Many people offer me parenting advice, from the stranger at the library to well meaning family members it seems everyone has thoughts on how to raise my child. It was at our daughters “Welcome Home” party that I was first told that I was over protective and that I needed to relax. My daughter was just home a few months and showing signs of anxiety. I was being responsive and practicing attachment parenting.

It’s hard to explain to people that a child who has lived in an orphanage and a homegrown child need to be parented differently.... more

Much has been blogged about regarding Holding Time…I don’t want to be redundant and wondered if I should post on this topic at all. I decided since I use to be on the fence that my insight may be helpful to anyone also on the fence. It was a fellow blogger who helped me when I was wavering. I’m not an expert, just a Mom. The following is my story and my experience with Holding time.

I read Martha Welch's Holding... more

When I was a home visitor I used a curriculum with teen Mom’s called “ What’s your parenting style”. It encouraged Mom’s to look at how they were raised, what they liked about their parents style of parenting, what they didn’t like, what qualities they hoped to ditch and what would they keep. We learn to parent from our parents so this is a helpful exercise. Many of my teen Moms would respond with “ I’m not going to be anything like my Mom” and then a year later they admit to being exactly like their parents.

This will come... more

With the information overload that is available on parenting, I am sure that there is something out there that has been dubbed Positive Parenting. If there is, that is not what this post is about. I started to title the post The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I realized it wasn't about that either. Here's the deal. Last spring, just before school ended I declared to some of my closest friends that I wanted this summer to be the best summer ever for us as a family and I'll be darned if it didn't happen! Imagine that.

I think of my... more

After adopting my daughters, I tried to craft everyday experiences for them that were capable of having a therapeutic impact. My efforts weren't particularly well thought out or carefully planned. I just had an instinctual sense that some of the same experiences that were merely enriching for my son, carried the potential to be therapeutic for my daughters without necessarily looking or feeling like therapy.

For example, when my son was born I took maternity leave. My husband stayed home for several weeks as well, though not quite as long as I did. That was... more

In personality theory, identity formation begins early in childhood and serves as the scaffolding upon which the additional roles, assumed throughout ones lifespan, are built. My identity as a parent began forming long before I gave birth to my son. As a younger woman, I fantasized about what kind of mother I wanted to be and what kind of mother I would become. I had very specific ideas about all of that, some of which have held steady over the years, many of which have changed, a few of which have been abandoned. As a parent I am loving, protective, nurturing, firm, demanding, strict,... more

I've written here before on what makes a "successful adoption" and how it is achieved. In my previous post I discussed all of the options and choices that are available to adoptive parents. But after all of the choices that are available to you are made and your child comes home, then what? How do you go about making the union a successful one?

The more I pay attention to all three of my children, the more I am convinced that much of it has to do with the child's natural temperament and disposition and whether that is a "good match" with the parent's personality and parenting... more

All right. The attempt to use the drip function was a bust. It is not rocket science. However, I managed to completely (mess) it all up and so now (doggonit) I have to start from scratch. Aaargh! Just when I think I've gotten the hang of this...

Anyway, yesterday I broached the topic of guilt-free adoptive parenting. On my parenting blog, you will find a no-nonsense "the parents are the experts on their children" message. Initially, when I started what I have come to label my one-woman campaign, my focus was on typical parents raising well-adjusted... more

Seems I've become a little distracted by all the interesting and, at times, controversial/provocative posts I've been reading lately. I sit down prepared to publish a post on a chosen topic and then I read through the other blogs and my plans completely go out the window.

I left a comment for Nancy at Reactive Attachment Disorder Blog mentioning that I might be suffering with Blogger Identity Disorder. I feel like I'm still searching for my own idendity. My Blog is supposed to be about Adoptive Parenting, but, I feel like everything I read is about Adoptive Parenting. I look back at the list of topics I submitted to Adoption.com... more

I'd never make it as a politician. Oh, I'm passionate enough about my views, but, I am one of those wimps who tries to (gasp!) understand and respect everybody's viewpoint; even when I adamantly disagree, even when I am aboslutely, one hundred percent, beyond a shadow of a doubt certain that I am the one who is right and they are totally wrong!

When it comes to parenting--adoptive, step, foster, biological, grand, whatever--I am convinced that by and large, most parents do not wake up in the morning trying to figure out how they can wreck their child's life. They just don't. They don't fall asleep at night thinking, "Oh goodie, I really made his/her life a living hell today. Oh joy.... more