Tag: adoptee
-
Why Some Adoptees See Their Mom As An Enemy
I’ve wondered for years why I saw Retha, my Mom through adoption, as my enemy. Why did I love getting under her skin? Why did I seek other Moms for advice, giving her a cold shoulder? Why did I delight in making her mad? Why did I hate her? Was it me? Was it because basically…
-
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 foster…
-
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?…
-
The Special Needs of Many Adopted Kids
Many adopted children have special needs that adoptive, first, and foster parents must learn in order to become their child’s #1 cheerleader. Use this list as needed and as age-appropriate for discussing special needs with your child. You might say, “An adopted person wrote a list of her special needs. Would you be interested in…
-
Identifying With Fellow Adoptee Anne With An “E”
Most adoptive parents will identify with the challenges of raising an adopted child. The mother and father were brother and sister and had never raised children. They made typical mistakes that almost all parents do, but the challenges were often magnified because they had no backstory, no parental training or education, and no awareness that…
-
Adoptees Can Grow Amidst Birth Family Rejection
Rejection. Just the sound of the word sends chills up my spine! Rejection is the dark side of the search and reunion process. The agonizing side. The side that is rarely, if ever, talked about, the side media never covers. However, rejection need not define us. Here’s why.
-
Many Adopted Kids Want Parents to Address Their Curiosities About Birth Family
Is it okay to ask the hospital where I was born for my medical records? Is it okay to ask for non-identifying information about my birth mother and birth father? Is it okay to say that I’m curious about them and might like to meet them some day? Is it okay to be angry about…
-
The Little Pink Flower That Bloomed in the Winter
After the man planted Little Pink Flower in his white jar, he expected that it would bloom during the summer, but it didn’t. When December came, even though the plant had green leaves, there was no flower. But suddenly, a pink flower popped from the green leaves, delighting the man beyond belief. He tells the…
-
A Holiday Gift Adoptive and First Parents Can Share With Their Kids
Who can even guess what the upcoming Christmas and Hanukah family celebrations will be like? If the gathering is virtual, it takes much pressure off adopted children. They can feel safe from being overstimulated. No matter whether virtual or physical. many adopted kids have a rough time. I’ve written these questions for you to share…
-
Dancing in My First Mother’s Shadow
Almost every adoptee has a shadow following her. It’s the shadow of the First Mother. The shadow may be fleeting, fear-producing, fierce, or formidable. It all depends, for each adoptee and First Mother are unique, one of a kind. But, one thing is certain–adoptees who experience rejection from their First Mothers can dance again.
-
Draining Shame from Adoptee Sensory Issues
For my whole life, I’ve believed that I’m clumsy. My.whole.life. I trip, fall, run into things, and go ballistic when I hear the sound of the vacuum cleaner. Just last week, I was working out at the gym with a friend. When we changed machines, she said with urgency, “Look out!” There was a machine…
-
“I Can Now Take Rejection In Stride” Online Adoptee Bible Study
Ronald Nydam, Ph.D., in an article entitled “Doing Rejection” appearing in Jewel Among Jewels Adoption News said, “The task of all adoptees is to finally relinquish their relinquishment; that is, to really accept the decision of the birth parents to carry out their plan for adoption. If the original relinquishment is not relinquished, the adoptee…
-
I HAVE A UNIQUE LIFE PURPOSE. Online Adoptee Bible Study
The late Brian Keck, between the age of 10 and 16, was placed in 27 foster homes, three adoptive placements, two group homes and one detention center. He went on to earn a degree in social work and is now dedicating himself to become an Olympic wrestler. He said in an article for Connections, a…
-
I’M NERVOUS ABOUT FINDING BIRTH RELATIVES. Online Adoptee Bible Study
Like many adoptees, Moses probably experienced a tremendous amount of anxiety prior to his reunion with his birth brother, Aaron. “What will I say?” “How will I act?” “Will I laugh or cry?” he may have wondered. As with all adoption reunions, there is joy as well as pain, blessing as well as a sense…
-
I AM TERRIFIED OF REJECTION Online Adoptee Bible Study
Fear of rejection is like a monkey on the backs of many adopted kids, teens, and adults. Most tend to see rejection when none was intended. The turning around instead of being face to face. An unanswered text. Being stood up for a date with a first parent. Is this a permanent disability? Will adopted…
-
“I Push Myself to Be Perfect” Online Adoptee Bible Study
What are Super You and Real You? Super You is a false idealized image you think you have to be in order to be loved and accepted. Super You is an imaginary picture of yourself. Since you have been programmed to believe that no one will love you if he gets to know the real…
-
I SOMETIMES FANTASIZE ABOUT MY BIRTH MOTHER. Online Adoptee Bible Study
Adopted children spend an exorbitant amount of psychic time in fantasy. They may seem to be sitting quietly in their rooms, or just looking out the window, when really they are deep in the Ghost Kingdom imagining scenarios that might have been or still might be…These fantasies are not just the passing fancies with which…
-
Who’s That Little Girl, Anyway?
Imagine being given an assignment to find someone you’ve never met, but someone with whom you have an unknown connection. The person you’re searching for is a female toddler who lives in a bungalow on a prestigious, tree-lined street. She’ll be sitting on the porch steps alone. “Who’s that little girl, anyway?” you may ask…
-
“I DON’T FEEL LIKE I BELONG ANYWHERE”-Online Adoptee Bible Study
What name did he have in his birth family’s home? Surely it must have been a Hebrew name. But now he was to be called by another name–an Egyptian name. Little Moses felt all mixed up inside. If he were able to put his feelings into words he might have said, I don’t feel like…
-
Adoptees Can Grow Amidst COVID-19-Bible Study 1
in order to study Moses and what we can learn from him, we must remember that his struggles were evidence of something deeper that must be dealt with. We’re going to look at the first part of his life prior to adoption and discover that his painful past doesn’t surface as memories of the past,…
-
Announcing New Online Bible Study for Adoptive, Foster Parents, and Kids
Why do many of us see life through a lens of rejection? Why do unanswered phone calls, emails, and letters spell R-E-J-E-C-T-I-O-N to us? Will we ever get over it? Why is our self-esteem not low, but non-existent? Why do we try to be like others instead of being ourselves? Do we even know who…
-
Discovering God In the Details
And so at birth, love mingled with loss, like water and oil. This combination waged war inside me, from birth onward. Avoid abandonment at all costs and seek love no matter whom the giver. Loss sent me on a lifetime quest to find freedom from deeply-embedded fears of abandonment that warred against my ability to…
-
Ending the Unwanted War Between Adoptees and Their Moms
How I wish mom and I knew about what will be shared . We would have been freed from the war between us and enjoyed an intimate parent/child relationship that only comes from tough self-examination of both child and parent.
-
What’s With The Silly Cap, Randall?
I couldn’t believe it when This Is Us’s Randall wore a ski cap to the event that Kevin took their mom to! Of course, he and Kevin were in an all-out battle about who could take better care of their aging mom, as dementia set in. The scene of Kevin taking his mom to the…
-
Stop Running, Randall on THIS IS US
Randall is running to try to keep his sanity, but inside, he is screaming bloody murder. His friends, colleagues, and wife could see what was happening but he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t connect. The longer the program went on, the more the pressures that came to bear on Randall and he began having insomnia and bad…
-
Why Some Adopted Kids See Their Adoptive Mom As An Enemy
When your child connects with you for the first time, he brings with him all the “faces” of other moms that were in your role before. So, if your child is a newborn, it is the first mom’s face. If a school-age child removed to foster care, the first mom’s face. If a teen coming…
-
How Adoptive Parents Can Foster Self-Acceptance In Their Kids
Your child’s potential is there, yet invisible. I like to think of each person as made in the image of God–body, soul, and spirit. Just like the amaryllis, those gorgeous red blooms are developing deep within, yet when he/she comes to you, likely there will be no evidence because pre-adoption trauma keeps it suppressed. …
-
How To Advocate for Your Adopted Child Amidst Insensitive Remarks
The following chart may come in handy over the holidays, as you will be attending family and public gatherings, where well-intentioned individuals might know your child is adopted, but are nervous about what to say to connect with your family or child. We all get nervous in different situations, but when nervousness concerns the topic…
-
Why Adopted Kids Reject Their Mom’s Love
Your child wants you to know is that if she doesn’t grieve the adoption loss, her ability to receive love or attach emotionally to you and others in meaningful relationships may be seriously hindered. Dr. Daniel N. Stern, professor of psychiatry at Cornell University, says in his book, The Interpersonal World of the Infant, that…
-
How Parents Can Instill Healthy Boundaries in Adopted Children
Adopted children feel different because they are different than you, biologically speaking. They are also different because of the way they became a part of your family. These are facts of life–facts you cannot change and facts you cannot fix. Your child is not the same as you, no matter how you slice it. But…
-
What Creates Hope for Discouraged Adoptive and Foster Parents
There’s a three-fold secret I discovered during the search for my first mother that may bring hope to discouraged adoptive and foster parents. Parents, I know the Marine-like challenge you’ve undertaken to parent a child through adoption. Sometimes, you’re on the verge of complete exhaustion or panicked about what is happening in your child’s life.…
-
The Unspoken Raw Realities All Adopted Kids Experience
For an adopted child, the dance floor is the first mother’s womb, for there the unborn child gains a sense of belonging, a sensation of safety in the warm sack of water, and a sense of rhythm from the mother’s beating heart. These dance floor elements are what every child expects after birth–a continuation and…
-
A Gift Only Adopted and Foster Kids Can Give
We Have a Unique Emotional Language. Sherry says that adoptees can “read” each other from just a few words or their body language, which she says makes adoptees feel like they belong to each other.
-
What Adoptees Must Consider Before Searching for Birth Family
“Understanding my adoption experience,” Richard says, “has allowed me to bring authenticity to my relationships with family, friends, and others in my life. I no longer hide my thoughts and feelings—the veil of secrecy has been lifted. People now get the real Richard since I’ve uncovered my past, understand how precious the present is, and…
-
Please Bring Up My Birth Family for Me?
What comes to mind when you think about initiating a conversation with your child about his birth family? Do you feel defensive, like the birth family is the enemy to be avoided at all costs? Do you feel sad, and does your lip begin to quiver at the thought of their possible presence in your…
-
Helping Your Adopted Child With Fears of Abandonment
Fear and abandonment are inextricably woven together and tied into one big knot in the psyche and spirit of the adopted child. Think for a moment about the normal childhood fear of abandonment needing to be conquered by all of us. It is an illusion and not based on truth. However, for the adoptee, there…
-
The Special Needs of Adopted Children
I need parents who are willing to put aside preconceived notions about adoption and be educated about the realities of adoption and the special needs adoptive families face. (Proverbs 23:12, Proverbs 3: 13-14, Proverbs 3:5-6) I need my adoptive and birth parents to have a non-competitive attitude. Without this, I will struggle with loyalty issues.…
-
What Happens When Adoptive Parents Reflect On the Miracle of Adoption
Without a doubt, you know that an absolute miracle transpired in your heart when you adopted your child. Trying to describe it would be impossible, for it is like a million emotions exploding simultaneously—like fireworks! Debbie describes it well: If I had to pick just one moment of absolute, unadulterated joy it would be the…
-
Why Adoptees and Foster Kids Must Guard Their Hearts
Adoptees and foster kids must learn to guard their hearts through discernment and simultaneously learn the art of gradual self-disclosure. We need to find a healthy balance between the two, and that will occur as we learn to trust ourselves. Here are some tips that will help adoptees and foster kids find and trust safe…
-
Helping Adopted Kids Think Freely About Their Birth Parents
Parents, I know you and the fact that you’re reading this shows your heart. You would do anything to help your child come to terms with his/her first family. Here’s what you can do: Bring up the birth parents in conversation. “I wonder where you got that curly black hair. Do you think it could…
-
How Many Adoptees Are Rejected by Birth Relatives?
Why do birth relatives reject some of us? Does our physical appearance remind our birth mothers of our fathers, whom they have no positive feelings for? Does seeing us trigger issues in them that they have never dealt with? Are they emotionally and mentally unbalanced? Or are they just downright mean? What does it mean…
-
What May Happen When Adoptees Practice Self-Care
So, I pulled the poor thing out of the pot, setting it on a nearby wagon. It seemed there was no hope, but it seemed worth a try. That evening, it rained like crazy and the next morning I went out to see the plant, thinking it was totally wiped out by the heavy rains.…
-
What the MRI of My Adoptee Heart Showed
Sherrie couldn’t figure out why life’s circumstance felt like she was being painted into a corner. As a control freak, this was incredibly distressing. What she didn’t realize is that she was at the threshold of healing. A MRI of her adoptee heart clarified the diagnosis.
-
Celebrating the Scab Over Verrier’s Primal Wound
Celebrating the Scab Over Verrier’s Primal Wound. Is it really possible for adopted, fostered, or step children to heal from such a profound wound? In order to know the answer, we must study what healing looks like here.
-
What I Wish My Adoptive Mom Would Have Said
Sometimes, parents are ill-equipped to teach their children emotional awareness, thus increasing the child’s Emotional IQ. They may be fearful, believing that emotions like sadness or anger can be harmful. They may be controlling, seeing negative emotions as something they’re responsible to fix, or they may feel it their responsibility to help the child understand…
-
Will Adopted and Foster Kids Get Triggered On Mother’s Day?
Hallmark reminds us of the upcoming Mothers Day with romanticized cards and sentimental gift offerings. Mothers Day is ideally a day for remembering the mothering we received and the incredible character of the mom who poured herself into us minute-by-minute, time after time, day after day, and year after year. It’s a time that’s often…
-
The Best News for Adopted and Foster Kids This Easter
The innermost fear of many adopted humans—Is my life a mistake?This is the deepest, darkest shame possible and none of your children would admit it to you. Trust me, MOST adoptees struggle with this question.What is needed for the questioning child?
-
How Often Do Adoptees Think About Their Birth Parents?
I have yet to meet an adoptee who can honestly claim to have never thought about his or her birth mother, especially on birthdays. In fact, a survey of more than 100 adoptees from the All-Adoptee Online group (all-adoptees@yahoogroups.com) confirm that many think of their birth mothers daily. It’s no wonder. Just think about how…
-
When You Write to Publish, Don’t Forget This!
Yesterday, LITTLE BRANCH GETS ADOPTED became available for purchase on Amazon.com! I am celebrating with my publisher, Marcinson Press, by eating chocolate cake. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be able to make this available to adoptive and foster parents, plus anyone who loves an adoptee. It’s for kids, ages 5-12. The…
-
Why Some Adoptees Are Angry and Others Aren’t
Imagine a five-year old whose parents were wiped out in a car wreck. She’s just attended their funeral and then witnessed their coffins lowered six feet into the ground. If you were to strike up a conversation with this child as her aunt takes her hand and leads her to the car, what do you…
-
What Happened To My Adoptive Mom’s Wedding Ring…and Me
Taking them out, something strange started happening deep inside me.I thought about my late Dad picking them for Mom.Where did he get them? And, why did he pick this design? And…what was it like for both of them when he asked her to marry him? Did they hug, kiss? Did he get down on one…
-
What Adoptees and Foster Kids Need to Know About Anger
What I didn’t know is that for the adoptee, there are two kinds of anger—real, God-given anger for when we’re in danger. It’s the proverbial red light on the dashboard, alerting us to the fact that something needs attention.The other kind of anger is mis-placed anger, which runs rampant in adoptee and foster kid hearts.…
-
How Adoptive and Foster Mamas Can Discover Their Legacy
For, YOU, dear one, are the gift, the heirloom to the next generation. Yes, every single inch of you that lives the daily grind is part and parcel of your legacy. Your strengths and weaknesses, your challenges and failures, your dreams and goals.
-
The Gift of My Adoptive Mama’s Perfume
If you pick up an empty bottle that once contained expensive perfume, its possible to still distinguish the fine fragrance, even though the bottle is empty. Adoptive mamas, you are the perfume and you want your life and love to be a timeless fragrance of fine perfume for your adopted and foster child. That’s what…
-
Why I Rejected My Adoptive Mom’s Gift…and Her
The pain involved in the adoptive mother/child relationship is deep and often seems impossible to normalize. The child usually acts out of anger at the mom and the mom is hurt terribly. Sherrie Eldridge encourages adoptive mamas to know the intrinsic value of their love to their children by showing her own mom’s determined love…
-
What Adopted and Foster Kids Really Want For Christmas
Adoptive and foster parents want to get their kids everything for on their kid’s Santa list. There’s one gift the kids really want but don’t share. Sherrie spills the beans here.
-
What Can Adoptive and Foster Mamas Do When Rejected?
As an adopted person, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be rejected by your children. I believe foster and adoptive moms are some of the bravest people I’ve ever met because most of the time, their efforts and love are not received. What should moms do? This is one major step that will keep…
-
How Will Your Adopted or Foster Child Remember You?
As her child, in the deep loss, I would have loved to have a timeless memory that she’d created for me. Something I could hold in my hands and remember the values and beliefs she held dear. I’m sure she wondered with an attachment disordered kid what I would say about her effectiveness in parenting.…
-
What Adopted and Foster Kids Consider Worse Than Anger
But, this crummy fear consumes, engulfs, surrounds, and ties our tongues. It condemns beautiful personalities, prompts self-protection at any level, and requires all dangers to disappear. It thrives on isolation and multiples with broken promises. It cripples authenticity and encourages sickness.
-
Dude..No Need To Feel Guilty For Thoughts About Your Birth Mom
Just think about how intimately we were united with the woman who gave us birth! What a connection we had for at least nine months. An inseparable bond. As inseparable as tea from hot water. As inseparable as a bud from the stem of a flower. As inseparable as the ocean from the sand.
-
What If Adoptees and Foster Kids Discover They’re Royalty?
This photograph is fodder for the imagination of foster and adopted kids who need to envision the awesome life God has planned for them. Sherrie provides truths and life purpose that often comes from painful beginnings.
-
Remember This When You’re Labeled Bastard or Illegitimate
This young woman in this photo illustrates the paralyzing fear of being exposed as an illegitimate or bastard child. Even in church, mean words are uttered and Scripture is twisted at times. Sherrie offers a strategy for adopted and foster kids to overcome deep-seated shame.
-
Why Adopted and Foster Kids Believe They Don’t Belong Anywhere
What is a secret that adoptees and foster kids guard? It’s their feelings of not belonging. They feel like a square peg in a round hole. Parents sometimes hurt instead of help…unknowingly. Sherrie Eldridge offers a challenge to both parents and kids.
-
Don’t Fry Your Adopted/Foster Kid Brain-OK?
This teen could be a picture of an adopted or foster kid pushing themselves to the hilt…which only costs themselves. Such striving is contrary to learning to self regulate addictive emotions that tell us to do more. Sherrie Eldridge shares how adopted and foster kids can relax during busy times.
-
What Adopted, Foster Kids Must Know About Emotional Abuse
Many times we enter into relationships with unhealed moms and dads with unhealed pasts and chronic issues. We all can recognize physical abuse but emotional abuse is incredibly subtle. And, our propensity for connection blinds us to the hurtful elements of the relationship.
-
How Can Adopted and Foster Kids Grow In Spite of Parental Rejection?
News flash: Adoptees and Foster Can Grow in Self-Esteem in the Midst of Parental Rejection My heart breaks for fellow adoptees and foster kids who are being rejected. It doesn’t have to a monumental, in-your-face rejection, but it is rejection nonetheless. For example: Teen waits for birth parent to pick up for movie date but…
-
Do you Want to Heal from Adoption Wounds? Here’s How.
Being a Lone Ranger doesn’t bring healing for those touched by adoption. When we are grieving deeply, we can’t see and even don’t want to see the pain of others. Pain twists our perspective. Sherrie Eldridge has been there and gives reason why striving for humble healing is essential…in the company of all that have…
-
Where I Found My Missing Adoptee Face
Being adopted is a life of adventure, constantly unfolding. My perspective doesn’t dismiss the pain, but sees it not as an enemy, but as a catalyst for growth and redemption. Most who have lost their first family would agree that we are forever searching for their missing faces. But, could there be an additional dimension…
-
Navigating First-Day-School Emotions with Adopted and Foster Kids
What if your adopted/foster child or teen enters another day of school with a big smile. Can parents and teachers ever understand the full mindset of that child entering a new situation and school? Sherrie Eldridge helps parents know the back story realities and how they can be pro-active to help their kids not react…
-
How One Adoptee Discovered Her Jewish Name
Is it reasonable for an adopted person to discover not only her biological roots but also her name? Sherrie shares how God enabled her to find clues that led to incredible discoveries.
-
What Fuels Birth Family Searches for Adoptees and Foster Kids?
Finding clues about birth family history sends me on an adrenaline high. I love being a sleuth and solving adoption mysteries. Just my first name–Baby X–makes me curious! Clues come in the most unexpected times and ways, oftentimes through the least likely people and circumstances. As I have turned over every stone possible to find…
-
Would Adoptees and Foster Kids Say Yes to This?
Lately, I find myself asking, “If you knew before you were born, would you have signed up for the life you’re living? Would I have signed up for: Being an unplanned baby, called Baby X Not being able to see my birth mother’s face from birth until reunion at 47 years old Feeling ill at…
-
My View from the Back Seat of Adoption
Oftentimes, adoptees struggle with the complexities of adoption. As a senior in the field of adoption, Sherrie Eldridge describes what it is like to look back on life as an older adoptee and then she gives a message for younger adoptees and foster kids.
-
The Royal Wedding Can Teach Adoptees and Foster Kids to Dream Big
The royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry was something like a fairytale. We all dream of such a life. Their wedding illustrates a very important reality that adopted and foster kids and parents can look forward to in the midst of a broken world.
-
Adoptee and Foster Kid Cry Prints Speak Volumes
This baby’s cries are vital for developing connections between parent and child. You will be surprised at what the parental role is in this entire phenomena. Of course. adopted and foster babies have a cry that will reflect trauma…they may be daunting to listen to. Here’s how to begin.
-
Please Don’t Read “Two Moms” Poem on Mother’s Day
This photo shows an adopted or foster teen who is dressed up for Mother’s Day. Inside, however, she is filled with mixed feelings. Sherrie Eldridge provides three suggestions for helping adoptees and foster kids, plus parents, cope with this unchangeable reality.
-
How Can Adoptees and Foster Kids Know Who Is A Safe Person?
When we adoptees and foster kids are hurting badly, we lack a lot of discernment about who to share our innermost thoughts with. This post teaches how to find safe people by looking at three characteristics that must be present to qualify a person as safe. This is also applicable to anyone who is hurting.
-
Twenty Gifts of An Adoptee
There are many adoptees who will nay-say the idea of being grateful for being adopted. Most of them haven’t lived as long as I have! Looking back over seven decades, I can see so many things to be grateful for and I say them in deep respect for fellow-adoptees who are in pain or anger.
-
The Beautiful Braid of Adoption
I already hear boos coming about this post. Many people believe adoption is a bad thing that should be avoided at all cost. Sherrie provides a metaphor of adoption to inspire the adoption triad to affirm each person touched by adoption and how God sees it all.
-
The Double-Whammy of One Adoptee
Sometimes, life throws a double-whammy at us. Something that brings new limitations and a feeling of being totally out of control. Sherrie shares two parts of her life that run parallel, that she calls her double-whammy. Learn the incredible lesson she learned from a young man in a wheel chair.
-
Family Devotions and Crafts for Easter Week
It’s a challenge for Christians at Easter and Holy week to help children, especially younger ones, understand why Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. Use these short devotions from Sherrie to make this week meaningful spiritually for your family.
-
An Effective Writing Project for Shut-Down Adoptees and Foster Kids
Write your story” is what’s trendy now in adoption circles amongst adoptees. YIKES…I can’t do that. I’ve written seven books, some which tell the circumstances of my story, but my voice…it’s missing. Last night I lay in bed, panicked about not being able to find my voice. Where is my voice? How can I find…
-
How Adoptees and Foster Kids Can Grieve Loss
“Select items that are representative of each loss and put into the box. (Small items can be used, photos, mementos. The item can be as simple as a button).
-
Does the Bible Validate An Adoptee’s Primal Wound?
With all the changing terminology and philosophy about what an adoptee experiences at relinquishment, author Sherrie Eldridge takes us to the core meaning of what it really means. She reviews expert opinions and then gives a Biblical clue you won’t want to miss.
-
Adoptive and Foster Parents Can Offer Comfort on Boo-Hoo Birthdays
What are adoptive and foster parents to do when their child acts out on birthdays…or when their child shuts down? Here are five beliefs many adoptees have about birthdays and five things parents can do to help comfort the sadness.
-
What Should Adoptees and Foster Kids Do with Negative Birth History?
What do you do when you think you’re searching for gold and the search results are the furthest thing from that? Author Sherrie Eldridge answers this question for fellow adoptees in this post.
-
Helping Adoptees and Foster Kids Identify and Describe Hidden Loss
Yep, we adoptees and foster kids are well guarded when it comes to talking about sadness and loss. Parents will gain hope from this post on what they can do to help their child move through it successfully.
-
Five Social Media Landmines for Searching Adoptees and Foster Kids
I believe all adoptees are searching for lost relatives, even if subconsciously. With the growth of social media it is commonplace to find a lost relative. Facebook was my means of finding my birth brother, Jon. Connections may occur, creating an emotional high, But often there are landmines for which no one is prepared.…
-
Become Your Adopted/Foster Child’s Cheerleader In Adoptions’ Olympics
Want to see how much adopted and foster kids are like Olympians? We run like Olympians every day in dealing with special needs resulting from relinquishment. Helpful is parental understand of special needs. List provided. Parents can become #1 cheerleaders.
-
Taming Tantrums in Adopted and Foster Toddlers
What is a parent to do when his/her adopted or foster child throws a full blown temper tantrum? Author Sherrie Eldridge shares tried tips she’s learned from adoption professionals in her travels.
-
What Adoptive and Foster Parents Can Do When Words Fail
What is a parent to do when his loving words hit the brick wall of their child’s wounded heart? This post provides information about connecting with one’s higher power.
-
Relinquishment and Adoption Are Different, by Ron Nydam, Ph.D.
Language itself is often a problem in the field of adoption. Seldom is it simply a matter of semantics. For all too long the literature has failed to carefully distinguish between relinquishment and adoption as two separate, parallel processes which interface with each other in adoptive development. And the consequences of this unfortunate muddling of…
-
What Adoptive and Foster Parents Can Do When Kids “Out-Stubborn” Them
What can adoptive and foster parents do when their kids consistently resist talking about adoption? Many times, the child will yell, “You don’t get it.” And, truth be told, parents don’t get it because adopted and foster kids see life in an entirely different way than their parents. Learn here how to enter their world….and…
-
The Burning Fear Adoptees and Foster Kids Find Impossible to Quench
This insidious fear lies in the basement of adopted and fostered kids heart, like mould. How can one deal with such a fear? Who could possibly have an answer that will quench the fear? Read on…
-
Must Adopted and Foster Kids Fake A Smile for Gotcha Day?
Yikes! I don’t know where Gotcha Day came from! It’s the buzz among adoptive parents, but how do their adopted and foster children feel about celebrations on this day?
-
One Thing Birth Parents Must Never Say
Often times birthparents want to show love to their relinquish children so much, but they don’t know how their statements will translate to an adoptee or foster child’s heart. Birthparents, learn hear what will edify us.
-
When Adoptees & Foster Kids Get Shamed for Depression
It is possible to add insult to injury by labeling an adoptee’s or foster child’s battle with depression as a spiritual problem. Please don’t.
-
Why Adopted and Fostered Kids May Cry Old Man Tears
Why would a seemingly insignificant object trigger pieces of my adoption puzzle that stayed dormant for years? And, how could I solve the grief puzzle it surfaced?
-
Adopted Kids Learn What They Live
It is absolutely essential for adopted kids to learn positive things from parents. Positive things that will fill holes of low self-worth, feelings of not belonging, and second chances when they make mistakes. So much of adoptee behavior depends on what is learned in the home.
-
An Adoptee’s Translation of “You Are Special”
What is it that adoptive and foster parents must be aware of when telling their kiddos they are special? Find out the exception here.