Behavioural

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 the time I was two years old until I turned 18. I don't really remember a lot of my first foster home or much of my childhood. I was abused by my mom and 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 in a respectful and mature way, and it was getting hard for my grandparents to take care of me.

In the eight 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.

The benefits of summer camp

• Children who join their family through adoption, especially older children or children with special needs, often feel different from their peers at school.

In the ninth of our series, we present the secret thoughts of an adoptive mom of three kids. This time, mom loses confidence that she can cope.

The past ten days have been an absolute nightmare. The foster parents came for a visit last weekend. We'd planned this a month ago, and we all through it would be good for Grant and Lynn to see Susan and Mike. We believed this would help cement the concept of foster parents always being part of their adoption story.

In the tenth of our series, we present the secret thoughts of an adoptive mom of three kids. The behaviourist, Roz, who has come in to help the struggling family is teaching Mom how actions speak louder than words.

Roz has been observing the kids for a while now and although she still hasn't come up with a magical word to make it all better, I think we're making progress.

By the time their long-awaited adopted child is placed in their arms, parents usually--and understandably--just want to put all the heartache behind them and move on into the joyful realms of parenthood. But their very real feelings of loss need to have a place in the story of their new family, or they can cast ever-lengthening shadows on the relationship between parents and child.

In the eleventh of our series we present the, until now, secret thoughts of an adoptive mom of three kids. This time, our struggling mom faces her own feelings of loss over the life she had before the second adoption--a loss she feels is often not properly acknowledged.

I feel like such an idiot; I think I'm finally getting what the problem is. Or, should I say, what "my" problem is. You would think that will all the reading I did before the kids came home I would be a little more aware. Apparently not.

In the thirteenth of our series we present the secret thoughts of an adoptive mom of three kids. This time, our struggling mom feels better, and weathers Christmas.

December

Just this morning I was sitting in the van (as usual) waiting for the girls to finish preschool (as usual) when this bizarre and unfamiliar feeling came over me.

At first I didn't know what it was, and then it hit me. I was actually feeling happy! And then I started laughing at myself. It had been so long since I've felt happy that I hadn't even noticed!