My son, who is seven years old, has been asking for a baby sister lately. For the most part, he has seemed to be happy as an only child. I make a lot of effort to provide him with play dates and social activities so that he has many opportunities to interact with other children. However, most of his friends have siblings, and I guess it is only natural for him to desire a sibling as well. Also, during the holidays, he got to spend a lot of time with his cousins, which kind of felt like having siblings, and then went back to being the only child in the house.

If... more

Are any of you familiar with a fabulous Christian speaker named Beth Moore? I was watching one of her videos that goes along with one of her Bible studies, and she was talking about an older child that she adopted. She shared that her adopted son had all sorts of issues, causing her to have to attend numerous conferences with school personnel. As the school personnel would rattle off issues, she would respond by saying things like, "Yes, I know he can be difficult…"

One day, the school called her in to talk with her about another behavioral issue.... more

My son was watching a cartoon the other day, and I was surprised to hear the word "adoption" used. I watched the show for a couple of minutes to figure out the context and whether this might be something we needed to discuss further.

From what I could gather, a boy was returning his imaginary friend to a place where imaginary friends are "adopted" by children who want them. I did not follow why he placed his imaginary friend there, but he was clear that he planned to come back for him. The person in charge of the imaginary friend place said that... more

My son and I were talking a walk around the neighborhood when we came across an "It's a Girl" balloon on a mailbox. Nicholas pointed to the balloon and said, "Look, Mom! They adopted a girl!" Of course, we do not know these people and have no idea whether that baby joined their family through birth or adoption, but I think it is really cool that Nicholas immediately assumed that the baby joined the family through adoption. This tells me that he sees adoption as normal rather than as an anomaly that makes our family different.

What makes this doubly... more

If you have a family pet, then you have a wonderful way to help a younger adopted child understand adoption. The family pet is clearly not blood-related to the other family members, but he is a welcome and beloved member of the family. Such a complex concept as adoption can seem much more simple with a concrete example like the family pet.

I have used our dog to help my son understand why his birthmother would choose to "give him away." I explained that his birthmother did not give him away. Instead, she wanted my son to have the life that he does,... more

I am curious about how fellow adoptive parents feel about receiving fundraising letters from adoption agencies. We periodically receive letters from the agency that handled my son's adoption, telling us about financial woes and asking for financial support. The letters talk about how many children now have homes thanks to them and say that they need more financial support in order to continue finding homes for more children.

I have mixed feelings about those letters and, from what I have seen, I am not alone in this. On the one hand, I support... more

After I got a Social Security number for my son, the last piece of paperwork I needed was a birth certificate for my adopted child. While obtaining this document was technically not a rush, I was eager to put the adoption paperwork behind me. By the time my son was five months old, I had an adoption decree declaring him as my legal son, and I had a Social Security number. I was ready to end the adoption paperwork chapter of my life.

Unfortunately, my state is known for being particularly slow in issuing birth certificates for adopted children. The social... more

After I adopted my son, the two pieces of paper that stood in my way of being finished with the adoption-related paperwork were the birth certificate and the Social Security number. I did not really need the birth certificate right away because my son was years away from entering school or playing on a soccer team, but I really wanted that Social Security number. My husband and I wanted to set up an Education IRA for my son, and we needed a Social Security number to do this. While there are ways to work around this, they were cumbersome as well. I just wanted to obtain... more

While we are celebrating with parties today (or recovering from parties, as the case may be), let's focus on a fun part of adoptive parenting – the finalization party! After all of the hard work you did to become your child's parents, your family deserves to kick off your legal status as a family by having a party.

In my state, you do not go to court for the finalization if the adoption is uncontested. So, the paperwork just arrived in the mail one day with no pomp and circumstance. While that piece of paper was extremely important to me, there was nobody to celebrate it with.... more

As an adoptive parent, do you sometimes question which of your child's behaviors stem from your child's adoption and which are simply your child's personality? I find myself wondering this sometimes because I want to be sensitive to helping my child work through any adoption-related issues.

For example, my seven-year-old son is a very confident little guy. He has no problem with going to a new camp at a new location in which he does not know a soul. It does not phase him in the least. By the time I pick him up on the first day, he not only has several... more