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One Big Happy Family? Bonding in Adoption
In many families, like ours, there were already children in the home when a new adopted child joined the family. Questions I’m often asked about this include: How do we handle the blending with children already in the home? Are there jealousy issues? What about birth order? What do the kids (if not infants) call…
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Special Needs Adoption: Could I Handle it?
Spend a little time researching adoption, and you’ll see the term “special needs” come up often. However, in relation to adoption, special needs may not be what you’re thinking. In U.S. foster care, for instance, special needs may be defined by specific factors such as age, race, or being part of a sibling group. These…
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Can We Afford to Adopt?
I’ve heard it said that if we had to wait until we could afford to have children, we would never have them. A quick internet search will show you that the cost of raising a child has risen 40% in the last decade, and if you want to give yourself a bit of a scare,…
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Weekly Report: Making Plans (& a cute dog)
We’re in a holding pattern in our homeschool lately, just doing our thing, looking toward the end of this school year and already anticipating next school year. We’ll be starting some of our next-year stuff this summer, as I’d really like to work gradually into more of a year-round schedule. More on that as I…
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Greatest Misconceptions About Adoption
Since I’m just one mom in one family, I asked for input from other adoptive parents on what kinds of misconceptions they’ve faced from the general public, but also some misconceptions that we adoptive parents had before we adopted. The parents who contributed to this post vary greatly: we have input from those who have…
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Common Types of Adoption
Adoption can take many different forms, but we’ll cover the basics today. I don’t have all the answers, of course, but I hope to give you a good overview so that you have enough information to pursue additional answers you may need. — Kinship Adoption: When birth parents are unable to care for a child,…