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

In the final installment of my summary of this amazing report, the last section deals with educating adoptive parents.

Interestingly, the first bullet point under this section is to educate adoption PROFESSIONALS. I love that. Not only do they feel that adoption professionals need to be educated, but they list out sixteen specific bullet points, including:

• Role of racial and adoptive identity • Mental health issues in adoption • Role of loss and grief... more

Our family is in a similar situation as some of your reading this blog. We are starting our home study process to finalize Hannah’s adoption. Ours will progress slightly differently than yours will, since hers is considered a private adoption, but most of it will be the same.

For us, the first hurdle was finding an agency that is willing to do our home study. Because of the complexities of our case, I sent out e-mails to every licensed adoption agency within a 200 mile radius. Here is what I wrote:

We are trying to get some information... more

Part 1

There is a fantastic report out by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. If you are not familiar with them, take the time to check out their website.

One of the portions of this report is sure to set a few people on edge, but having been one of the parents that they are talking about in the report, I know... more

Kentucky is offering the first license plate that actively supports and promotes adoption.

The license plate has the logo of Kentucky’s Special Needs Adoption Program (SNAP) along with their motto of “Be A Forever Family – Adopt.”

The license plate is not a guaranteed issue yet, but if it receives a commitment, or request for at least 900 plates within the... more

There is a fantastic report out by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. If you are not familiar with them, take the time to check out their website.

The report calls adoption agencies, post adoptions services, social workers, mental health providers and many other adoption professionals on the carpet for not adequately helping kids and families alike. I was blown away. It’s not often that you see a report this honest... more

A reader sent me this article and asked me to comment on it.

In this article, a couple is accused of killing their foster daughter, who had a heart condition. The initial report showed “blunt force trauma” to her head and internal bleeding. Upon a THOROUGH investigation, it was discovered that the internal bleeding was from her heart medication and the trauma to her head occurred during the autopsy.

One of the comments in the article is that with abuse allegations you... more

I was gone this weekend for my Christian Education Lay Academy class. The topic this weekend was faith formation in the home. That’s not what I’m going to write about, but rather the topic that started our class that I struggled with myself.

Define Family.

Should be a fairly simple statement, right? No, not really for our families. I never came up with anything that I was completely happy with, but here are some of the things that were thrown out there.

Persons bound together by blood ties or mutual commitments that are sustained... more

We have all met someone who thinks that they know the secret to “fixing” our kids. I have experienced this so many times through the years, you’d think I know to keep my mouth shut.

I have had well meaning friends, overzealous family members, clueless therapists and other mental health professionals who have all told me the same things. If I would just love Sammy more, use star and sticker charts to reward his success, let the “little” things go (my mother thought stealing was a little thing) and so on.

I have spent years defending my parenting decisions,... 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