Adoptees: Choices, Not Blankets

It’s presumptuous to make a blanket statement about any group of people. It’s inappropriate to assume that an individual will like or dislike something without first getting his or her input. Then why are blanket statement being made about open vs. closed adoption? The unbiased truth about the matter is, there are voices from all triad sides proclaiming the merits of both, yes both. While this country proudly...

Adoption And Race

What role does race play in adoption? Not the race of the child, but rather the race of the person or couple who is adopting. Has your race ever been a factor (not necessarily in a negative way either) in your adoption process? I asked this question at our adoption forums and I’ll open it up to our blog visitors as well. Feel free to answer in a comment here, or on your own blog. If you answer at your blog, let me know...

Let’s Get Real!

The term “real” is a source of frustration for those involved in adoption, and yet, people untouched by adoption continue to use it to refer to the biological parents. If you ask an adoptee who the “real” parents are, chances are the child will point to the actively parenting, adoptive parents. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards have words describing active parenting, nurturing qualities....

Adoption Books For Children

Children love to read stories they can relate to, and young adoptees are no exception. Here are some of the bestselling childrens adoption books, including some of our personal favorites. Click each one to get more information and to purchase any of these adoption books for children. I Wished for You: an Adoption Story And Tango Makes Three Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born A...

Watch The Adoption Angles Webcast Tonight

Debbie Schwartz, program coordinator for Adoption Connection: Jewish Family Services of Greenwich, and a valued member of our adoption forums, is the guest for tonight’s Adoption Angle’s webcast at 9 pm EST /6 pm PST. Click here to watch live . You can login, watch Debbie, and type in questions and comments for her. Click here to watch the archived interview (Click on the May 19 episode to watch the 60 minute...

Families Change: A Book for Children Experiencing ...

All families change over time. Sometimes a baby is born, or a grown-up gets married. And sometimes a child gets placed in foster care. Children need to know that when this happens, it’s not their fault. When a child gets adopted they need to understand that they can remember and value their birth family and love their new family, too. Straightforward words and full-color illustrations offer hope and support for...

I Don’t Have Your Eyes

Family connections are vitally important to children as they begin to find their place in the world. For transracial and transcultural adoptees, domestic adoptees, and for children in foster care or kinship placements, celebrating the differences within their families as well as the similarities that connect them, is the foundation for belonging. As parents we can strengthen our children’s tie to family and embrace the...

How To Join Our Adoption Forums

Forever Parents was created in 2002, to support and encourage parents of adoptees and those who are on the path to becoming one. Along with this community blog and our adoption store, the heart of Forever Parents has always been our adoption forum. It’s important for those of us who adopted our children to interact (online or off) with others who understand and can empathize with us. Equally as important is for...

Support Adoption And Send A Free E-card For Father...

It’s no secret around here that I am a big supporter of the work The Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption does. Now you can help and it won’t cost you a thing. Create and send a free fathers days e-card, or choose a celebrity created one through their site Frosty Card and Wendy’s will donate 25 cents to The Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption. Father’s day is this Sunday so stop by their site and...

Adoption Community Protest Movie “OrphanR...

Update: Debbie, one of our adoption forum members shared a sample letter. I posted it at the bottom. Update #2: A list of email addresses has been added at the bottom of this post. One of our adoption forum members brought this to our attention (thanks Debbie!) and I am passing it along to anyone who may be interested. I’m also adding my personal thoughts, which I shared on our adoption forum, at the end of this...

Free Course On Creating Lifebooks

Adoption Learning Partners is offering a free online course all about creating lifebooks. This course covers some of the things that could be included in a lifebook, and provides templates you can print out and use. This course will be free until May 31, 2009. Beginning June 1, however, there will be a $30 fee. So there’s extra motivation to get started now! Use the link below to register. Adoption Learning Partners ©...

International Adoption Resources

(note: you can purchase all the books mentioned in this article, through our secured amazon store, by clicking the links) by Cynthia Teeters You may think that the first thing to do to start an international adoption is to get a list of agencies and begin contacting them for information. Actually, you start by realizing that thousands of parents have passed successfully through this process before you and that by tapping into...

National Adoption Day 2008

National Adoption Day is a collective national effort to raise awareness of the 129,000 children in foster care waiting to find permanent, loving families. For the last eight years, National Adoption Day has made the dreams of thousands of children come true by working with courts, judges, attorneys, adoption professionals, child welfare agencies and advocates to finalize adoptions and find permanent, loving homes for...

Adoption Secret at Postsecret

I’ve been reading Post Secret for a long time. Every Sunday morning I have my tea while reading other people’s deep, dark (and some not so dark) secrets. Sometimes they have to do with adoption. Like this one: (posted at their facebook group which you may have to join to view) Post Secret facebook group If you’re having a hard time joining, the card says: “Thank you for giving me up for adoption. I...

Preparing Your Child To Answer Adoption Questions

Maybe it’s because my own children came to us at an older age…or maybe because my husband & I have different color skin than two of our children, but adoption is a topic we discuss openly and freely. It comes up in natural, conversations that we have with each other and other people. It’s something that is part of our life and “just is”, know what I mean? Whenever people ask me questions like...

Adoptee Summer Camp in Michigan

If you’re the parent of a Korean adoptee in the Michigan area, Sae Jong Camp might be of interest to you. From their website: Our mission is to provide all Korean-American children the opportunity to explore their Korean-American identities, learn about their Korean heritage, and make friendships to last a lifetime. Our camp also provides an opportunity for campers to share their experiences with other campers and...

Summer Camp For Iowa Adoptees And Their Families

Iowans for International Adoption, formed in 1972, was originally created to help families in search of international adoption assistance. Giving families an opportunity to meet and support each other, this annual picnic expanded into a weekend retreat and eventually the current K.A.M.P (Korean Adoption Means Pride) and International Retreat. An annual KAMP and retreat that takes place each year in Cedar Falls, IA, for both...

Transracial Adoptees

Growing up black in a white family By SALLY ACHARYA “We had a big white Ford van with windows all around so people could see in. From the inside of the van, I felt like there were all these white heads and then right in the middle this little brown dot . . . When people saw me with my family, they’d do a double take.” –Shecara, nurse and mother Thirty years ago a commercial about needy Cambodians...

Reality Of The Hurt Adoptee

A local magazine, Family Times, interviewed me in last September about older child adoption. One of the many issues I spoke about was when people tell my children that they “have a new life now”. I disagree. It’s still the same life, just a new chapter in it. What happened in their earlier years are part of who they are today, not just in some other life. We don’t try to make it pretty. We don’t...

Reactive Attachment Disorder in Young Adoptees

My oldest child (adopted at 11 years old in 2003) struggles with severe emotional issues. He was diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder while still in foster care and his inability to control his anger is leading him down a path that concerns me. When we adopted him, we knew he had issues to deal with and we have done more to help him than we even thought we had in us. I’ll write more about RAD in another post but...

Study On Young Adoptees

UNCG RESEARCHERS FIND ADOPTED CHILDREN TO BE AS WELL-ADJUSTED AS THEIR PEERS By Deborah Durkee Dr. DiAnne Borders Dr. Kay Pasley GREENSBORO — Parenting is a tough job. One with many questions and no training manual, employing instead a sink-or-swim method of learning. Add adoption to the mix, and the questions of parenting become more complicated, causing adoptive parents to seek advice from counselors more quickly and...