutchinson Alex Hutchinson is an award-winning journalist who specializes in the science of endurance fitness. Stemming from his experience as a competitive distance runner, he recently wrote Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. In an interview about the […]
Helping Young People in Foster Care Through the Holidays
“Holidays are hard even when u have found “new family” because u still feel awkward and ur mom and dad are not there so though it is easier it sill makes u sad because u are reminded of what u don’t have.” — FosterClub member Divine, age 21, from Wisconsin, in foster care more than […]
Three Essential Pillars for Foster and Adopted Children
In 2008, an Australian psychologist named Howard Bath published an article (linked below) called “The Three Pillars of Trauma Informed Care.” Nearly a decade later, his work holds true as we continue to see the benefits of using trauma-informed interventions with foster and adopted children. Occasionally returning to the basics of trauma-informed care is essential […]
Grieving is Good
In 18 years of parenting, tears have been shed in our home for thousands of different reasons. However, the reason that causes the most tears from me is regarding the grief my children sometimes feel about being adopted. Every ounce of my being wants to make that grief disappear. I want to heal their sadness […]
Six Easy Ways to Create Attachment in Adoption
Dr. Karyn Purvis, author of The Connected Child, is nothing if she’s not practical. Her practicality is one of the things I like best about her—she gets that parents are busy and often don’t have time for “pie in the sky” theoretical questions. When I interviewed her for the Creating a Family Radio show on Raising and […]
Build Connection to Your Child with Eye Contact
BY STACI THOMAS Children often struggle with attaching to their caregivers when they are first placed in a new environment. At the same time, parents sometimes find attachment to the new children in their home challenging. Bonding in such situations can be tricky, as both parents and children suddenly find themselves in the position of […]
The Importance of Playful Engagement
One of my favorite parenting strategies is one that is so often forgotten — playful engagement. It’s easy to see why. We spend so much time focused on correcting our children’s behaviors that we don’t spend enough time connecting with them. Who has time for play when the goal is behavior modification? We want obedience. […]
