This was the topic on the back of my bulletin in church today. It was encouraging the congregation to sponsor a child in need. It wasn’t my church specifically, but rather our denomination. I belong to the United Church of Christ and we are very mission based.

However, I had a bit of a problem with the message since kids in the United States were not mentioned at all. Don’t get me wrong, I know full well that kids all around the world need help. We send supplies to orphanages in Haiti and Honduras, but we also support kids here in the U.S.

I know some... 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

I’m one of those weird people who actually likes my in-laws. I actually knew my father-in-law before my husband. We had worked together for a while. When we lived in Dallas, my mother-in-law and I had season tickets to different theatre events.

A couple of years ago when things with Sammy really got bad and Sammy’s violence was increasing my mother-in-law told me that she loved Sammy but her first allegiance was to me.

That’s not to say that it’s always been rosy in our relationship. We have had some clashes over parenting Sammy, but at... 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

I am cheering for the parents in this article. They were accused of child abuse against their four biological children. Their children had a rare disease called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and a partially descended brain.

Initially Leslie Udvardi was charged with Munchausen by Proxy and the charges were then changed to child abuse.

This isn’t the part that makes this... more

I received a copy of Adopted Teens Only: A Survival Guide to Adolescence from the publisher. For the most part I really like this book. It is written as a book for teens to help them understand adoption issues and the feelings they have as they struggle for independence and identity.

Here’s a little bit about the author, Danea Gorbett. She’s an adult adoptee who met her birth father when she was a teenager. It was a tenuous relationship. She became a psychologist... more

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. This month is the perfect opportunity to enlighten people about how many children are in foster care due to child abuse and neglect.

One of my favorite websites for information about child welfare is Child Welfare Information Gateway. They have resources for everyone and there are plenty of resources for child abuse awareness. There is a packet full of information, a poster to display and tip sheets to help educate people about child abuse and... more

We had our meeting with the adoption social worker this morning to start our home study. We have already submitted the stacks of paperwork so now is the “interview” process.

This is when the worker comes out to talk to you and your spouse (if applicable). Because we have been through this several times before, we were prepared for the questions and nothing surprised us, but it can surprise many people when it starts. I’ll give you a recap of what we discussed so you will have an idea of what to expect when it’s your turn.

What lead you to... more

In my previous blog, a reader asked:

Why would foster parents abuse there foster children if they went through abuse?

This is a great question. I don’t have statistics to back this up, this is just my personal opinion.

I think the main reason foster parents abuse is stress and/or frustration. Raising foster children and all the accompanying issues leads to high levels of stress. I think many parents are ill prepared to handle the issues... more

Today I have been cleaning because the adoption worker is coming out tomorrow. Now I have been through enough of these to know that the worker is not coming to do a white glove inspection, but my house looks like the inside has been hit by a tornado. We haven’t been home much in the past week, and when I was I was doing something that made a mess, like baking and decorating cakes.

The worker is not coming in to check for dust bunnies, or if all the laundry is folded and hung up properly, but rather to do things like safety checks. Are chemicals out of the... more