Six Things Adoptive/Foster Families Need When New Children Arrive

by Lisa Qualls

lisa qualls

This was the question,

What would have helped you the most in the early weeks and months of adding a child to your family through adoption or foster care? If somebody had asked you, “What can I do to help?” and you were able  to answer anything at all with no shame, guilt, or concern about whether they really would want to do it, what would it have been?

This is what you answered:

Bring Food

Many of you stated that having meals delivered allowed more time to focus on all of your children, but also gave you some contact with “the outside world.”  It does not have to be dinner, as somebody said, even bringing cut-up fruit would help.  Someone else mentioned having dinner brought by friends who then shared the meal and spent the evening with them.  One person wrote that when they adopted a baby, friends brought meals, but when they adopted an older child people assumed it wasn’t as demanding and didn’t bring meals.  I think we can safely say that every adopting/foster family will be blessed by meals. […]

The Storm Before The Calm

by Valerie Gillies

The body-unconscious is where life bubbles up in us.  It is how we know that we are alive, alive to the depths of our souls and in touch somewhere with the vivid reaches of the cosmos. – D. H. Lawrence

I work with kids who have attachment and trauma issues.  Big ones.  And until a few weeks ago, I honestly didn’t know what they were feeling.  Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, I have experienced more of an understanding.  In my case, I call it menopausal anger disorder. (Maybe they will put that in the new DSMV to go along with shyness and some other ridiculous new psych diagnoses.) […]

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