Perspectives on Challenged Family Building

Welcome to Part Two of our post, designed to help adoptive mothers, in particular, know they are the right parent for their troubled son or daughter. Part One explored the types of feelings and questions a parent can develop when presented with the challenge of parenting a child with a history of trauma. Frequently, such [...]

It is very common for adoptive parents, especially adoptive mothers, to ask, “Am I the ‘right’ mother for this child?”  A child with a history of trauma, abandonment, institutionalization, abuse, neglect, pre-natal drug/alcohol exposure, brings to the home significant challenges. These issues don’t always simply fade with affection and time. That is, “love isn’t always [...]

Welcome to Part Two of our blog about initiative. As we learned in Part One, children develop initiative in the pre-school years—ages three to five. Initiative is the third stage in Erik Erikson’s model of human development. It is a time of great activity and a surplus of energy! It is also the time of [...]