The practical classic on adopting an older child.

Are you thinking of adopting an older child? There are 200,000 plus hoping for families in the U.S. alone and more worldwide. Adopting an older child, though, presents a unique set of parenting issues as well as rewards. Adopting Older Children highlights the most significant challenges when parenting older adoptees who face mental health, behavioral and educational issues. Included is critical information about developmental issues that may arise for the adoptee, issues related to the adoptee's emerging sense of self, sexual orientation and cultural identity and other special needs that an adoptee may have.--Page 4 of cover

Based on personal experiences, research, and interviews, the author presents "practical tips, advice, and real-life stories for anyone who is adopting, or hopes to adopt, an older child."--Cover.

"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. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children's unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, 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, parents, and experts in the field, plus practical strategies and case histories that will ring true for every adoptive family, 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.

This book is a very helpful tool for those who are planning to adopt an older child. The interviews and stories present a realistic picture of the challenges and opportunities that adoptive parents of older children must face,

This book offers support and practical tools to help parents prepare for and support the toddler's transition between the familiar environment of their biological parent's home or foster home to a new and unfamiliar one, and considers the issues that arise at different developmental stages.

Without avoiding the grim statistics, this book reveals the real hope that hurting children can be healed through adoptive and foster parents, social workers, and others who care. Includes information on foreign adoptions.

This classic text is a comprehensive guide for prospective and actual adoptive parents on how to understand and care for their adopted child and promote healthy attachment. It explains what attachment is and provides parenting techniques matched to children's emotional needs and stages to enhance children's happiness and emotional health.

What about the kids already there? How do they do when a child with a challenging past joins a family by adoption? When experienced parents decide to adopt an older child or a sibling group, they jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops â?? background checks, interviews, group meetings, reading assignments, classes, etc. But most often the typically developing children these adults are already parenting (whether through birth or adoption) are left out of the process, informed that a new kid is coming, and simply expected to â??adjustâ?? to the addition of another sibling. The addition of a child with a history of neglect or trauma cannot be a seamless transition. The expectations of everyone involved â?? parents, new siblings, and, yes, professionals facilitating the adoption â?? must be realistic, taking into account that the new child will need special attention that may take away time and attention from the already resident kids, that family life is likely to be turned topsy turvy until appropriate counseling and support are in place, that relationships will change. Therapist Arleta James is certainly not the first person to recognize this, but she is the first to do something about it. Brothers and Sisters in Adoption offers insights and examples and sturdy, practical, proven tools for helping newly configured families prepare, accept, react, and mobilize to become a new and different family meeting the practical, physical and emotional needs of all its members. These well prepared and supported families are the ones who thrive!

A Premarital Guide for Blended Family Couples If you want to enter a blended family marriage well, this is the book for you. Aimed at engaged or pre-engaged couples who have at least one child from a previous relationship, Preparing to Blend offers wise counsel on parenting, finances, establishing family identity, and daily routines for your new life together. Within these pages you will learn how to: · predict common issues · define expectations · create solutions You, your soon-to-be-spouse, and your children will benefit from exercises designed to accelerate family bonding and help you better understand each other. There is even a chapter to help you plan your wedding with your children in mind, so you can build a strong future together. Preparing to Blend is also an ideal premarital counseling tool for marriage coaches, mentors, and pastors wanting to prepare couples for complex blended family dynamics. If you are considering forming a blended family, Preparing to Blend is the resource you've been looking for.