Behavioural

How our brains grow

We’re each born with as many brain cells as the Milky Way has stars—approximately 100 billion of them. These brain cells cells, known as neurons, form connections that are called synapses. They divide and multiply like wildfire, creating new cells and and forming even more connections. In a positive, healthy environment, the brain explodes with growth until around age 3.5.This frenzy of growth slows and levels off after that, but it doesn’t stop. By mid- to late childhood, a typical brain contains twice as many synapses as it did at birth.

New research reveals that prenatal alcohol exposure impacts the entire body, not just the brain.

A whole-body disorder

For the past several decades, the widely held assumption in the field of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) research has been that a fetus’s brain is by far more vulnerable to the damaging effects of alcohol exposure than any other part of its developing body.

Storytelling can help your child receive a more accurate assessment

Advice from a counsellor on how to recognize and help wounded children and youth.

Trauma: adoption’s shadow

Many children and youth who are adopted have been exposed to highly stressful situations and traumatic events; however, the resulting special needs these children can experience aren’t always recognized or supported. It’s vital for caregivers and professionals to learn the signs and symptoms of trauma as they present in children and youth, and to know how to find and access age-appropriate trauma-informed care.

As the eldest daughter in a family with 13 children, Rosaleen Milner knew all about life with many siblings. She also knew she wanted something different for her own future, something bold and adventurous. She wasn’t going to get married, and she definitely wasn’t having kids. That all changed when she met a handsome engineering student named Roger at Bible camp the summer she turned 15. A new vision started to take shape, one that would lead her on an overseas adventure, yes—but as that engineer’s wife, and the mother of their six children.

There’s no better time than the present for adoptive families to get reacquainted with Mother Nature. Angela Krueger, an Ontario PRIDE trainer, parent facilitator, freeelance writer, and adoptive mom, explains how getting outside can facilitate attachment for adoptive families, and shares practical tips to help you make it happen.

Take a walk

“Again?” my preteen asks, rolling her eyes, when I say it’s time for a walk around the block.

If you're adopted or in care, it can be difficult to make and keep friends. So many things are always going on in your life. There might be attachment anxieties, loss and grief, and issues with separating from what you were once comfortable with. Change is really hard because you're trying to figure out "why" all the time.

I grew up in care from two years old until I turned 18. I don't remember much of my first foster home or much of my childhood. My mom abused me, and I ended up with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I was also diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).

I do remember moving into my grandparents' house at the age of four. I lived there until I was 12. It was then that my disabilities began to show. I wasn't sure how to express myself or my feelings respectfully and maturely, and it was getting hard for my grandparents to take care of me.

In the eighth of our series, we present the secret thoughts of an adoptive mom of three kids. After a couple of months having the children home, our mom finally admits she's overwhelmed and needs help.

No, I am not writing this from the psych ward. However, there are times when that is a definite possibility. Although things have improved since April, there is still such a long way to go.

I’m a mom of four children, all adopted at different ages and stages. My first child was born in the US in 1997 and adopted as a newborn. In 2006  I adopted three more children from Liberia in West Africa. They were 2, 4, and 13 years old (though the 13 year old wouldn’t actually join our family until he was nearly 19).

In 2006, Liberia was a country in turmoil, it was just a few years after the civil war had ended, the infant and child mortality rates were incredibly high, and the adoptions were being processed relatively quickly.