From time to time a foster home may be placed inactive or on hold. This means that for a period of time that the foster home is not open to new foster placements. This does not mean that if you have foster children already living in your home that they will be moved.

Any time foster families can choose to place their home on hold just to allow themselves to take a break from fostering. The truth is that we all need breaks from time to time so this is not a bad thing. One thing you may want to check on before placing your home on hold is how this affects your status and what you will need to do to start fostering again when you are ready.

With my agency, if your home... more

Most parents of children on psychiatric medications are aware that in 2004 the FDA put a “black box” warning on all antidepressants. They declared that the use of antidepressants in children and adolescents was associated with a higher risk of suicide. The warning is carefully worded not to say that antidepressants should not be given to children or adolescents, but that they patients should be carefully monitored.

This... more

Having met a young woman last night at a party who is attending Boston University, it’s only fitting that today I should run across an article from BU’s latest alumni publication, the Bostonian. The article, entitled The Hidden Costs of Malnutrition details the research done by Janina Galler into the effects of malnutrition upon children in Barbados.

Galler’s research over the last 30 years has shown that malnutrition did not seem to impact children’s IQs as much... more

Those of us who have been to Russia already know the drill. Your driver is taking you to the orphanage where the most stressful day of your life awaits, when the car is pulled over by the highway police. Oh, what now, you think. What piece of paperwork have I forgotten to bring?

But the stop has nothing to do with you and everything with what a group of Russian citizens are now saying is wrong with the nation's police force. The road cops are yanking your driver's car off the road purely and simply to extract a little cash. It happened to me once on each of the three trips... more

While I have heard some people (mostly people without an adoption connection) totally disagree with changing a child’s or baby’s name when they are adopted. I was adopted at six weeks old along with my sister a year and a half. When we were adopted our parents decided to keep our first names and change our middle names to a family name.

The thought of keeping part of the given birth name and the adoptive parents adding a name of their own to the adoptee is a nice balance. To keep part of the past while embracing the future is how I see this.

Yes, I have heard that some adoptees are very opposed to have their birth name changed and in some cases change their names back... more

Dora finished her required number of bags of manure, ceased her hollering and was actually quite proud of herself when she came inside tonight to clean up and eat dinner. One of her favorite foods—watermelon—was waiting for her. We had a good talk about how her afternoon unfolded and what choices she had made. Thus far this week she has tried to challenge me with eating slowly, screaming, not doing her chores, some really poor hygiene choices, and various other negative... more

With National Adoption Awareness month coming up (more blogs on this coming in the near future), I decided to do some checking on foster care adoption statistics. It is still a fairly bleak picture. The latest statistics are from 2005.

114,000 children were waiting to be adopted on September 30, 2005. This only includes children under the age of sixteen and whose status is listed as available for adoption or whose parental rights had been terminated.

Here is where a great divide comes in. Only 51,000 children were adopted from foster care from... more

Today was a today when tears flowed like buckets. We bid farewell to the pastors who have served our church for the past twenty years. More importantly than being our pastors, they have become our friends.

The sermon today was not what I expected, and it caused me to think of our own lives with our kids. In the sermon Pastor Jenny said that leaving us today was much like sending her kids off to college. She wondered if she taught them everything that they needed to know in order to be successful in college. Then she wondered if they had taught us the important things... more

My friend Amy that accompanied me to the Pops Concert the other night (preceded by Uno’s Pizza, but after spontaneously researching the calorie content in ½ a regular ‘Shroom pizza, I will never freely eat one again!) Amy has a great deal of stress occurring in her life right now, and it builds upon stress from a RAD child that nearly imploded her family (the child is no longer in her... more

My number one piece of advice for air travel with a child is be prepared. The next best suggestion I can offer is to be flexible. In this post I’m going to share some ideas that may help when you fly home from Viet Nam with your new child. The being flexible part rests squarely on your shoulders, but try to take a deep breath and remind yourself that this trip home is necessary to begin your new life together as a family.

Try and get a bulk head seat. This seating option is fabulous and made out trip home with Ella so much easier! Most airlines will not let you reserve bulk head... more