Blog Roll

Zhanna was adopted from an orphanage in the Karelia region of Russia when she was 2 years old.  As she has gotten older, she has thought about the children who remain in the “baby home” back in Russia. She wanted to do something for those children. So last summer, when she was 10 years old, Zhanna held a yard sale. She sold many of her old toys and clothes to raise money for the children back in the baby home. Through her yard sale, Zhanna raised $500!

 

 Zhanna prepared a letter to be delivered with her donation, as well as a photo of herself taken soon after her adoption, photos of the yard sale and current photos of herself. We then worked out a plan to get all of this to the baby home. Our agency closed our Russian adoption program two years ago, and the Russian government has recently banned adoptions from Russia. So there are no families traveling to Russia to hand-carry donations, as was...

 

Why do some children succeed while others fail?  

 

This is just one of the questions asked by Paul Tough in his revolutionary new book, How Children Succeed.

 

Most of us believe that success in childhood is primarily about cognitive skills—the kind of intelligence that is measured by big vocabularies, good grades in school, a high score on the SATs, and a college admission letter.    

 

Mr. Tough takes a different approach to what makes a successful child.   Drawing on new research from neuroscience, pediatrics, psychology, and economics, he argues that what matters most are the qualities that make up a child’s character: perseverance, curiosity, optimism, self-control, conscientiousness, and what he calls "grit".  Being smart is great, he says, but research is showing that it’s certainly not everything.

 

Take, for example, the case of the GED (the high school equivalency test).  Tough tells the story of how Nobel-prize-winning economist James Heckman discovered that even though the IQs of those who took the GED and those who graduated high school were the same, their lives afterward weren’t anything alike.  In fact, future negative outcomes (unemployment, divorce, use of illegal drugs) were much more likely to occur with GED recipients.  What was happening?  Why were high school graduates so much better off than those who took the GED?  Heckman discovered that character traits like an inclination to persist at a boring and unrewarding task; the ability to delay gratification; and the tendency to follow through on a plan are valuable not just in high school, but in college, and in life.  High School graduates, it turns out, were much more likely to possess these critical traits than their school mates who pursued a GED instead. 

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Just when you think all the months of hard work, worry and uncertainty are finally done,  as you gaze into the beautiful eyes of your newborn baby… there’s a knock at your door. It’s the adoption social caseworker, AGAIN. You are thinking to yourself…what more could she possible want from me? What questions could she possibly ask? She knows all there is to know!

 

Now begins your Post-Placement Supervision period. Post placement supervision services are provided by an adoption caseworker between the time that a child is placed in the home of the prospective adoptive parents, and the time that the child's adoption is finalized in court. The caseworker will visit your home several times during this period, which will generally be somewhere between 6 and 12 months, depending on the legal requirements in your...

Ban on Adoptions from Russia

Irene Jordan, LCSW-C, International Program Director



Since 1992, American families have adopted over 60,000 children from Russia.  Adoptions Together placed 700 of those children with our families between 1992 (when we opened the Russia program) and 2011 (when we closed our Russia program). We feel a strong connection to our families, and have ongoing contact with many of them. We know that having a family has been very beneficial to the children placed from Russian orphanages. It therefore was very sad for us when President Putin announced a ban on the adoption of Russian children by American families. The ban went into effect on January 1, 2013.

 

The impact of this ban was immediately experienced by American families who had been in the process of adopting a child from Russia. There are 50 families who had already completed a court hearing in Russia, but had not yet received the required Russian documents in order to be able to receive placement of the child and return home with the child. When the ban was first announced, it was not clear whether or not these families would be able to complete the process to bring home the children that had legally been adopted. On January 22 the Russian Supreme Court issued a letter to city and regional courts stating that for adoption cases in which there was a court decision prior to January 1, the children should be transferred to the custody of their American adoptive parents.  However news reports on February 19 of the death of a 3-year old Russian adoptee in Texas add still more uncertainty, as Russian officials allege that the child died as a result of abuse.    

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Where Are The Adoptable Young Children in Foster Care?

Carol Edelstein, AdoptionWorks Program Director

If you don’t want to adopt an infant (or you are over the preferred maximum age), are not willing or able to pursue an international adoption, and don’t feel prepared to jump into parenthood with an adolescent in foster care, what options are left?  Where are all of the children in U.S. foster care between the ages of  one and nine who are available for adoption?  This is a common question that we find ourselves answering on an almost daily basis.

There are numerous reasons why it is very difficult to adopt children under the age of ten through the foster care system.  Some of these reasons are:

When children come into foster care, the initial goal and resulting plan is typically focused on reunifying them with their birthparent(s).  Services are put into place to help the birthparent(s) improve their challenging situation so that they can have their children returned to them. ...

Erica Moltz, MA, NCC Clinical Director and Parent Coach

 

Perhaps when you think about mindfulness you conjure up an image of a person sitting cross legged on the ground, with eyes closed, peacefully meditating, away from the trials and tribulations of everyday life.  Although practicing mindfulness in this way may be helpful for some, it won’t provide you with useful parenting strategies when your eight your old daughter is ignoring your third request to shut off the computer and get ready for bed, and you are ready to “blow a gasket.”   At these times, when it takes all your will power to keep from screaming and yelling at her, you need concrete suggestions.  During these predictable, challenging parenting times, practicing mindfulness can be an effective tool.  By de-escalating your own emotional volatility, you can more effectively handle conflicts...

Adoption is an emotional process that is both exhausting and exhilarating.  When the big moment finally arrives, adoptive parents have usually experienced many highs and lows, and have waited a long time for a child to be placed in their arms.   Newly adoptive parents may feel confused and guilt-ridden.  Instead of being grateful and overjoyed, they feel ambivalent, depressed, resentful or angry, and may even be questioning their decision to adopt.   There is a sense that they “should” feel happy and content now that they finally have what they have wanted and worked towards all this time.  When the post adoption blues hit, it is often unexpected and always unwelcome.

Although it is not a formally recognized disorder, Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome (PADS) is a term coined by June Bond in 1995 to describe...

Parenting a Child With Mental Illness:  What Can We Learn from Newtown, Connecticut? Janice Goldwater, LCSW-C, Executive Director This season, as we slow down and focus on family, we appreciate the chance to connect with those we love and celebrate our holiday traditions in warmth and safety.  Unfortunately, many families in Newtown, Connecticut and beyond won’t have that feeling of safety. Contemplating the horrific circumstances of this tragedy is overwhelming. Many are asking why and how this could happen, and what would motivate a human being to take the lives of innocent people in this way.  The enormity and long term impact of this situation are incomprehensible.  Our thoughts and hearts go out to all of the families who have lost so much.  Interestingly, many have placed blame on the perpetrator’s mother; in fact, so much so that her life has not been counted in the tragic loss.   The number 26 we all hear does not include her.

 

Instead of blaming his mother for what she did or did...

When Older Children Are Placed For Adoption at Holiday Time Carol Edelstein AdoptionWorks Program Director

It is not unusual for older children to be placed for adoption during the school break between just before Christmas and just after New Years.  The argument for placing children at this time is to allow them to spend a little bit of time settling in to their new adoptive home and family without the pressure of immediately starting a new school.  This also allows the child to begin their new school at a time when all of their new classmates are returning after a long break.  While those are valid reasons for placing children over the holidays, there also can be difficult issues that arise for children coming from foster care, or from an overseas orphanage, at this time of the year.  It is important for adoptive parent(s) to be sensitive to their new child during this time of transition and change, recognizing that the holidays may be difficult for older adopted children. 

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MINDFULNESS PARENTING - STOP, DROP AND ROLL Erica Moltz, MA, NCC Clinical Director and Parent Coach

 

This is the first in a series about using mindful parenting practices as a way to create and maintain a more peaceful and calm family life.  Daniel Hughes and Jonathan Baylin in their ground breaking book, Brain Based Parenting, define mindfulness as “the open acceptance of the here and now experience, focusing on it without judgement, evaluation or efforts to change it”.  They clarify that this acceptance helps an individual go deeper into the present moment, trying to understand it more fully and to experience what is unique about it. 

What we do matters with our children, as we are the ones who shape and re-shape their maps of relationships and how the world works. Learning...