Category Archives: adopted, foster, parenting

Dancing With Your Adopted Child

And as a child, I would step on her toes really, really hard. I mean, I loved to step on her toes. It gave me a lot of pleasure. I know that’s really, really sad, but when you understand the reason why that was occurring, then you won’t blame me, or shame me. But, that is a dynamic that happens to a lot of adoptive parents, foster parents and their kids.

What I Didn’t Know About Being Adopted

What I’d like to share here is “what I didn’t know about being adopted.” This first post is about my beginnings.nLooking back, I see an adorable child sitting on the porch steps. With leather high tops, a pink dress and matching bonnet, I cuddled a well-worn Raggedy Ann. Dark hair cascaded from beneath my bonnet and long eyelashes adorned the brownist of eyes. Who couldn’t love such a child? Wouldn’t her mother and father? Wouldn’t her extended family? Just looking at toddler me on that sunny day, you’d have no clue that my life began in darkness and that a catastrophic message was embedded in my brain. 

Adopted Kids May Identify with Buddy At Christmastime

Dear all kinds of parents, fellow adoptees and foster kids… Every year, I watch the Christmas movie called ELF, mostly because my beliefs about Christmas, myself, and others in my story–adoptive mother and dad, ring familiar. We can use the movie as a springboard for discussing the challenges of Christmas that many adopted and fosterContinue reading “Adopted Kids May Identify with Buddy At Christmastime”

My Journey Into the World of Adoption, Karen Springs

 My journey into the world of adoption began exactly 17 years ago with a visit to an orphanage, a world away from my middle-class American life. It was early November 2004 and I’d arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine, six weeks earlier for what was intended to be an eight-month postcollege ministry adventure. I was twenty-three yearsContinue reading “My Journey Into the World of Adoption, Karen Springs”

One Word Adoptive Parents Must Avoid

Whenever I teach this point during a training, many parents get upset. I wonder why. Are they offended that they’re saying the wrong word? Are they embarrassed, like someone caught with their pants down? Or, are they ticked off because they supposedly know better than anyone what the child needs…and how the child feels?” Really? Is it about the correctness of the word or how he feels and reacts when singled out?

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