Perspectives on Challenged Family Building

Typical children are often the least involved throughout the adoption process. Few agencies provide them information about the brother or sister to come, or the changes the family may experience when adopting a child with mental health diagnoses (i.e., PTSD, Bi-Polar Disorder, AD/HD, RAD, etc.) Parents tend to focus on issues such as sharing a [...]

In our previous blog, This is Not the Brother or Sister I Expected, we pointed out that how professionals and parents handle the dissemination of information—to their typical sons and daughters— about a sibling’s special needs will greatly influence the adjustment of the children already in the family (Meyer & Vadasy, 1994). This, in turn, [...]

John and his wife, Donna, adopted Megan from Russia when she was 13-months-old. From the beginning, there were difficulties. Megan didn’t like to be held. Feeding her was particularly difficult. She would gulp her bottle and then cry and cry when the bottle was empty. She woke screaming each night. As she grew, the problems [...]