Tag: foster children
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Helping Adopted Kids Feel Safe Amidst Coronavirus
It’s such a basic need of adopted kids to have connection, with you, friends, and other family members. But, we’re all called to social distancing, which may be incredibly difficult for adopted kids. I’m going to share three ideas here that speak to this need of adopted kids. I’m hesitant to share, for it seems…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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?
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Adopted and Foster Kids: Buckle Your Seatbelts Before Birth Parent Reunions
Looking back on my initial contact via phone with my birth mother, it’s hard to believe that the whole reunion with her ended in slammed doors. Adoptees must be aware that rejection is a real possibility….and remain safe during times when rejection comes. Also, when the sweet words like this come. We must be wise…
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Why Adoptive and Foster Parents Must Resist Over-the-Top Giving
“Just get whatever you want.” Many of us believe this communicates love to adopted and foster children. As Sherrie Eldridge wrote this post, she identified a new area of overindulgence in her own life. Find out what overgiving really communicates to your child and the three forms of overgiving.
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Sometimes Adoptees and Especially Foster Kids Feel Like A Burden
I took all my stuff to the downstairs bedroom, shut the door, and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over my head. It felt safer there. Perhaps, there, I could escape the message that pounded in my head relentlessly: “You are a bother.” It was the time of my second clinical depression and I felt…
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What It Feels Like to Be A 12+ Year-Old Adoptee or Foster Kid
This is another wonderful article from JEWELS NEWS, written by Samantha Jones, Fall 1997 Issue. Hello, my name is Samantha and I am 12 1/2 years old. I’m Afro-American. I’m adopted. I’ve been with my adopted family for about eight years now. Being adopted to me means being with the permanent family. Sometimes I wonder…
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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.
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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?
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Thinking Logically Seems Impossible for Attachment Disordered Kids
Dear friends through adoption… Last week, Bob and I were painting my office. I got all the color chips and showed him the best colors. Within two hours, I changed my mind, and by the next morning, again. The following day, other colors and then back to the first. “I just can’t track with you!”…
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Why Adopted Teens Prefer Isolation
Why do adopted teens isolate? They have virtually no self esteem and figure no one would ever be as weird as them. When the meet a fellow adoptee who will share, dynamics change. They realize the are not alone and have hope for their future.