Perspectives on Challenged Family Building

Ellen is the 14-year-old birth child of Sharon and Todd. She is one of three birth children and three children by adoption. Ellen attended therapy with her mother and one of her brothers by adoption, Kenny. During therapy, Kenny described how he continued to miss his birthmother. He also discussed how the loss of his [...]

Welcome to part two of our post about “value competency.” As Part One explained, trauma causes children to develop values that are often at discord with those of the adoptive family. Thus, “value competency” is the ability to live—long-term—with children who, due to their traumatic histories, have a different set of values than the adoptive [...]

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, [...]