From the category archives:

"Normalizing" Adoption

National Adoption Awareness Month: “Build Capacity to Make Lasting Change”

November 10, 2011

The first major effort to promote adoption, by Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis in 1976, was for the purpose of educating people about the need for permanent families for children in the foster care system. The idea grew and spread throughout the nation. President Reagan created National Adoption Week through a presidential proclamation in 1984, and [...]

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Preparing School-Aged Siblings

October 12, 2011

“Is _______’s other mommy sad?”
This was the question from my son, then age six, just days after we arrived home with our daughter—his sister. My son was overjoyed and oh-so-proud of his baby sister. Prior to her arrival home (and still to this day) he learned vast amounts of information and embraced her birth culture [...]

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Tools: Mother-Daughter Book Clubs

June 20, 2011

Parents often find that the relationships with their children become challenging as adolescence ensues. Control issues surface as the adolescent processes of separating and individuating, in support of forming identity, kick into full swing. Parents quickly come to realize that peer friendships take on greater significance and communication with their tween/teen can turn south. One way [...]

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Tools: Lifebooks

April 26, 2011

Most likely you have a number of books in your home related to adoption—age appropriate stories, information aboutyour child’s birth country and culture (if applicable), adoptive parenting books, and parenting books. But there is another book you should have: a lifebook.
A lifebook is an actual book that you create. Of course, the best lifebook is [...]

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Adoption “Invisible”

April 16, 2011

The adoptive status of children must be addressed early on, and be ongoing. How children view and process adoption changes as they move through the developmental stages.
Children who are the same race as their adoptive parents comprise a healthy percentage of adoptions, regardless if their adoption was domestic or international. Children who are the same [...]

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Pebbles…

March 20, 2011

Do you appreciate one-liners? I certainly do. I believe they are important. They can make us laugh (those endorphins are good for us), think and act. There are the comedic one-liners, jokes—the silly, the funny, the dirty, the stupid. They come out of nowhere, surprising you, making you chuckle, for example: “Do not argue with [...]

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