Do you ever doubt your decision to foster or adopt? Do you feel hopeless in the challenges of parenting your foster or adopted children? Do you worry that you really ARE a failure as a parent? You are not alone. This book is for the parents who question their decision to foster or adopt, who feel beaten down by the judgments of others and themselves, and who deal with regret, loss, and disappointment.

It will be hard. It’s also for those hoping to be better prepared for the adoptive struggles ahead. You can enjoy the new life and family you're creating. In this unique blend of memoir and guidebook, marcy shares with you the lessons her family has learned along the way, and the way they’ve seen, and continue to hope for, the problems that have nearly flattened them, good in each one.

Of those who do, many find they don’t have the resources or support they need to do it well. Too many people become foster and adoptive parents without having accurate information or knowing what to expect. Marcy covers the greatest challenges, adoptive mother, as revealed through her own experience as a foster mother, and professional counselor.

Whether you are considering foster parenting or adopting, or you just want to throw a lifesaver to a foster parenting/adoptive friend or family member, or are already in it and drowning, then this book is your must-read resource. Reclaiming hope gives you truth about adopting, remind you of your purpose, and encourage you to keep on* naming the 10 greatest challenges of fostering and adopting, fostering, so you can align your expectations with reality the stuff they don’t tell you about in promo videos, fliers, and taking guardianship of children in a new and easy-to-understand way through:* Breaking down misinformation fed to prospective foster and adoptive parents* Finding community to validate your existence, and information meetings* Help for the friend or family member who wants to support adoptive/foster families.

Reclaiming hope when circumstances scream fear and helplessness.

Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families

This book addresses the reality of those unmet expectations and offers validation and solutions for the challenges of parenting deeply traumatized and emotionally disturbed children. Families often enter into this experience with high expectations for their child and for themselves but are broadsided by shattered assumptions.

. Why doesn’t our child return our love? what are we failing to understand? What are we failing to do? These questions can fill the minds of adoptive parents caring for wounded, traumatized children.

Parenting Children of Trauma: A Foster-Adoption Guide to Understanding Attachment Disorders

It took our marriage to the brink, our own personal mental health to its limits, our family to some dark places--but we came out in a brighter place. Resources to help the friend or family member who wants to support adoptive/foster families. Do you ever feel confused about what went wrong in your foster or adoption story? Are you fearful about the future of your marriage and your children? Do you ever feel overwhelmed and desperate for help?You are not alone.

Many foster and adoptive parents are trying to raise children with complex emotional trauma, desperate for answers to heal their families. Equipping you with information, strategies, and stories to know you are not alone or powerless in your own home. Walk with me through understanding trauma to alleviate fear and doubt about who you are, who they are, and what your future holds.

Breaking down current treatment options for attachment disorders. And now i want to offer this hope and help to you. Parenting children of trauma brings you everything I've learned as mama, friend, and counselor, in a new and easy-to-understand way through: Demystifying attachment disorders and the impact of complex emotional trauma on our homes and society.

Whether you're already in this situation, thinking about stepping into it, redefine love, or know someone who is in it, this book will help you set realistic expectations, and walk away with actual tools to change the climate of your heart and your home. This book is for parents who feel overwhelmed, desperate, and depleted.

The Connected Child: Bring hope and healing to your adoptive family

Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, The Connected Child will help you: Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened "A must-read not only for adoptive parents, but for all families striving to correct and connect with their children.

Carol S. Donaldson adoption institute"the connected Child is the literary equivalent of an airline oxygen mask and instructions: place the mask over your own face first, then over the nose of your child. This book first assists the parent, saying, you're not the first mom or dad in the world to face this hurdle, in effect, breathe deeply, 'Calm down, then follow these simple steps.

The sense of not facing these issues alone--the relief that your child's behavior is not off the charts--is hugely comforting. Other children have behaved this way; other parents have responded thusly; welcome to the community of therapeutic and joyful adoptive families. Melissa fay greene, author of there is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children.

. Focus magazine "Truly an exceptional, innovative work. Morris, editor of S. Compassionate, accessible, and founded on a breadth of scientific knowledge and clinical expertise.

Another Place at the Table

All this, in addition to raising her three biological sons and two adopted daughters. It is the frank first-person story of a woman whose compassionate best intentions for a child are sometimes all that stand between violence and redemption. The startling and ultimately uplifting narrative of one woman's thirteen-year experience as a foster parent.

For more than a decade, kathy harrison has sheltered a shifting cast of troubled youngsters-the offspring of prostitutes and addicts; the sons and daughters of abusers; and teenage parents who aren't equipped for parenthood. What would motivate someone to give herself over to constant, largely uncompensated chaos? For Harrison, the answer is easy.

Another place at the table is the story of life at our social services' front lines, when they come together in Harrison's home, centered on three children who, nearly destroy it.

Confessions of an Adoptive Parent: Hope and Help from the Trenches of Foster Care and Adoption

There are plenty of how-to guides out there on parenting, but this one-of-a-kind book is specifically designed to address your needs as a parent of an adopted or foster child. Know that you are not alone on this journey Adopting or fostering a child brings its own unique set of challenges only another parent facing the same uphill climb could possibly understand.

With a refreshing dose of honesty, empathy, and care, you'll discover you are definitely not alone on your journey and God has a very special plan for you and your family. He's still there, and he wants to give you the hope and encouragement you so desperately need. From parenting children with traumatic pasts, to dealing with attachment issues, to raising a child with special needs, it can sometimes be a struggle just getting through the day.

Mike berry knows the loneliness and isolation you can easily feel in your particular parenting role—because he's been there.

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew

This extraordinary book, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, gives voice to children's unspoken concerns, written by a woman who was adopted herself, and shame. With warmth and candor, sherrie eldridge reveals the twenty complex emotional issues you must understand to nurture the child you love--that he must grieve his loss now if he is to receive love fully in the future--that she needs honest information about her birth family no matter how painful the details may be--and that although he may choose to search for his birth family, he will always rely on you to be his parents.

Filled with powerful insights from children, and experts in the field, plus practical strategies and case histories that will ring true for every adoptive family, parents, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew is an invaluable guide to the complex emotions that take up residence within the heart of the adopted child--and within the adoptive home.

Birthdays may be difficult for me. I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family. When i act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me. I am afraid you will abandon me. The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. Dell Publishing Company. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope.

Reframing Foster Care: Filtering Your Foster Parenting Journey Through the Lens of the Gospel

Their journey is one of equal parts beauty and brokenness, joy and heartache, excitement and exhaustion. But there is hope—in God’s capacity to bring great beauty out of tragic brokenness. This multi-faceted book can be read alone or used as a group support resource. Dell Publishing Company. Reframing foster care is a collection of reflections on the foster parenting journey designed to help you do just that—find hope—and to remind you that your work is worth it and you are not alone.

For bulk orders of 10 or more books, visit www. Reframingfostercare. Com. There is no textbook on how to be a foster parent, no formula, no simple three-step guide. Discounts apply. This is the gospel—the lens through which you can filter your foster parenting journey and ultimately find the strength, motivation, and courage you need to be sustained along the way.

Every chapter includes: personal reflection questions group discussion guides Plan of action exercises Real-life stories Inspirational quotes Whether your foster parenting journey has just begun or you’ve been on the road for quite some time, we pray this book can encourage, challenge, and inspire you along the way.

Foster parents face a unique set of circumstances and experience a wide array of emotions that few can relate to.

Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Attachment-Challenged Children With Severe Behaviors

Used book in Good Condition. Dell Publishing Company. The next seven chapters are individually devoted to seven behaviors typically seen with attachment-challenged children. These include lying, lack of eye contact, aggression, defiance, and yes, hoarding and gorging, stealing, even a chapter that talks candidly about how parents appear hostile and angry when they work to simply maintain their families from reaching complete states of chaos.

Beyond consequences, logic, and Control covers in detail the effects of trauma on the body-mind and how trauma alters children's behavioral responses. The first four chapters help parents and professionals clearly understand the neurological research behind the basic model given in this book, deemed, 'The Stress Model.

While scientifically based in research, it is written in an easy to understand and easy to grasp format for anyone working with or parenting children with severe behaviors. Each of these chapters talks in depth on these specific behaviors and gives vivid and contrasting examples of how this love-based approach works to foster healing and works to develop relationships, as opposed to the fear-based traditional attachment parenting approaches that are being advocated in today's attachment field.

The authors end with a parenting bonus section: true testimonials from parents who have been able to make significant changes in their homes with this model of parenting, peace, giving real-life examples of how they have been able to find the healing, and love that they had been seeking prior to working through the techniques outlined in this book.

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Faith to Foster: An All-American Story of Loving the Least of These

Used book in Good Condition. Dell Publishing Company. Faith to foster is a candid look into the life of ordinary foster parents TJ and Jenn Menn. This is a story they wished they'd read before starting their foster parenting adventure. Tj and jenn share their experiences and feelings in a way that encourages any reader to serve their neighbors, not just become foster parents.

Faith to foster reminds Christians that God can use them to make a difference in their community. It is a journey chronicling their decision making process, how the children arrived, help from friends and family, emotional goodbyes, the birth parents' struggle to rehabilitate, and how faith in Jesus empowered them through it all.

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Born Broken: An Adoptive Journey

Kristin berry tells her family's adoption story honestly, and does not shy away from the challenges she and her family has faced, including isolation and depression. I hate that I have hurt people. His brain has been damaged by alcohol before he was even born. They found families that were struggling too. Mom you need to write the truth.

But when the fairy tale ended… The family realizes their precious child is struggling with the most basic developmental milestones, and they vow to love him more. This book is an eyes-wide-open look into one family's adoption journey. I hate living like this. Used book in Good Condition. I hate that I always make the wrong choice.

. People need to know that drinking while pregnant is never okay. They stepped out of isolation and together they found faith and hope once again. One family's powerful story of faith began. People need to know what this is like. Written with her son's blessings, in the hopes that others will learn about and understand what it is like to live with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome FAS and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders FASD.

People need to know!" the story began like a dream… A child is born with all the possibilities of a bright future.