When you live in the lifestyle that foster and adoptive families do, there are plenty of times when you feel anything but “normal.”

It’s hard to feel this way when you are documenting a child’s behavior, talking with social workers, running to therapists, birth family visits and all the other things that go along with this life style. Feeling stressed becomes the standard way of life.

I got to enjoy a rare moment of feeling normal as I watched Hannah perform in a dance recital on Saturday. I did not have to worry about her behavior backstage while... more

Quite often parents ask “How do you know when your child is attached?” There is no cut and dry answer for this. There are too many variables at play. How old is the child, what type of attachment issues does the child have (anxious, ambivalent, confused) how severe is the attachment disorder and so on.

Both Sammy and Hannah are attached, but in very different ways, and that’s not to say that we don’t have attachment and trauma issues come up at various times.

I’ll start with Sammy since his attachment doesn’t always look like attachment. Sammy loves... more

I had the ability to have a young boy in my home for the weekend. It was truly a pleasure to have him here, and I usually don’t say that about “respite” kids, but he is no ordinary respite kid.

This young man is in a difficult situation, and on the attachment and behavior spectrum, he’s quite mild to me. However, to his parents his issues are big.

To some parents the issues we are going through with Hannah right now are minor, but they trip my PTSD triggers from issues with Sammy that were much larger. Some parents might have been able to keep... more

Desperate Housewives is tackling an interesting storyline.

One of the main characters, Tom, has a daughter, Kayla, with a woman prior to his wife, Lynette. Lynette only recently learned about the daughter. Kayla’s mother was killed in a bank robbery in a previous season and Kayla does not like her step-mom. Not too unusual in a night time drama. What is making this “interesting” is that the story line is showing the anger of Kayla and manipulation along with allegations of child abuse.

I’m... more

While I feel horribly for Mr. Walker and the difficulties he has surely had, I am glad that he has disclosed his illness and what this can potentially do for our kids.

Hershel Walker was a professional football player for the Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants. When we lived in Dallas, my husband worked at a grocery store near the Dallas Cowboys offices, Valley Ranch. Mr. Walker would come into the grocery store while my husband was working. When I told him this news tonight he was surprised.

Mr. Walker suffers from Dissociative Identity... more

Sammy called for his twice weekly phone call. He had a pretty deep question that is a tough one even for adults.

The center that Sammy is in is Christian based, which ranks high on the plus side for me. His call had much to do with a deeply theological question, but at the same time it’s a tough question for kids who have been through what our kids have.

Sammy asked me why I don’t forgive my mother. Well, that’s a loaded question. I told him that forgiving and trusting are two entirely different things. I said that I somewhat understand why she did... more

I had planned to blog about Bi-Polar disorder, when one of my readers, Ernest, gave me a link to a story from CNN. It is a story I can completely relate to. Several years ago a mother discovered that her son was plotting to shoot some students in his high school and idolized the shooters in the Columbine shooting.

One of the things mentioned in the article was that the young man had been diagnosed with Bi-Polar... more

The last week or so with Hannah has been horrid. She has exhibited behaviors we have never seen before and has cranked up some behaviors that hadn’t been around for a while.

For several months Hannah has been a fun kid to be around so her behaviors took me a little bit by surprise. When they continued for several days I knew something was bothering her, but she wasn’t ready to talk about it.

Unfortunately, we are all too familiar with this issue since this is how Sammy chose to deal with emotional issues. It is not uncommon in foster and adopted kids... more

One of the worst forms of child abuse, in my opinion, is emotional abuse. I’m not saying that other forms of abuse are “easier” or “better” but dealing with emotional abuse is very hard for a child and can be one of the hardest to ever get over, but many people downplay it saying that they’re only words, how can they hurt?

The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect defines emotional abuse as:

"acts or omissions by the parents or other caregivers that have caused, or could cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental... more

This one was a new one for me. I had never heard of this kind of therapy and it had never been suggested for Sammy’s until his now former foster dad brought it up to me the other night.

Since I didn’t know anything about it, I did what I always do:

1) Research it. 2) Ask my friends about it.

Of all the people that I know who use different types of therapy for their kids, there was only one who was using this type of treatment for the child.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is vastly different from traditional, or cognitive, therapy.... more