Does parenting special needs adopted children brings its own set of joys and challenges?
Forever Parents
In 2002, I began to chronicle my adoption journey by creating Forever Parents, a supportive online community for adoptive and waiting parents.
Over the next year, we grew our support forums to include an adoption shop and a collaborative blog. Forever Parents stayed active for over ten years, helping thousands of people during that time. Currently, I'm in the process of updating and moving all the blog posts here where they will be housed under the Forever Parents category.
Reality Of The Hurt Adoptee
A local magazine, Family Times, interviewed me last September about older child adoption. One of the many issues I spoke about was when people tell my children that they “have a new life now”.
I disagree.
It’s still the same life, just a new chapter in it.
What happened in their earlier years are part of who they are today, not just in some other life.
We don’t try to make it pretty.
We don’t minimize or maximize it.
We don’t dwell on it and we don’t shove it in a box and hide it.
It is what it is.
What You Want Others To Know About Adoption
I asked our amazing adoption forum members what they wanted people to know about adoption, and here are their replies. I’ll share my thoughts at the end. If you’re a parent through adoption, please share what you want others to know about adoption, in a comment below.
12 Adoption Life Book Ideas
I loved putting my children’s life book together. Their caseworker started it for them with all the photos she had in their file. I added a lot of information, including the 13 things listed below. I’d love to hear what you included in your child’s life book.
Older Child Adoption: The Good, The Bad & The Hungry
Older child adoption has given me more joy, more sadness, more fulfillment, more stress and more gray hairs than anything else in my life. We recently passed our five-year adoption mark (we adopted three siblings) and sometimes it feels like five days, while other times it feels like five million years.
5 Things To Remember When Adopting An Older Child
Adopting older children can be very rewarding but it’s not for the faint of heart. These children will bring you every bad experience they’ve had and dump it right into your unsuspecting lap. I adopted not one, not two but three older children and I’ve learned a few things along the way. Here are five things to remember when adopting an older child.