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

This story has been big news here in Wisconsin. Just when everyone thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, it does.

In the original story, a mother shot her eight year old daughter with a BB gun because the mother’s boyfriend bet the mother $1 that she wouldn’t do it. OK, the intelligence and the common sense of the mother comes into question right away, doesn’t it?

Of course you have the required part of the story of the mother telling... more

You may feel horrible if you feel like you don’t like your child, but we all go through it. Even parents of biological “emotionally healthy” kids feel it.

To prove that you are not alone, I don’t like Hannah very much right now. For the past six weeks we have had a string of behaviors that we haven’t seen before and it’s driving me crazy. We have tried all kinds of interventions and none of them are working.

So what do you do when you don’t like your child?

Tag team parenting – We do this often, but haven’t done much of it lately.... more

There is an opportunity for you to share your adoption story with other adoptive families and have your story read around the world.

“A Cup of Comfort,” a series of books similar to “Chicken Soup for the Soul” is publishing two new books that all of our stories are a perfect fit for. The first book is “A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Parents” and the other is “A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Special Needs.” I’m sure we can all write stories that will fit the format of what they are looking for.

Here is the submission request for the... more

Last week I blogged about a disturbing story out of Wisconsin. A twenty-seven year old mother killed her two year old son because voices in her head told her to. At the time the story indicated that the mother, Brenda Thiel, was a government employee.

Call it mother’s intuition, but I had a feeling she worked with children or in social services, and my instincts were right. The Saturday edition of “The... more

While doing all the paperwork for Hannah’s adoption there was a list of books and other things we could do to earn “credit” for pre-adoption education. On the list was a book that I was a contributing author to. Honestly, I had forgotten about writing for it since it was an easy topic for me to write on, and required very little effort on my part, although I did find it amusing that I could get credit for reading a book that I contributed to.

The book is, “Adoption Parenting: Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections” by EMK Press. It is a fantastic book,... more

There is a new issue coming up for the children that were removed from the polygamy ranch in Texas, and it has the potential to be a rather serious issue.

It seems that there is no documentation readily available that these children have had their normal immunizations.

I know that there is a bunch of controversy over immunizing children because of the potential of mercury in immunizations, but I believe that situation has been taken care of.

Some people may wonder if the children, especially the older children, really need to be immunized and... more

Hot on the heels of the horrible stories out of Wisconsin, I heard a story on the news tonight about a brand new baby found in a dumpster in St. Louis, Missouri.

It seems that a mother dumped her brand new, as in only hours old, into a dumpster. A woman who is believed to be the mother of the baby boy has been found.

The baby was found purely by the grace of God. A man was throwing some lawn clippings into the dumpster when he heard a sound, not knowing that it was a baby.... more

There are three news stories coming out of Wisconsin today that have me angry and sickened.

I have heard all of these stories in the last twelve hours and it makes me wonder about society.

The first story is the most disturbing. A three and a half month old girl was checked into the hospital yesterday and during an exam the doctors discovered two skull fractures. They called the police and social services and the baby’s father was arrested.

Child abuse of any kind is horrible, but child abuse of an infant just really angers me. What is it that... more

Mother’s Day is a week from today. For most of us it will not be a good day. For those who don’t have children yet, it’s a reminder of that fact. For those of us with difficult children, it can be an awful day.

This will be my tenth Mother’s Day as Sammy’s mother and my second as Hannah’s mother. I was fortunate enough to have two Mother’s Days with Kory and one with Mackenzie. I have wonderful memories of the first one with Kory. He was so excited to have a mom and worked very hard to make the day great. He and Sammy each had $10 to spend on a... more