Lifebooks
Source: Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange
What is a Lifebook? A Lifebook is a record of a child’s memories, past and present, in his or her own words. As a child moves through foster care, oftentimes his or her life story gets lost. The Lifebook pages are used to document important events and celebrations, honoring a child’s life. It is also used as a way to open up discussion and help a child work through losses.
WebsiteSelf-Care: Barriers and Basics for Foster/Adoptive Parents
Source: Families Rising
Self-care is crucial for foster and adoptive parents. The physical and emotional toll of caring for traumatized children can be overwhelming.
WebsiteTrauma Informed Parenting During our “Staycation”
Source: Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.
Tips for keeping families rooted in safety and growing in connection during the COVID-19 quarantine.
WebsiteWe've Been There (for Teens)
Source: Book
In this book, over thirty adopted teens and young adults talk about their feelings, thoughts, experiences, and unanswered questions. We’ve Been There not only shares what they learned but also what they wish someone had told them.
WebsiteWhat Pediatric Health Providers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
While most adoptees are physically and emotionally healthy, adopted children are more likely than non-adopted children to have significant physical health problems as well as difficulties with emotions, concentration and, behaviors.
Website6 Questions Every Adopted Teen Wants Answered
Source: Adoptive Families
Prior to adolescence, children are extremely curious about their adoption stories. Although they question the circumstances that led to their adoption, most of them seem to accept the answers calmly. But adolescents often demand fuller and more factual answers.
WebsiteBeneath the Mask: Adoption through the Eyes of Adolescents
Source: National Council for Adoption
The statistics are revealing. A third of adolescents referred for psychotherapy are adopted. Adolescence is the peak period for psychiatric referrals in the life of the adoptee. This article addresses the six common key areas of vulnerability that adolescents face, and how you can support them in these areas.
WebsiteHelping to Heal Invisible Hurts: The Impact of In-utero Stress & Trauma
Source: WI Foster Care & Adoption Resource Center
Understanding trauma is paramount to understanding the needs of the child you are caring for. But what if the child in your care came to you immediately or shortly after birth? Your newborn hasn’t suffered “abuse or neglect.” She came to you with a trauma free slate. You are the only caregiver she has ever known, and you’ve loved and nurtured her with great dedication from day one. But then you start to notice things . . .
WebsiteParenting Your Adopted School-Age Child
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
School-age children—those between the ages of 6 and 12—learn critical skills and gain interests that carry into adolescence and adulthood. Adoption can add layers of complexity to their developmental tasks. Adoptive parents can best support their children by learning as much as they can about child development and by being aware of how adoption may influence their child’s emotional growth.
WebsiteParenting Your Adopted Teenager
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
During the teenage years, youth form an identity that is separate from their parents and begin to learn adult life skills. Adoption adds complexity to the normal developmental tasks of teenagers, regardless of the age they were adopted. This factsheet is designed to help you, the adoptive parent, understand your adopted teenager’s experiences and needs so you can respond with practical strategies that foster healthy development.
WebsitePositive Adoption Conversations
Source: Adoptive Families
An Adoptive Families compilation of articles with information on: positive adoption talks at every age, explaining birth parents and birth siblings, talking with friends and family, exploring tough topics, and answering questions at school.
WebsiteTalking to Your Six to Eight Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
By this age, children are starting school. Peers and teachers begin to influence their view of the world and of themselves. Children take on new roles - of pupil, classmate, friend - and they begin to question where, exactly, they fit in the world.
WebsiteTalking to Your Three to Five Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
Three to five year olds are curious; their burgeoning cognitive and language skills are tools for figuring out what life is about. The questions they ask offer insight into how much they want to belong, to be accepted, to be safe and secure.
WebsiteThe Joys and Challenges of Parenting Older Adopted Children
Source: National Council for Adoption
Parenting adopted children brings with it unique challenges and rewards. Children adopted at older ages—especially those from the U.S. foster care system—typically come to their new families after a history of some trauma, abuse, or neglect, and a storehouse of unresolved emotions. From the start, adoptive parents need to be ready with their sleeves rolled up, prepared to work hard in order to experience the many rewards of adopting older children.
WebsiteThe Teen Years: Brain Development and Trauma Recovery
Source: Families Rising
Teens who have experienced adoption or foster care have faced a lot of change: healing from trauma, coping with major life transitions, developing new routines, and experiencing puberty—just to name a few. As parents and caregivers, our role is to provide young adults with a safe space to explore, stumble, and succeed in this time of self-discovery by developing parenting strategies that prioritize family connection and establish trust.
WebsiteWe've Been There (for Teens)
Source: Book
In this book, over thirty adopted teens and young adults talk about their feelings, thoughts, experiences, and unanswered questions. We’ve Been There not only shares what they learned but also what they wish someone had told them.
WebsiteYoung Adults Leaving Home
Source: Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition
Leaving home is a challenging period in nearly everyone’s life, fraught with conflicting feelings and needs: the earnest desire for independence and autonomy, alongside the fear of failure, and continuing sense of dependence on parents and others in authority over one’s life.
WebsiteAttachment and Adoption
Source: Beyond Consequences Institute
The child’s internal blueprint for relationship says that love equals pain, rejection, and abandonment. When parenting a child with such a definition of love, adoptive parents soon find that conventional parenting techniques are profoundly ineffective.
WebsiteBonding and Attachment in Maltreated Children
Source: The ChildTrauma Academy
The systems in the human brain that allow us to form and maintain emotional relationships develop during infancy and the first years of life. Experiences during this early vulnerable period of life are critical to shaping the capacity to form intimate and emotionally healthy relationships.
WebsiteLong-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway.
Childhood maltreatment can be linked to later physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences as well as costs to society as a whole. The outcomes for each child may vary widely and are affected by a combination of factors. Additionally, children who experience maltreatment often are affected by other adverse experiences, which can make it difficult to separate the unique effects of maltreatment.
WebsiteManipulation and the Inability to Ask for Help
Source: Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.
"This is not a conscious choice, but rather, as the traumatized brain sees it, a fight between life and death where manipulation equals life, while asking equals death."
WebsiteThe Healing Power of "Giving Voice"
Source: National Council for Adoption
Children coming from situations of trauma, abuse, or neglect often experience the loss of their ability to voice their needs in a healthy way and the loss of trust that these needs will be met. Interventions for children from hard places must include restoring voice, which in turn encourages trust, healing, and attachment. Drs. Karyn Purvis and David Cross explore what the loss of voice means for children, and how appropriate interventions and therapies can allow them to give voice to their needs and experience healing within a safe, nurturing family. The article includes a brief list of recommended skills and strategies for parents and caregivers.
WebsiteAdoptive Parenting Tips: Internet, Facebook, & Birthparent Contact
Source: Creating a Family
Adoptive parents must think through how to help their adopted tweens and teens navigate birth family contact and relationships online via Facebook or other social networks. The Internet has fundamentally changed adoptive parenting and adoptive parents need to think through how best to use it as a tool.
WebsiteHelping Children Connect with Their Birth Parents
Source: Families Rising
It’s no longer a matter of if they will have contact with their birthparents, it’s a matter of when. It’s no longer a matter of will they have contact, it’s how will that contact look?
WebsiteHelping Your Adopted Children Maintain Important Relationships With Family
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
Children and youth who have been adopted and maintain relationships with their birth families, caregivers, and other important people in their lives benefit in significant ways. Adoptive parents can play an instrumental role in helping their children maintain contact with their birth families or other important caregivers.
WebsiteTalking About Birth Parents/First Parents: Where Do They Fit in the Adoption Puzzle
Source: PACT
Adopted people have to process the complex experience that is adoption, and they need the help of their parents to do so. This mean that whether you feel empathetic or uncomfortable with the idea or reality of your child’s birth parent(s), you must handle your feelings separately from your children in order to free them to explore their feelings without being burdened by yours.
WebsiteThe Joys and Challenges of Parenting Older Adopted Children
Source: National Council for Adoption
Parenting adopted children brings with it unique challenges and rewards. Children adopted at older ages—especially those from the U.S. foster care system—typically come to their new families after a history of some trauma, abuse, or neglect, and a storehouse of unresolved emotions. From the start, adoptive parents need to be ready with their sleeves rolled up, prepared to work hard in order to experience the many rewards of adopting older children.
WebsiteTips for Navigating Open Adoption With "Unsafe" Birth Family
Source: Creating a Family
Foster and adopted children come to our homes from what are often chaotic and even unsafe conditions. We know that open adoption is good for our kids. But navigating open adoption with potentially “unsafe” birth family is much trickier when we are unsure of the safety implications.
WebsiteAmbiguous Loss Haunts Foster and Adopted Children
Source: Families Rising
Ambiguous loss—a feeling of grief or distress combined with confusion about the lost person or relationship—is a normal aspect of adoption.
WebsiteConnecting With Our Children: 7 Core Issues in Adoption
Source: Rainbow Kids
Fear, anger, loss and grief. Most of us would prefer to not have to deal with adoption fall-out. It is emotional, messy, complicated stuff that most of us were not raised to handle. But somewhere between the ages of four and ten, our adopted children begin to realize that in gaining an adoptive family, they have suffered some very significant losses.
WebsiteThe 3-5-7 Model - Helping Children Work Through Grief
Source: Families Rising
The child welfare system must support children’s and youth’s work to grieve their losses. And we must ensure that professionals and parents understand how grief and loss affect children and youth and may lead to challenging behaviors. We must approach the behaviors caused by grief as normal, not as a pathological diagnosis.
WebsiteThe Joys and Challenges of Parenting Older Adopted Children
Source: National Council for Adoption
Parenting adopted children brings with it unique challenges and rewards. Children adopted at older ages—especially those from the U.S. foster care system—typically come to their new families after a history of some trauma, abuse, or neglect, and a storehouse of unresolved emotions. From the start, adoptive parents need to be ready with their sleeves rolled up, prepared to work hard in order to experience the many rewards of adopting older children.
WebsiteUnderstanding the Conversation Behind the Behavior
Source: Families Rising
When children do not know how to verbally express their needs (which is predominantly the case during early childhood), they “speak” through their behaviors. In other words, behavior is a form of communication. When a parent can stop, pause, and “listen” to the behavior of a child, it can become quite obvious what the child is saying. Looking at the behavior from an objective perspective also unveils the logic behind the child’s behavior.
WebsiteWhat to Do If Your Child Is in Crisis
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness
Recognizing that your child is experiencing a mental health crisis can be difficult. You may not be sure what constitutes a crisis situation versus a “bad day” or “phase.” You may feel scared — perhaps you feel unsure of how to protect your child. Combine this with navigating a complicated school and health care system and a lack of resources for people struggling with a mental health crisis, and it’s easy to feel discouraged.
WebsiteWhat You Should Know About Transitioning An Adopted Child To School
Source: Rainbow Kids
Transitioning to a new school, or entering school for the first time, can be difficult for any child. Those difficulties are only increased when your child is adopted. Most internationally adopted children do not arrive home ready for an academic school setting. Due to their unique situation, adopted children may face difficulties adjusting to the transition other children do not.
WebsiteBack to School: What Parents and Educators Should Keep in Mind
Source: Center for Adoption Support and Education
Here are some tips and resources for parents and educators as children head back to school after summer break. The transition back to school from summer break can be a difficult adjustment for children that have experienced foster care, kinship, or adoption, especially for children transitioning to a new school.
WebsiteBooks with Characters of Color
Source: Common Sense Media
While people of color are still underrepresented in books for kids and teens, we've found lots of great reads with diverse main or supporting characters in all sorts of genres, including mystery, fantasy, romance, adventure, sci-fi, graphic novels, historical fiction, novels in verse -- you name it!
WebsiteEnhancing Parent Collaboration with School Around Adoption
Source: Center for Adoption Support and Education
While many parents report excellent collaborative working relationships with their children’s teachers and school counselors, others share their extreme frustration, especially regarding their efforts to educate school personnel about the impact of adoption on school performance. Because this knowledge is so important for ensuring an adopted child’s educational success, here are some tips for effective communication with school personnel.
WebsiteFostering Futures Scholarship
Source: Michigan.gov
The Fostering Futures Scholarship provides scholarships to students who have experienced foster care in Michigan on or after age 13.
WebsiteHelping Classmates Understand Adoption: A School Handout
Source: Adoptive Families
This handout can be distributed to other parents at your child's school.
WebsiteHelping Traumatized Children Learn
Source: Trauma Sensitive Schools
Learning about the impacts of trauma can help keep parents and educators from misunderstanding the reasons underlying some children’s difficulties with learning, behavior and relationships.
WebsiteHow to Cover College Expenses for Your Child Adopted from Foster Care
Source: Families Rising
Parents who adopt older children from foster care often do not have as many years to save for the child’s college education. The good news is that there are programs in place that may help these youth pay for education.
WebsiteHow Trauma Affects Kids in School
Source: Child Mind Institute
We tend to think of trauma as the result of a frightening and upsetting event. But many children experience trauma through ongoing exposure, throughout their early development, to abuse, neglect, homelessness, domestic violence or violence in their communities. And it’s clear that chronic trauma can cause serious problems with learning and behavior.
WebsitePositive Adoption Conversations
Source: Adoptive Families
An Adoptive Families compilation of articles with information on: positive adoption talks at every age, explaining birth parents and birth siblings, talking with friends and family, exploring tough topics, and answering questions at school.
WebsiteSafe and Sound: Helping Children Who Have Experienced Trauma and Adversity
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics
This series of resources is designed to help children who have experienced trauma and adversity, by helping their parents, caregivers, and other adults in their lives understand how that early trauma may have affected them. Each guide can be downloaded and shared to provide ideas for how to help children, and links to additional information and resources.
WebsiteSchool & Adoption: Navigating IEPs, IDEA, and Special Services
Source: Families Rising
What is the process of obtaining an IEP for your child? What is Section 504? How does adoption fit into all of this?
WebsiteSpecial Education Fact Sheets
Source: Michigan Department of Education
Our fact sheets explain special education laws and practices. The documents are easy to read and give links to more in-depth resources.
WebsiteThe ABCs of Back to School with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)
Source: Families Rising
As a new school year approaches, parents may find it useful to share information about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders with teachers and other school personnel. The information below is designed to help educators understand the effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol so that children and youth have the best opportunities to learn and succeed.
WebsiteWhat Do You Share At School About Your Child’s Story?
Source: Creating A Family
One of the most common questions that foster, kinship, and adoptive parents ask is how much to share about their kids’ stories to support the child’s success in the classroom. It’s a dilemma because adoptees frequently tell us that a child’s story should be guarded and held carefully until the child has agency to tell or not to tell. Where is the line, and what do you share about your child’s story at school?
WebsiteWhat Teachers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
You may be wondering what information you should be giving to your child’s teacher about his or her adoption. Here is a link to a great article that addresses exactly that.
WebsiteWhat You Should Know About Transitioning An Adopted Child To School
Source: Rainbow Kids
Transitioning to a new school, or entering school for the first time, can be difficult for any child. Those difficulties are only increased when your child is adopted. Most internationally adopted children do not arrive home ready for an academic school setting. Due to their unique situation, adopted children may face difficulties adjusting to the transition other children do not.
Website5 Tips to Save Your Sanity While Raising Kids with Prenatal Substance Exposure
Source: Creating a Family
Many adoptive and foster parents must decide while waiting for a child whether they feel capable of raising a child with the risk factors of alcohol or drug exposure. However, many others find themselves parenting a child and seeking help for behaviors and symptoms that are challenging to live with, and they suspect prenatal substance exposure. Still, others are reeling from a recent diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), and they are fearful about the lifetime of struggle they foresee for their child. No matter where you fit in this experience, there are things you can do to save your sanity and help your family thrive.
WebsiteBehavior and Sensory Processing: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Source: Families Rising
Many children in foster care and adoption struggle with sensory processing, and being thoughtful about how this affects their behavior can help parents create opportunities for success.
WebsiteExplaining Prenatal Exposure to Your Child
Source: Creating a Family
Are you raising an adopted, foster, or kinship child who was exposed to drugs or alcohol while their birth mother was pregnant? Many of us parenting kids with prenatal substance exposure grapple with what to tell them about prenatal exposure. Avoiding the topic can contribute to our kids feeling shame, confusion, and even self-blame. Explaining too much about or telling them too soon may confuse them. How do you explain prenatal exposure to your child?
WebsiteFASD - Tips For Parents & Caregivers
Source: FASD Network of Saskatchewan
It is important to remember that if a child has FASD she has a disability. Behaviours she exhibits are quite often a result of the disability and her environment. The child’s behaviours are not intentional. She is not doing things to purposely make you mad or frustrated; her behaviours are a direct result of the prenatal alcohol exposure and often become a way of communicating. Once we understand and make sense of her behaviours it will be easier to put the proper supports and interventions in place.
WebsiteHelping Traumatized Children Learn
Source: Trauma Sensitive Schools
Learning about the impacts of trauma can help keep parents and educators from misunderstanding the reasons underlying some children’s difficulties with learning, behavior and relationships.
WebsiteHelping Your Child Move from Anti-Social to Pro-Social Behaviors
Source: Families Rising
For us to understand where some of our children’s most challenging behaviors come from, we must first realize just how much neglect and trauma affect every aspect of a child’s development. We are social-emotional beings with an innate need to connect and form meaningful attachment relationships. Every interpersonal skill required for us to be successful in creating and sustaining these relationships must be learned.
WebsiteHow Childhood Trauma Could Be Mistaken for ADHD
Source: The Atlantic
Some experts say the normal effects of severe adversity may be misdiagnosed as ADHD.
WebsiteLanguage Acquisition, Speech Delays, and Communication Challenges in Children Following an Adoption
Source: National Council for Adoption
The prevalence of speech and language delays in children placed for adoption from foster care or through intercountry adoption are so common that parents ought to expect that their child will have a communication-related delay. Preparing for this challenge will position parents to better meet their child’s language needs and encourage catch-up growth and development.
WebsiteLong-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway.
Childhood maltreatment can be linked to later physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences as well as costs to society as a whole. The outcomes for each child may vary widely and are affected by a combination of factors. Additionally, children who experience maltreatment often are affected by other adverse experiences, which can make it difficult to separate the unique effects of maltreatment.
WebsitePractical Ideas to Boost Your Child’s Social-Emotional Learning
Source: Creating a Family
Many foster, kinship, and adopted children who live with the impacts of prenatal substance exposure may struggle with social-emotional learning. Your child might have challenges with emotional regulation or difficulty identifying complex emotions. Your child might also have a difficult time making or keeping age-typical peers. Delays in social-emotional learning can leave your child frustrated and lonely without understanding why.
WebsiteSchool & Adoption: Navigating IEPs, IDEA, and Special Services
Source: Families Rising
What is the process of obtaining an IEP for your child? What is Section 504? How does adoption fit into all of this?
WebsiteSpecial Education Fact Sheets
Source: Michigan Department of Education
Our fact sheets explain special education laws and practices. The documents are easy to read and give links to more in-depth resources.
WebsiteThe ABCs of Back to School with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)
Source: Families Rising
As a new school year approaches, parents may find it useful to share information about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders with teachers and other school personnel. The information below is designed to help educators understand the effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol so that children and youth have the best opportunities to learn and succeed.
WebsiteUnderstanding Children's Behavior and Helping Them Heal
Source: AdoptUSKids
Do you wonder why your child is exhibiting certain behaviors? Is it biological or environmental? It’s both! And it’s not the child’s fault.
WebsiteUnderstanding the Conversation Behind the Behavior
Source: Families Rising
When children do not know how to verbally express their needs (which is predominantly the case during early childhood), they “speak” through their behaviors. In other words, behavior is a form of communication. When a parent can stop, pause, and “listen” to the behavior of a child, it can become quite obvious what the child is saying. Looking at the behavior from an objective perspective also unveils the logic behind the child’s behavior.
WebsiteWhat Pediatric Health Providers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
While most adoptees are physically and emotionally healthy, adopted children are more likely than non-adopted children to have significant physical health problems as well as difficulties with emotions, concentration and, behaviors.
WebsiteWhat to Do If Your Child Is in Crisis
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness
Recognizing that your child is experiencing a mental health crisis can be difficult. You may not be sure what constitutes a crisis situation versus a “bad day” or “phase.” You may feel scared — perhaps you feel unsure of how to protect your child. Combine this with navigating a complicated school and health care system and a lack of resources for people struggling with a mental health crisis, and it’s easy to feel discouraged.
Website6 Questions Every Adopted Teen Wants Answered
Source: Adoptive Families
Prior to adolescence, children are extremely curious about their adoption stories. Although they question the circumstances that led to their adoption, most of them seem to accept the answers calmly. But adolescents often demand fuller and more factual answers.
Website6 Things Your Adopted Kids Need to Know by Age 6
Source: Creating a Family
What to share, when to share it, and how often to talk about adoption with our kids are questions many adoptive parent have. It can be overwhelming for those new to adoption to consider starting these conversations.
WebsiteAdoptive Parenting Tips: Internet, Facebook, & Birthparent Contact
Source: Creating a Family
Adoptive parents must think through how to help their adopted tweens and teens navigate birth family contact and relationships online via Facebook or other social networks. The Internet has fundamentally changed adoptive parenting and adoptive parents need to think through how best to use it as a tool.
WebsiteChildren's Books Talking About Birthparents
Source: Creating A Family
Books to help initiate conversations about birthparents with adopted children.
WebsiteDid They Really Just Ask That Question? Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Responding to Intrusive Questions and Comments about Adoption
Source: National Council for Adoption
If you have a connection to adoption, chances are high that you or someone you know has been asked intrusive questions about adoption. These questions can feel extremely off putting, inappropriate, and hurtful. Adoptees and adoptive parents will likely face a lifetime of these questions, and it is important that they feel empowered to know how to respond.
WebsiteExplaining Prenatal Exposure to Your Child
Source: Creating a Family
Are you raising an adopted, foster, or kinship child who was exposed to drugs or alcohol while their birth mother was pregnant? Many of us parenting kids with prenatal substance exposure grapple with what to tell them about prenatal exposure. Avoiding the topic can contribute to our kids feeling shame, confusion, and even self-blame. Explaining too much about or telling them too soon may confuse them. How do you explain prenatal exposure to your child?
WebsiteHow and When to Discuss Adoption With Your Child
Source: Psychology Today
Children’s curiosity about their adoption story is a normal part of growing up. Open and informative discussions are crucial for the development of your child’s sense of self.
WebsiteHow to Implement Trauma-informed Care to Build Resilience to Childhood Trauma
Source: Child Trends
Children who are exposed to traumatic life events are at significant risk for developing serious and long-lasting problems across multiple areas of development. However, children are far more likely to exhibit resilience to childhood trauma when child-serving programs, institutions, and service systems understand the impact of childhood trauma, share common ways to talk and think about trauma, and thoroughly integrate effective practices and policies to address it—an approach often referred to as trauma-informed care (TIC).
WebsiteLet's Talk About Adoption
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Foster Care, Adoption, ＆ Kinship Care
Adopted children have unique needs and their life story may be much different than their friends. Read on to learn how you and others around adopted children can talk with them about adoption, help them overcome challenges, and develop a positive life story.
WebsiteMissing Pieces: Talking To Your Child About Adoption When Information Is Limited
Source: Wisconsin Family Connections Center
Most children and youth who were adopted will someday ask to find out about their birth family members or will have questions about their pasts. This tip sheet looks at what you can do to support your children when you have little or no information about their birth family.
WebsitePositive Adoption Conversations
Source: Adoptive Families
An Adoptive Families compilation of articles with information on: positive adoption talks at every age, explaining birth parents and birth siblings, talking with friends and family, exploring tough topics, and answering questions at school.
WebsiteTalking About Birth Parents/First Parents: Where Do They Fit in the Adoption Puzzle
Source: PACT
Adopted people have to process the complex experience that is adoption, and they need the help of their parents to do so. This mean that whether you feel empathetic or uncomfortable with the idea or reality of your child’s birth parent(s), you must handle your feelings separately from your children in order to free them to explore their feelings without being burdened by yours.
WebsiteTalking to Adopted Children About Birth Parents and Families of Origin: How to Answer the “Hard Questions”
Source: National Council for Adoption
In the September 2015 issue of NCFA's Adoption Advocate, Rhonda Jarema writes about the importance of talking with adopted children about their birth families, and offers some suggestions for adoptive parents.
WebsiteTalking to Children About Their Birthparents
Source: Psychology Today
How to handle difficult questions and address sensitive issues.
WebsiteTalking to Your Child About Adoption: Recommendations for Parents
Source: National Council for Adoption
While recognizing that it can be uncomfortable for parents to discuss adoption with their children, in the December 2011 issue of NCFA's Adoption Advocate, Nicole Callahan offers advice to help parents create an open, honest, and age appropriate dialogue with their children. She emphasizes the importance of beginning this conversation early to help a child feel secure in their identity and facilitate further conversations.
WebsiteTalking to Your Six to Eight Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
By this age, children are starting school. Peers and teachers begin to influence their view of the world and of themselves. Children take on new roles - of pupil, classmate, friend - and they begin to question where, exactly, they fit in the world.
WebsiteTalking to Your Three to Five Year Old About Adoption
Source: Adoptive Families
Three to five year olds are curious; their burgeoning cognitive and language skills are tools for figuring out what life is about. The questions they ask offer insight into how much they want to belong, to be accepted, to be safe and secure.
WebsiteTelling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child: Helping Your Child Come to a Strength-Based Understanding of His or Her Life Story
Source: National Council for Adoption
“Adopted or foster children will only ask their caregivers the questions they feel they have the permission to ask.” Are we giving them that permission?
WebsiteThe Whole Truth
Source: IAC Counseling Center
One of the toughest problems adoptive parents face is that of talking to our children about the reasons they were placed for adoption. Our families are so happy and loving that we hate to bring up any unpleasant information.
WebsiteWe've Been There (for Teens)
Source: Book
In this book, over thirty adopted teens and young adults talk about their feelings, thoughts, experiences, and unanswered questions. We’ve Been There not only shares what they learned but also what they wish someone had told them.
WebsiteBeing Anti-Racist: A Critical Way to Support Children of Color in Foster Care and Adoption
Source: Families Rising
Children of color are significantly over-represented in foster care and adoption. Those who are working with or parenting these children have an obligation to do all they can to address the racism that led to many children being in care and that will affect children all their lives.
WebsiteBooks with Characters of Color
Source: Common Sense Media
While people of color are still underrepresented in books for kids and teens, we've found lots of great reads with diverse main or supporting characters in all sorts of genres, including mystery, fantasy, romance, adventure, sci-fi, graphic novels, historical fiction, novels in verse -- you name it!
WebsiteParenting in Racially, Culturally, and Ethnically Diverse Adoptive Families
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
This factsheet provides information to help you and your family support your child in developing a healthy racial, cultural, and ethnic identity and live a vibrant multicultural life. It discusses the importance of examining your thoughts and biases, as well as those of your whole family, and preparing your child to live in a society where race has a major impact on individual lives.
WebsiteSeven Tasks for Parents: Developing Positive Racial Identity
Source: Families Rising
Although transracial adoption and foster care have been a controversial topic for more than a decade, the number of children entering such placements continues to increase. The realities of children living in transracial families raise many questions...
WebsiteStatement and Resources from NACAC about Fighting Racism
Source: Families Rising
NACAC encourages all families to continue having conversations with their children, extended family, and friends about the ongoing impact of race, social injustice, and police violence. One way to help is to share resources such as those we compiled below.
WebsiteThe Adoptive Parent’s Responsibility when Parenting a Child of a Different Race
Source: National Council for Adoption
In choosing to pursue the privilege of growing one’s family through adoption, adoptive parents are committing themselves to the responsibility of understanding and addressing the issues and needs specific to adoption, which can include loss, grief, identity formation, maintaining birth family connections, accessing health history information, and more. There is even more added responsibility in addressing the issues, privileges, and challenges that arise when adopting a child of a different race.
WebsiteTransracial Resources
Source: Families Rising
The resources below were identified by Deb Reisner, NACAC’s parent support specialist who facilitates NACAC’s support services for transracial adoptive families in Minnesota.
WebsiteBonding and Attachment in Maltreated Children
Source: The ChildTrauma Academy
The systems in the human brain that allow us to form and maintain emotional relationships develop during infancy and the first years of life. Experiences during this early vulnerable period of life are critical to shaping the capacity to form intimate and emotionally healthy relationships.
WebsiteHelping to Heal Invisible Hurts: The Impact of In-utero Stress & Trauma
Source: WI Foster Care & Adoption Resource Center
Understanding trauma is paramount to understanding the needs of the child you are caring for. But what if the child in your care came to you immediately or shortly after birth? Your newborn hasn’t suffered “abuse or neglect.” She came to you with a trauma free slate. You are the only caregiver she has ever known, and you’ve loved and nurtured her with great dedication from day one. But then you start to notice things . . .
WebsiteHelping Traumatized Children Learn
Source: Trauma Sensitive Schools
Learning about the impacts of trauma can help keep parents and educators from misunderstanding the reasons underlying some children’s difficulties with learning, behavior and relationships.
WebsiteHow Childhood Trauma Could Be Mistaken for ADHD
Source: The Atlantic
Some experts say the normal effects of severe adversity may be misdiagnosed as ADHD.
WebsiteHow to Implement Trauma-informed Care to Build Resilience to Childhood Trauma
Source: Child Trends
Children who are exposed to traumatic life events are at significant risk for developing serious and long-lasting problems across multiple areas of development. However, children are far more likely to exhibit resilience to childhood trauma when child-serving programs, institutions, and service systems understand the impact of childhood trauma, share common ways to talk and think about trauma, and thoroughly integrate effective practices and policies to address it—an approach often referred to as trauma-informed care (TIC).
WebsiteHow Trauma Affects Kids in School
Source: Child Mind Institute
We tend to think of trauma as the result of a frightening and upsetting event. But many children experience trauma through ongoing exposure, throughout their early development, to abuse, neglect, homelessness, domestic violence or violence in their communities. And it’s clear that chronic trauma can cause serious problems with learning and behavior.
WebsiteLong-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway.
Childhood maltreatment can be linked to later physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences as well as costs to society as a whole. The outcomes for each child may vary widely and are affected by a combination of factors. Additionally, children who experience maltreatment often are affected by other adverse experiences, which can make it difficult to separate the unique effects of maltreatment.
WebsiteManipulation and the Inability to Ask for Help
Source: Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.
"This is not a conscious choice, but rather, as the traumatized brain sees it, a fight between life and death where manipulation equals life, while asking equals death."
WebsiteParenting a Child Who Has Experienced Abuse or Neglect
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
Children who have been abused or neglected need safe and nurturing relationships that address the effects of child maltreatment. If you are parenting a child who has been abused or neglected, you might have questions about your child’s experiences and the effects of those experiences.
WebsiteParenting a Child Who Has Experienced Trauma
Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway
Children who have experienced traumatic events need to feel safe and loved. All parents want to provide this kind of nurturing home for their children. However, when parents do not have an understanding of the effects of trauma, they may misinterpret their child’s behavior and end up feeling frustrated or resentful. Their attempts to address troubling behavior may be ineffective or, in some cases, even harmful.
WebsiteParenting After Trauma: Understanding Your Child’s Needs
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics and Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
All children need homes that are safe and full of love. Children who have experienced severe trauma may need more. Early, hurtful experiences can cause children to see and react in different ways. Some children who have been adopted or placed into foster care need help to cope with what happened to them in the past. Knowing what experts say about early trauma can help you work with your child.
WebsiteSafe and Sound: Helping Children Who Have Experienced Trauma and Adversity
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics
This series of resources is designed to help children who have experienced trauma and adversity, by helping their parents, caregivers, and other adults in their lives understand how that early trauma may have affected them. Each guide can be downloaded and shared to provide ideas for how to help children, and links to additional information and resources.
WebsiteSelf-Care: Barriers and Basics for Foster/Adoptive Parents
Source: Families Rising
Self-care is crucial for foster and adoptive parents. The physical and emotional toll of caring for traumatized children can be overwhelming.
WebsiteSupporting Maltreated Children: Countering the Effects of Neglect and Abuse
Source: Families Rising
The most important property of humankind is the capacity to form and maintain relationships. These relationships are absolutely necessary for any of us to survive, learn, work, ...
WebsiteThe Adopted Child: Trauma and Its Impact
Source: The Post Institute
Whether adopted from birth or later in life, all adopted children have experienced some degree of trauma. Trauma is any stressful event which is prolonged, overwhelming, or unpredictable. Though we are familiar with events impacting children such as abuse, neglect, and domestic violence, until recently, the full impact of trauma on adopted children has not been understood.
WebsiteThe Healing Power of "Giving Voice"
Source: National Council for Adoption
Children coming from situations of trauma, abuse, or neglect often experience the loss of their ability to voice their needs in a healthy way and the loss of trust that these needs will be met. Interventions for children from hard places must include restoring voice, which in turn encourages trust, healing, and attachment. Drs. Karyn Purvis and David Cross explore what the loss of voice means for children, and how appropriate interventions and therapies can allow them to give voice to their needs and experience healing within a safe, nurturing family. The article includes a brief list of recommended skills and strategies for parents and caregivers.
WebsiteThe Joys and Challenges of Parenting Older Adopted Children
Source: National Council for Adoption
Parenting adopted children brings with it unique challenges and rewards. Children adopted at older ages—especially those from the U.S. foster care system—typically come to their new families after a history of some trauma, abuse, or neglect, and a storehouse of unresolved emotions. From the start, adoptive parents need to be ready with their sleeves rolled up, prepared to work hard in order to experience the many rewards of adopting older children.
WebsiteThe Teen Years: Brain Development and Trauma Recovery
Source: Families Rising
Teens who have experienced adoption or foster care have faced a lot of change: healing from trauma, coping with major life transitions, developing new routines, and experiencing puberty—just to name a few. As parents and caregivers, our role is to provide young adults with a safe space to explore, stumble, and succeed in this time of self-discovery by developing parenting strategies that prioritize family connection and establish trust.
WebsiteTrauma Informed Parenting During our “Staycation”
Source: Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.
Tips for keeping families rooted in safety and growing in connection during the COVID-19 quarantine.
WebsiteUnderstanding Children's Behavior and Helping Them Heal
Source: AdoptUSKids
Do you wonder why your child is exhibiting certain behaviors? Is it biological or environmental? It’s both! And it’s not the child’s fault.
WebsiteWhat is Trauma-Focused Therapy?
Source: Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services and Interventions
Trauma-Focused Therapy is a specific approach to therapy that recognizes and emphasizes understanding how the traumatic experience impacts a child’s mental, behavioral, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.
WebsiteWhat Pediatric Health Providers Should Know About Adoption
Source: QICAG
While most adoptees are physically and emotionally healthy, adopted children are more likely than non-adopted children to have significant physical health problems as well as difficulties with emotions, concentration and, behaviors.
WebsiteWhat to Do If Your Child Discloses Sexual Abuse
Source: The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Disclosure is when a child tells another person that he or she has been sexually abused. Disclosure can be a scary and difficult process for children. Some children who have been sexually abused may take weeks, months, or even years to fully reveal what was done to them. Many children never tell anyone about the abuse.
WebsiteWhat to Do If Your Child Is in Crisis
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness
Recognizing that your child is experiencing a mental health crisis can be difficult. You may not be sure what constitutes a crisis situation versus a “bad day” or “phase.” You may feel scared — perhaps you feel unsure of how to protect your child. Combine this with navigating a complicated school and health care system and a lack of resources for people struggling with a mental health crisis, and it’s easy to feel discouraged.
Website