You know the old saying, “blood is thicker than water?” You adopt an older sibling group, already in their teens. You parent them as best you can considering their ages, unique individual issues, and ongoing connection to their birth family. However, in just a few short years they are adults, they move out of your home, and begin blaming you for everything. They turn against your family, and everything your family stands for.

They come into your house and begin making accusations. They belittle your parenting skills and the choices you made for them as their parent.... more

You have adopted a sibling group and just doubled the size of your family over night. The children you have just adopted range in age from toddler to teenager. Each child has special issues that are being addressed through therapy, school, and family time. Your schedule has changed from having periodic free time to frantic dashing from one appointment to another.

Your friends begin to slip away, one by one, because you no longer have time for them. Your new network includes doctors, therapist, and support group members. You trade in your cute little sports car for a fifteen-passenger... more

Our oldest daughter, who is also our oldest child by 22 days, has gotten married. She is the first of our eleven children to marry. She was very gracious in including not only her birth sisters in her wedding, but nearly all of her siblings by adoption as well.

She talked about just going to the justice of the peace, but I talked her into having a church wedding. She began attending our church when she came to live in our home as a foster child at the age of 13. The church has remained a part of her life ever since and I am sure that the memories of a church wedding are much... more

I have to share the most amazing story of survival with you. I still cannot believe it myself, though I see it with my own eyes. Yesterday, at this time I was crying because we had found one of our favorite pets dead. She had been missing for over three months.

Today, we headed out to have a family burial. In the past when a cherished family pet has died all of the children gather around, we dig a grave, we place the deceased in the hole, we pray, and we make a grave marker. That is what we intended to do today.

Maybe I should go back to the beginning. About every... more

Sure, your children enjoy playing together, it is fun, and they learn a lot about each other. However, when they work together they learn each other’s strengths and limitations. They learn to respect each other’s abilities and can take pride in their own accomplishments as well as their brother’s accomplishments.

If your children aren’t getting along, maybe they aren’t even speaking to each other, putting them to work on a project may solve the problem. Either a project that requires teamwork and communication to get it done quickly will solve the problem or they will be... more

If you are part of a large family, one thing is for sure, you can’t get away with sneaking, lying, stealing, or anything else. Whatever a child in a large family does, there always seems to be brothers or sisters nearby to witness the act. I frequently wonder why some of my children continue to try after 100 attempts or more have been busted. One child in our home sometimes commits acts right in the plain sight of her brothers and sisters. Does she think that this time they might not tell, even though they have been tattling on her for years?

When our first... more

I read an article in an adoptive newsletter once that said, “You might be a foster or adoptive parent if you have three beautiful daughters and they are all named Jessica.” It really does get confusing when you blend families by adoption and you end up with siblings who have the same or very similar names. Marie over at the Christian Adoption blogs was just talking about this dilemma in her own blended family.

When we adopted our first sibling group, two daughters, we tried to convince them to change their names, just a little. Our oldest daughter happened to have the same name as a cousin who was the... more

I was talking to one of my new friends met through adoption blogs last week about the “stair step” siblings that she adopted. The children are currently teenagers, but at the time of their placement in her home, they were newborn, 11 months and 27 months. Three children in diapers at the same time sounds crazy and it makes life a little crazy while you are living it.

While Super Dad and I haven’t had the pleasure of adopting a sibling group like that, we have fostered several. I was reminded of what it was like last night to parent “stair step” children. Our oldest... more

Whenever they are playing games, sharing snacks, or just helping others, do your children who are birth siblings always choose each other instead of a sibling by adoption? It doesn’t seem to matter how long the siblings have been in your home. Their choices never seem to take into consideration who is the most deserving or needy at the time either. It doesn’t even matter if they are passing out extra chores; they still choose their birth siblings.

As a parent, I sometimes find this phenomenon a bit frustrating. I like to think that I treat my children as equally as... more

While attending junior high or high school, did you ever look around at your classmates and think, “When I grow up, I am going to parent your children?” Hopefully, parenting children was the farthest thing from your mind back then. While I didn’t actually think these thoughts in school or ever, this actually happened to my family.

When we agreed to accept the sibling group, we didn’t know too much about them. We knew their ages, first names, and they had lived with their maternal grandparents for two years. There was a return home plan that their mother seemed... more