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Articles we recommend
We have carefully chosen these articles to help you in your adoption journey. These resources are provided by other organizations, and do not always represent the views of the Post Adoption Resource Center.
What Pediatric Health Providers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
While most adoptees are physically and emotionally healthy, adopted children are more likely than non-adopted children to have significant physical health problems as well as difficulties with emotions, concentration and, behaviors.
WebsiteRaising Good Eaters
Source: Adoption Nutrition
Feeding children regular and balanced snacks and meals every day is a challenge for any parent, but transitioning a child who may not have had the best start with nutrition or the way he was fed can seem like a huge undertaking. Learn more about topics that will help you transition your child to a new diet and nourish them to optimal health: The Golden Rule of Feeding, The Transition Diet, Weaning From Formula, Supplementing the Diet, Common Feeding Challenges.
WebsiteLifebooks
Source: Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange
What is a Lifebook? A Lifebook is a record of a child’s memories, past and present, in his or her own words. As a child moves through foster care, oftentimes his or her life story gets lost. The Lifebook pages are used to document important events and celebrations, honoring a child’s life. It is also used as a way to open up discussion and help a child work through losses.
WebsiteTalking to Your Three to Five Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
Three to five year olds are curious; their burgeoning cognitive and language skills are tools for figuring out what life is about. The questions they ask offer insight into how much they want to belong, to be accepted, to be safe and secure.
WebsiteTalking to Your Six to Eight Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
By this age, children are starting school. Peers and teachers begin to influence their view of the world and of themselves. Children take on new roles - of pupil, classmate, friend - and they begin to question where, exactly, they fit in the world.
WebsiteParenting Your Adopted School-Age Child
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
School-age children—those between the ages of 6 and 12—learn critical skills and gain interests that carry into adolescence and adulthood. Adoption can add layers of complexity to their developmental tasks. Adoptive parents can best support their children by learning as much as they can about child development and by being aware of how adoption may influence their child’s emotional growth.
WebsiteBeneath the Mask: Adoption through the Eyes of Adolescents
Source: National Council for Adoption
The statistics are revealing. A third of adolescents referred for psychotherapy are adopted. Adolescence is the peak period for psychiatric referrals in the life of the adoptee. This article addresses the six common key areas of vulnerability that adolescents face, and how you can support them in these areas.
WebsiteThe Joys and Challenges of Parenting Older Adopted Children
Source: National Council for Adoption
Parenting adopted children brings with it unique challenges and rewards. Children adopted at older ages—especially those from the U.S. foster care system—typically come to their new families after a history of some trauma, abuse, or neglect, and a storehouse of unresolved emotions. From the start, adoptive parents need to be ready with their sleeves rolled up, prepared to work hard in order to experience the many rewards of adopting older children.
WebsiteHelping to Heal Invisible Hurts: The Impact of In-utero Stress & Trauma
Source: WI Foster Care & Adoption Resource Center
Understanding trauma is paramount to understanding the needs of the child you are caring for. But what if the child in your care came to you immediately or shortly after birth? Your newborn hasn’t suffered “abuse or neglect.” She came to you with a trauma free slate. You are the only caregiver she has ever known, and you’ve loved and nurtured her with great dedication from day one. But then you start to notice things . . .
WebsiteDelayed Launching: Adopted Adolescents and the Not-So Empty Nest
Source: PACT
So many parents are familiar with the adolescent anthem “When I’m Eighteen, I’m Leaving.” This refrain is as common with adopted adolescents as it is with adolescents who were born to their families.
WebsiteParenting Your Adopted Teenager
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
During the teenage years, youth form an identity that is separate from their parents and begin to learn adult life skills. Adoption adds complexity to the normal developmental tasks of teenagers, regardless of the age they were adopted. This factsheet is designed to help you, the adoptive parent, understand your adopted teenager’s experiences and needs so you can respond with practical strategies that foster healthy development.
WebsiteLong-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway.
Childhood maltreatment can be linked to later physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences as well as costs to society as a whole. The outcomes for each child may vary widely and are affected by a combination of factors. Additionally, children who experience maltreatment often are affected by other adverse experiences, which can make it difficult to separate the unique effects of maltreatment.
WebsiteBonding and Attachment in Maltreated Children
Source: The ChildTrauma Academy
The systems in the human brain that allow us to form and maintain emotional relationships develop during infancy and the first years of life. Experiences during this early vulnerable period of life are critical to shaping the capacity to form intimate and emotionally healthy relationships.
WebsiteAttachment and Adoption
Source: Beyond Consequences Institute
The child’s internal blueprint for relationship says that love equals pain, rejection, and abandonment. When parenting a child with such a definition of love, adoptive parents soon find that conventional parenting techniques are profoundly ineffective.
WebsiteThe Healing Power of "Giving Voice"
Source: National Council for Adoption
Children coming from situations of trauma, abuse, or neglect often experience the loss of their ability to voice their needs in a healthy way and the loss of trust that these needs will be met. Interventions for children from hard places must include restoring voice, which in turn encourages trust, healing, and attachment. Drs. Karyn Purvis and David Cross explore what the loss of voice means for children, and how appropriate interventions and therapies can allow them to give voice to their needs and experience healing within a safe, nurturing family. The article includes a brief list of recommended skills and strategies for parents and caregivers.
WebsiteManipulation and the Inability to Ask for Help
Source: Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.
"This is not a conscious choice, but rather, as the traumatized brain sees it, a fight between life and death where manipulation equals life, while asking equals death."
WebsiteAdoptive Parenting Tips: Internet, Facebook, & Birthparent Contact
Source: Creating a Family
Adoptive parents must think through how to help their adopted tweens and teens navigate birth family contact and relationships online via Facebook or other social networks. The Internet has fundamentally changed adoptive parenting and adoptive parents need to think through how best to use it as a tool.
WebsiteTips for Navigating Open Adoption With "Unsafe" Birth Family
Source: Creating a Family
Foster and adopted children come to our homes from what are often chaotic and even unsafe conditions. We know that open adoption is good for our kids. But navigating open adoption with potentially “unsafe” birth family is much trickier when we are unsure of the safety implications.
WebsiteOpenness in Adoption: Building Relationships Between Adoptive and Birth Families
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
To support adoptive families in considering and maintaining open adoption, this factsheet describes various levels of openness, potential benefits, important considerations, and tips for building and strengthening open relationships.
WebsiteAmbiguous Loss Haunts Foster and Adopted Children
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
Ambiguous loss—a feeling of grief or distress combined with confusion about the lost person or relationship—is a normal aspect of adoption.
WebsiteThe 3-5-7 Model - Helping Children Work Through Grief
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
The child welfare system must support children’s and youth’s work to grieve their losses. And we must ensure that professionals and parents understand how grief and loss affect children and youth and may lead to challenging behaviors. We must approach the behaviors caused by grief as normal, not as a pathological diagnosis.
WebsiteThe Joys and Challenges of Parenting Older Adopted Children
Source: National Council for Adoption
Parenting adopted children brings with it unique challenges and rewards. Children adopted at older ages—especially those from the U.S. foster care system—typically come to their new families after a history of some trauma, abuse, or neglect, and a storehouse of unresolved emotions. From the start, adoptive parents need to be ready with their sleeves rolled up, prepared to work hard in order to experience the many rewards of adopting older children.
WebsiteUnderstanding the Conversation Behind the Behavior
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
When children do not know how to verbally express their needs (which is predominantly the case during early childhood), they “speak” through their behaviors. In other words, behavior is a form of communication. When a parent can stop, pause, and “listen” to the behavior of a child, it can become quite obvious what the child is saying. Looking at the behavior from an objective perspective also unveils the logic behind the child’s behavior.
WebsiteConnecting With Our Children: 7 Core Issues in Adoption
Source: Rainbow Kids
Fear, anger, loss and grief. Most of us would prefer to not have to deal with adoption fall-out. It is emotional, messy, complicated stuff that most of us were not raised to handle. But somewhere between the ages of four and ten, our adopted children begin to realize that in gaining an adoptive family, they have suffered some very significant losses.
Website4 Ways to Help Your Adopted/Foster Child Through Mother's Day and Other Holidays
Source: Institute For Attachment and Child Development
For most adopted children and those in foster care, the three most difficult days of the year are Mother’s Day, Christmas or Hanukkah, and the child’s birthday. These special days often bring about feelings of loneliness, sadness, and grief for a child who has been hurt. Children may be missing birth parents, foster parents, siblings or other important people in their lives.
WebsiteThe ABCs of Back to School with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
As a new school year approaches, parents may find it useful to share information about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders with teachers and other school personnel. The information below is designed to help educators understand the effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol so that children and youth have the best opportunities to learn and succeed.
WebsiteHelping Classmates Understand Adoption: A School Handout
Source: Adoptive Families
This handout can be distributed to other parents at your child's school.
WebsiteBack to School: A Guide to Making Schools and School Assignments More Adoption-Friendly
Source: National Council for Adoption
This guide will help foster and adoptive parents advocate for their children, and will also help educators be more aware of and sensitive to the needs and issues of children in foster care as well as those who have been adopted.
WebsiteCollege Choices for Adopted Teens
Source: Center For Adoption Support and Education
As the high school years come to an end, some teens may experience a wide range of emotions including ambivalence around leaving home.
WebsiteWhat Teachers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
You may be wondering what information you should be giving to your child’s teacher about his or her adoption. Here is a link to a great article that addresses exactly that.
WebsiteWhat Pediatric Health Providers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
While most adoptees are physically and emotionally healthy, adopted children are more likely than non-adopted children to have significant physical health problems as well as difficulties with emotions, concentration and, behaviors.
WebsiteLong-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway.
Childhood maltreatment can be linked to later physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences as well as costs to society as a whole. The outcomes for each child may vary widely and are affected by a combination of factors. Additionally, children who experience maltreatment often are affected by other adverse experiences, which can make it difficult to separate the unique effects of maltreatment.
WebsiteThe ABCs of Back to School with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
As a new school year approaches, parents may find it useful to share information about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders with teachers and other school personnel. The information below is designed to help educators understand the effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol so that children and youth have the best opportunities to learn and succeed.
WebsiteRaising Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)
Source: Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Parenting a child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is a journey. It can sometimes be very challenging and very rewarding at the same time. You cannot parent a child with an FASD without having it change your life and most often, for the better. You will meet some amazing people, make some amazing friendships, and see a beautiful child work really hard to be the best person they can be with your love and support.
WebsiteBehavior and Sensory Processing: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
Many children in foster care and adoption struggle with sensory processing, and being thoughtful about how this affects their behavior can help parents create opportunities for success.
WebsiteUnderstanding the Conversation Behind the Behavior
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
When children do not know how to verbally express their needs (which is predominantly the case during early childhood), they “speak” through their behaviors. In other words, behavior is a form of communication. When a parent can stop, pause, and “listen” to the behavior of a child, it can become quite obvious what the child is saying. Looking at the behavior from an objective perspective also unveils the logic behind the child’s behavior.
WebsiteHow Childhood Trauma Could Be Mistaken for ADHD
Source: The Atlantic
Some experts say the normal effects of severe adversity may be misdiagnosed as ADHD.
WebsiteHelping Your Child Move from Anti-Social to Pro-Social Behaviors
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
For us to understand where some of our children’s most challenging behaviors come from, we must first realize just how much neglect and trauma affect every aspect of a child’s development. We are social-emotional beings with an innate need to connect and form meaningful attachment relationships. Every interpersonal skill required for us to be successful in creating and sustaining these relationships must be learned.
WebsiteDid They Really Just Ask That Question? Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Responding to Intrusive Questions and Comments about Adoption
Source: National Council for Adoption
If you have a connection to adoption, chances are high that you or someone you know has been asked intrusive questions about adoption. These questions can feel extremely off putting, inappropriate, and hurtful. Adoptees and adoptive parents will likely face a lifetime of these questions, and it is important that they feel empowered to know how to respond.
WebsiteTalking to Your Three to Five Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
Three to five year olds are curious; their burgeoning cognitive and language skills are tools for figuring out what life is about. The questions they ask offer insight into how much they want to belong, to be accepted, to be safe and secure.
WebsiteTalking to Your Six to Eight Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
By this age, children are starting school. Peers and teachers begin to influence their view of the world and of themselves. Children take on new roles - of pupil, classmate, friend - and they begin to question where, exactly, they fit in the world.
WebsiteChildren's Books Talking About Birthparents
Source: Creating A Family
Books to help initiate conversations about birthparents with adopted children.
WebsiteAdoptive Parenting Tips: Internet, Facebook, & Birthparent Contact
Source: Creating a Family
Adoptive parents must think through how to help their adopted tweens and teens navigate birth family contact and relationships online via Facebook or other social networks. The Internet has fundamentally changed adoptive parenting and adoptive parents need to think through how best to use it as a tool.
WebsiteMissing Pieces: Talking to Your Child about Adoption when Information is Limited
Source: Coalition for Children, Youth & Families
Most children and youth who were adopted will someday look to find out about their birth family members or will have questions about their pasts. This tip sheet looks at what you can do to support your children when you have little or no information about their birth family.
WebsiteTalking to Adopted Children About Birth Parents and Families of Origin: How to Answer the “Hard Questions”
Source: National Council for Adoption
In the September 2015 issue of NCFA's Adoption Advocate, Rhonda Jarema writes about the importance of talking with adopted children about their birth families, and offers some suggestions for adoptive parents.
WebsiteTalking to Your Child About Adoption: Recommendations for Parents
Source: National Council for Adoption
While recognizing that it can be uncomfortable for parents to discuss adoption with their children, in the December 2011 issue of NCFA's Adoption Advocate, Nicole Callahan offers advice to help parents create an open, honest, and age appropriate dialogue with their children. She emphasizes the importance of beginning this conversation early to help a child feel secure in their identity and facilitate further conversations.
WebsiteThe Personal is Political: Racial Identity and Racial Justice in Transracial Adoption
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
Helping a child embrace their racial identity is more than just having conversations about race and culture. Instead, parents need to be active advocates for transracial adoptee justice, a process that requires parents to address their own biases, alter their own mindsets, and take action.
WebsiteSeven Tasks for Parents: Developing Positive Racial Identity
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
Although transracial adoption and foster care have been a controversial topic for more than a decade, the number of children entering such placements continues to increase. The realities of children living in transracial families raise many questions...
WebsiteTransracial Resources
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
The resources below were identified by Deb Reisner, NACAC’s parent support specialist who facilitates NACAC’s support services for transracial adoptive families in Minnesota.
WebsiteWhat Pediatric Health Providers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
While most adoptees are physically and emotionally healthy, adopted children are more likely than non-adopted children to have significant physical health problems as well as difficulties with emotions, concentration and, behaviors.
WebsiteLong-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway.
Childhood maltreatment can be linked to later physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences as well as costs to society as a whole. The outcomes for each child may vary widely and are affected by a combination of factors. Additionally, children who experience maltreatment often are affected by other adverse experiences, which can make it difficult to separate the unique effects of maltreatment.
WebsiteHow to Implement Trauma-informed Care to Build Resilience to Childhood Trauma
Source: Child Trends
Children who are exposed to traumatic life events are at significant risk for developing serious and long-lasting problems across multiple areas of development. However, children are far more likely to exhibit resilience to childhood trauma when child-serving programs, institutions, and service systems understand the impact of childhood trauma, share common ways to talk and think about trauma, and thoroughly integrate effective practices and policies to address it—an approach often referred to as trauma-informed care (TIC).
WebsiteBonding and Attachment in Maltreated Children
Source: The ChildTrauma Academy
The systems in the human brain that allow us to form and maintain emotional relationships develop during infancy and the first years of life. Experiences during this early vulnerable period of life are critical to shaping the capacity to form intimate and emotionally healthy relationships.
WebsiteThe Joys and Challenges of Parenting Older Adopted Children
Source: National Council for Adoption
Parenting adopted children brings with it unique challenges and rewards. Children adopted at older ages—especially those from the U.S. foster care system—typically come to their new families after a history of some trauma, abuse, or neglect, and a storehouse of unresolved emotions. From the start, adoptive parents need to be ready with their sleeves rolled up, prepared to work hard in order to experience the many rewards of adopting older children.
WebsiteHelping to Heal Invisible Hurts: The Impact of In-utero Stress & Trauma
Source: WI Foster Care & Adoption Resource Center
Understanding trauma is paramount to understanding the needs of the child you are caring for. But what if the child in your care came to you immediately or shortly after birth? Your newborn hasn’t suffered “abuse or neglect.” She came to you with a trauma free slate. You are the only caregiver she has ever known, and you’ve loved and nurtured her with great dedication from day one. But then you start to notice things . . .
WebsiteThe Healing Power of "Giving Voice"
Source: National Council for Adoption
Children coming from situations of trauma, abuse, or neglect often experience the loss of their ability to voice their needs in a healthy way and the loss of trust that these needs will be met. Interventions for children from hard places must include restoring voice, which in turn encourages trust, healing, and attachment. Drs. Karyn Purvis and David Cross explore what the loss of voice means for children, and how appropriate interventions and therapies can allow them to give voice to their needs and experience healing within a safe, nurturing family. The article includes a brief list of recommended skills and strategies for parents and caregivers.
WebsiteHow Childhood Trauma Could Be Mistaken for ADHD
Source: The Atlantic
Some experts say the normal effects of severe adversity may be misdiagnosed as ADHD.
WebsiteManipulation and the Inability to Ask for Help
Source: Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.
"This is not a conscious choice, but rather, as the traumatized brain sees it, a fight between life and death where manipulation equals life, while asking equals death."
WebsiteParenting a Child Who Has Experienced Trauma
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
Children who have experienced traumatic events need to feel safe and loved. All parents want to provide this kind of nurturing home for their children. However, when parents do not have an understanding of the effects of trauma, they may misinterpret their child’s behavior and end up feeling frustrated or resentful. Their attempts to address troubling behavior may be ineffective or, in some cases, even harmful.
WebsiteParenting a Child Who Has Experienced Abuse or Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
Children who have been abused or neglected need safe and nurturing relationships that address the effects of child maltreatment. If you are parenting a child who has been abused or neglected, you might have questions about your child’s experiences and the effects of those experiences.
WebsiteThe Adopted Child: Trauma and Its Impact
Source: The Post Institute
Whether adopted from birth or later in life, all adopted children have experienced some degree of trauma. Trauma is any stressful event which is prolonged, overwhelming, or unpredictable. Though we are familiar with events impacting children such as abuse, neglect, and domestic violence, until recently, the full impact of trauma on adopted children has not been understood.
WebsiteSupporting Maltreated Children: Countering the Effects of Neglect and Abuse
Source: North American Council on Adoptable Children
The most important property of humankind is the capacity to form and maintain relationships. These relationships are absolutely necessary for any of us to survive, learn, work, ...
WebsiteWhat to Do If Your Child Discloses Sexual Abuse
Source: The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Disclosure is when a child tells another person that he or she has been sexually abused. Disclosure can be a scary and difficult process for children. Some children who have been sexually abused may take weeks, months, or even years to fully reveal what was done to them. Many children never tell anyone about the abuse.
WebsiteParenting After Trauma: Understanding Your Child’s Needs
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics and Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
All children need homes that are safe and full of love. Children who have experienced severe trauma may need more. Early, hurtful experiences can cause children to see and react in different ways. Some children who have been adopted or placed into foster care need help to cope with what happened to them in the past. Knowing what experts say about early trauma can help you work with your child.
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