Have you been blessed with a sibling group of babies and toddlers still in diapers and drinking bottles? Would you like some simple time saving tips to make life a little easier? Children change and develop so quickly at this age that within a year they will all be easier to care for, especially if you potty train a couple of them and eliminate bottles. In the meantime, enjoy them, and take many pictures. Use the bottle time to hold, snuggle, and bond with them, even though they are not newborns.

Instead of disinfecting the changing pad after each diaper change do this.... more

If you just adopted a sibling group then you are very busy parent trying to establish a routine. You are trying to get used to have two, three, or four times the number of people in your family. Of course, that means more cooking, more grocery shopping, more laundry, more cleaning, and more transporting. It can be down right hectic at times and you could use some support. The last thing you need right now is another thing on your parent “to do” list. If your life is anything like mine, you don’t have time to watch television, read magazines, or even file your fingernails.

What... more

If you had brothers and sisters when you was growing up then you probably noticed that mom and dad were the toughest on the oldest child. Then those rules and idealisms were worn down with each consecutive child. The oldest may have had a nine o’clock curfew and by the time, they got to the youngest it was midnight. When my 24-year-old son was a toddler, I thought he should be potty trained by 18 months. Now how unrealistic was that? I actually asked his daycare workers if they were trying hard enough to take him to the bathroom. He was off the bottle at 12 months on the dot and... more

You have adopted older children and you finally realize that consequences will not work. Some of us have been trying consistent consequences for over a decade and have seen little or no effect what so ever. It turns into sort of a vicious cycle. The child repeats a behavior for the fiftieth time and the child receives the same consequence for the fiftieth time. Each time the child feels victimized and doesn’t understand why the consequences have been administered. The child slumps off feeling sorry for himself or herself not understanding why, once again, consequences... more

When our first sibling group came to live with us, 11 years ago, we wondered how much influence we could really have, on who a teenager would become as an adult. After all, the majority of teenagers’ childhood is over. Those precious, formative years that we all know are so important are long gone. The children’s first parents, who had agendas much different from ours, influenced those formative years.

Two years after being placed in our home, the sisters became available for adoption. They were already part of our family by then so it seemed natural to adopt them. However,... more

Researchers have recently proven that the body’s stress response system can be favorably altered by family intervention during the preschool years. Preschoolers involved in this recent study were considered high risk for antisocial behavior because they had an older delinquent sibling. These preschoolers displayed an atypical stress response during testing. Older youth with conduct disorders usually also have this atypical response to stress.

The cortisol levels in the preschoolers' saliva did not show a normal spike in anticipation of a stressful situation... more

In my previous post, I mentioned that I didn't feel that glitzy resorts are reality. Please don't misunderstand. I love a nice evening out as well as the next person, but so much of the frou-frou for lack of a better word is just so fake. The women in their 500.00 evening gowns are really no better or worse underneath than the Haitian women I saw sitting on a street corner yelling "Mandarin, mandarin, mandarin" as they hawked oranges, trying to earn a living.... more

It is late spring and the school year is drawing to a close. Must mean it's prom time. Two weeks ago I was at a resort here in town helping my daughter and son-in-law decorate for the school prom where he teaches.

As the decorating wound down and guests for various functions were arriving, it felt a bit like Cinderella's ball. Evening gowns and tuxedos were abundant, and I felt slightly out of place as I went to leave in my sandals, jeans and a polo shirt. I went to the bathroom before I left and upon the gleaming granite countertops... more