Behavioural

Rebekah Craig, AFABC’s Education Manager, sat down with Registered Clinical Counsellor Carrie DeJong to discuss trauma-informed care.

You can also view the full video of the interview on Facebook, or below the article. 

We've added 40 books to our adoption library! Check them out here, and stop by our head office in Burnaby to borrow one. For more information on our lending library visits our main library page.     

Focus on Adoption and AFABC have always sought to centre adoptee voices and perspectives, but the #FlipTheScript campaign (launched during Adoption Awareness Month in 2014) inspired us to launch a regular column called "Adopted Voice." The series ran from 2015 to 2016.

In ongoing this series, we interview experts about your key questions about adoption.

Are you an expert wanting to lend your knowledge to our families? Email us at editor@bcadoption.com.

Here are some of the articles from our long-running Diary of an Adoptive Mom series. This adoptive mother shares her experiences and secret thoughts of raising three children. This series ran from 2006 to 2010.

Note: Diary entries #1 to #7 are unavailable 

As if the back to school routine isn’t busy enough for families, there is also the added stress for parents of children with special needs to participate in Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings for each of their children. Here are 10 tips to help you go in with a positive attitude, a collaborative mindset, and a plan of action.

Preparing to welcome a new child is one of the most intense, emotional, and demanding times in any waiting parent’s adoption journey. It’s also when friends and family are likely to have the most questions! Keeping everyone in the loop can be overwhelming. One way to handle it is to write a letter. Here’s a heartfelt and inspirational example from a waiting (now adoptive!) parent, who shared her letter on Facebook.

Respite is a vital support for many adoptive families, but it can be a challenge to access funding and to find trustworthy and reliable caregivers. In this article, an adoptive mom of many explains how to make respite a basic part of your family lifestyle rather than a last resort.

“I can’t deal with this right now”

My beautiful daughter’s hair was plastered to her head, soaked in sweat. Her clothes were covered in dirt from her tantrum, which almost always has her kicking and screaming on the floor, or the ground, or wherever.

When Ellen and her husband adopted a child from foster care, they were blindsided by the challenges. Now, Ellen is the happy mother of a successful adult daughter. She hopes her story encourages other parents to hold on to hope.

Being a parent is never easy. Add in the complexities of adoption, trauma, and special needs, and you’re likely to discover that tactics like time outs and star charts are useless at best. What does that leave you with? Amanda Preston’s surprising suggestions may be just the tricks you need.

Rethinking bad behaviour

You’re standing in your kitchen washing dishes when suddenly your 10-year-old child walks in. He asks if he can have an ice cream sandwich. Dinner is in 5 minutes so you calmly let him know not right now, but after dinner.