I realize that Christmas day is getting way too close for the amount of shopping I have completed this year. I am also having difficulty wanting to choose individual gifts for some of my children whom I have had a difficult time with this year. One of my readers mentioned family gifts and Cindy Bodie did a blog on family gifts recently as well. Because over the years, we have parented nearly 100 children, we practically own every toy, book, and gadget known to modern children already. Not to... 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

If you are an adoptive family who celebrates Christmas, do you use it as a behavior modifier? One of my friends has adopted a sibling group of three. While the children have been in this adoptive home for four years, they were actually adopted 10 months ago. She uses a credit and reward system similar to the one I use to modify unacceptable behavior. I have included the form and instructions that we use in some recent blogs, so you may be familiar with the system. Her system also involves losing presents, whether they are for birthdays, Christmas, Easter, or one of the various other... more

Because our home is out in the sticks, we have only had DSL internet service for about five months. We were the first home on our road to get DSL, prior to that, only dial-up was available. Of course, we were satisfied with dial-up back then, because we didn’t know any better. DSL has made schoolwork, research, and blogging at our home so much easier. Funny isn’t it, how after just five months of using something better, faster, and more reliable we feel almost paralyzed with it gone. We are suffering from the internet blues at our home this week.

One... more

Do you remember when whatever your brothers or sisters were doing had to be more fun than what you were doing? Usually your childish imagination created a wonderful scenario, way out of proportion with reality, on which you were missing out. The old, “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence,” adage. My eight year old has accompanied me to work on several occasions so that I could help him with his schoolwork. He still requires assistance with directions and when I am working in the office, I usually have time to help him. It was not a reward or... more

Guess who turned out to be the most gullible? If you said me, then you guessed correctly. I mentioned in a previous post that the therapist suggested that I let my children choose not to earn credits and suffer the consequences of their choices. That is what I have done for the last few weeks. I have been having difficulty with getting my daughters to turn in their homework. I have posted notes strategically all over the house to remind them, and then I posted a credit sheet that allows them to earn money for turning in their homework as well as other work. I really could not understand... more

Three of my daughters are sitting at home with me tonight. The rest of the children went with Super Dad to the annual Christmas party held by our local Department of Human Services. The party is at a local pizza parlor that has many games for the children to play. The machines spit out tickets that the children exchange for candy, trinkets, or dollar-store toys. As you can imagine the children always have a lot of fun there. I really enjoy going every year as well. It gives me an opportunity to catch up with other foster parents that I don’t see very often. I also enjoy seeing all of... more

If you have adopted children, who were older than newborns at the time of the adoption, then your children have been seriously hurt by the actions or words of another. Why not make a point this holiday season to talk to your adopted children about forgiveness. Certainly, the wounds left behind by abuse, neglect, or abandonment can leave lasting feelings of anger, bitterness, and the desire to retaliate someday. Many times adopted children repress or deny their feelings of bitterness or anger. Perhaps discussing how you have been hurt, how it made you feel, and how you felt... more

Maybe it is because I homeschool my children, they feel they can share intimate thoughts with me. Maybe it is because I am mostly a stay at home mom and spend all day, every day with my children. Perhaps it is because I sometimes share information with them, especially the teenagers that they don’t think I should share. I don’t know the exact reason why my children share very personal information with me, but they do. I would have never had these conversations with my parents even when I was a teenager. My children would not have these conversations with Super Dad and they get embarrassed... more

I have been thinking about creating a morning ritual for starting the day off right with my adopted children for quite a while now, but just haven’t done it. With older adopted special needs children you never quite know how they are going to act each day. Because we homeschool it is particularly important to me what their attitudes are like each day. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a special morning routine that sort of set things off on the right foot every morning? I knew a family that had adopted six children. Every morning she sat out on the porch with them talking quietly and... more