adoption and tweens
Adoptive parenting is a challenge. Adoption and tweens is new territory entirely. Parenting tweens who are growing more independent every day is also full of ups and downs. But parenting tweens and teens who are conflicted by the dualities of wanting to grow up and gain independence like an average tween or teen, and needing to feel safe still due to early life insults makes life even more interesting. Many children who come to their forever families by adoption get there due to an apprehension by Children's Aid, neglect or abandonment. All of which are serious emotional and developmental challenges. Adoption and tweens is new territory both for the adoptive parents and the children as well. Many adoptees can be emotionally much younger than their chronological age indicates. So what issues have we faced when navigating tweenhood alongside adoption grief and loss and growth?
Adoption and Tweens:
Let's share our stories and work through the challenges of parenting kids who often need a bit more at a time when they should developmentally be pulling away.-
The Art of Hope and Parenting Teens
At some point this past year I realized my children aren’t really children anymore, not in the strictest sense of the word. One is a teenager and the other a tween and that means that in the context of child development they are in fact closer to being adults than they are to being toddlers or preschoolers or children. My heart simultaneously leaps, shouts, cries, expands and contracts as I write that. As they bloom so do I, and yet it also tugs heavily when I think that they will soon be adults. Oh my god how I hope we still have a lifetime together. How I hope I will…
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Five Things I Know About Childhood Anxiety – Part 1 of a New Series
In 2014 we spent a huge amount of time investing in educating our family about childhood anxiety. We took part in a weekly youth group therapy session to help parents and children understand and manage anxiety. It was gruelling and exhausting and, I hope, worth it. Every single Tuesday for several months my daughter and I drove to the children’s hospital in town and we learned how to successfully manage her childhood anxiety. We split into two groups every session. There was a parents group and a youth group. Eventually we all came together to discuss things together but the first part of each session was divided into parents and…
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Ring Ring Pick up the Phone… ERRRR Don’t: Hard Life Lessons for Digital Kids
Girls are the best. Except when they are giving me grey hairs. Which was the weekend. Oh I still love them madly and to the moon and back. But opening a Rogers bill to find out someone had added data packs on their own to their relatively newly connected phone supposed to be used for emergencies only, and then having my eyeballs pop out of my head, was not on the schedule for today. And yet there it was $400 worth of added data. So what happened? Well, I picked my eyeballs up off my laptop and then I spent two hours on the phone with Rogers this morning sorting…
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We Stay: Five Things I Never Told You About Special Needs Adoption
I am not unlike you. I love my kids more than anything on the planet. They are my heart. They are my life. They are my first glorious sight in the morning. (One of them bursts into my room every day at crack of dawn, but that’s another story) and one of the last things I see at night. There is nothing that can bring out the mama bear in me like someone wronging my child. My family is not perfect, but it is mine. Everything I do is to build a future for them. Most of you know by now that we are an adoptive family. I write about special needs…
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How I Started and Continue the Period Talk With My Daughter
How we tackle tough topics in my family is something I often talk about here. Period talk is no different. It’s just part of being a parent. Periods are as natural as showering, eating and sleeping here. So why shy away from period talk? Starting and continuing the period conversation is an important part of parenting and a vital part of development for young girls too. This post is part of the YummyMummyClub.ca and Always Tampax sponsored program. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors. Do you remember the book Are you There…
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Navigating Adoption and the Tween Years
Just 11 short years ago, my oldest daughter could be picked up and carried around. Sigh. Now she’s a tween. Let me just say the tween years are clearly preparation for the teen years ahead. But adoption and the tween years, well that’s just a special planet in the parenting journey. And me with Payton last summer at a Dove event. My kids are all sorts of awesome. Except when they are not. Sound familiar? I’m not complaining, because I love them, all the time, even when they are not particularly loving. Anyways I slept very poorly last night which is unusual because I am always exhausted when I finally…
