Sucking the air outI would like to address a comment made on a blog that I wrote on July 2, 2008 entitled “Place Older Adopted Children With Stay at Home Parent.” In that blog, I stated that older adopted children typically come to their new family with abandonment issues. I realize there are many other issues involved, but I am addressing just abandonment for now. In the summary of the article I stated, “Try to find a way to spend those first... more

What is the third leading cause of death for teenagers and young adults those from 15 to 24 years old? If you said suicide then you are correct. What causes teenagers or young adults with an unlimited future ahead of them to choose suicide over life? The number one cause of suicide in the United States is depression. If you suspect your child is suffering from depression, don’t wait. Seek medical help and therapy right away. A federal government survey released on May 13, says that over two million teenagers... more

Chapter one covers an adoptee’s fantasies and curiosity about their birth family. Throughout the book, Danea reinforces the normalcy of a teenager’s feelings, emotions, and curiosity. She makes it very plain that everyone experiences these feelings, fantasies, and emotions at some time in their lives. She validates a teenager’s rights to feelings, whatever those feelings might be, and rights to information. She encourages journaling to help teenagers work through their feelings and track their progress.

Danea states in the book that it is natural for... more

So I admit to thinking now & then “ when can we stop all this attachment stuff and start parenting normally”. We have been home a year, can we stop now? Have we done enough ? Is she attached as much as she could be? How do we know for sure? It’s hard to admit that I have had those types of feeling. I guess what I mean by parenting our daughter normally is that I would sometimes like to take a more relaxed approach. Sometimes I want to use time-out instead of time-in…. I don’t want to have to worry if time out is sending her a message of rejection.... more

I was reading this article about why toddlers reject their parents and I thought it brought up some really excellent points. Rejection is one of those things that no prospective adoptive parent wants to think about but its something you need to prepare yourself for .The one point that I liked about this article is that often the more you work on attachment the more your child may begin to reject you. It’s almost as if once the superficial... more

In our first year home we have made great strides in Attachment. I admit to thinking in the early days that at xyz months home that we would be fixed or in the clear so to speak. I admit to thinking that my daughter escaped Orphanage life unscathed with very few battle wounds. I was naive in my thinking in so many ways and have since come to view our daughter’s attachment as a process that will take an indefinite amount of time. She has wounds that are present; some are invisible to the naked eye. Some wounds may not crop up until a later date.... more

Mommy Shopping was a new behavior my daughter was exhibiting a few months after coming home.I thought I would share my experiences with it and how we dealt with it. It first happened a when a female friend came over to take our pictures for a newspaper article about our adoption. My typically clingy affectionate daughter flat out ignored me, refused eye contact, lashed out at me. All the while she was charming, warm and overly friendly with our visitor. It made for capturing a warm & fuzzy picture difficult. After our visitor left my husband and... more

Lately my daughter has been very clingy and showing signs of anxious attachment. I thought I would delve into what anxious attachment looks like for us, how it shows itself and discuss it in general. It seems that with most of her behaviors that you could say “ well that is typical for any toddler”, don’t most toddlers go through this phase? While that may be true, the anxiety a PI child shows is quite different or at least I suppose it’s different than the clinginess a homegrown child exhibits. The anxiety that my daughter seems to experience is less... more

Did you ever just have one of those days where you feel like you have not one ounce left to give? .... yesterday was just one of those days. Livi and I were getting on each others nerves. There are days that Livi seems to just really test the last amount of patience I have and yesterday it was in short supply.It's really hard to articulate how days like yesterday drain me and make me feel like the worst mother in the whole wide world.

I knew raising a toddler would be hard work. I did not know it would be this hard, I was not... more

I cant believe its been 10 months already, last month we celebrated our first referral anniversary and we are officially on the waiting list to start getting occupational therapy for sensory issues. Livi has come so far in ten months. She has gained 10 lbs, grown 5 inches and hardly resembles her referral picture. It’s been an amazing process to watch her flourish and thrive.

The Good-

Her attachment, while this continues to be a one step forward, two step back process for us she is no doubt attaching and is growing more... more