Karyn Purvis, author of the wonderful book, The Connected Child has a new video series, on-line and free. On May 3rd, a study guide for The Connected Child will be released, again free of charge. From the new announcement:
As more and more people answer the call to adopt, it is important that we understand that the children that God will bring into our lives through adoption and foster care will likely have deep hurts and needs. Therefore, an important part of our call is to be prepared to be used by God to help these children heal and become whole. This is undoubtedly one of the greatest joys and privileges of adoption – but we know it will not be easy.
The resources and tools offered by Empowered To Connect are designed to help those whom God is calling and has called to answer that call well – to know what to expect, to be ready and prepared and, ultimately, to help bring long-term healing to their child. It is precisely this kind of 'love in action' that we believe reflects what it means to be called by God to adopt.
With this in mind, Empowered To Connect is excited to announce the Insights & Gifts Video Series. This new 16 video series (developed in partnership with the TCU Institute of Child Development ) offers seven insights and seven gifts that are highly relevant for those who are parenting or considering adopting or fostering children from hard places. Empowered To Connect is also developing a discussion guide for this video series, which will be available in May 2010.
We hope that you will watch this new series and be blessed by the insights and gifts Dr. Purvis offers.
Update on the Study Guide for The Connected Child
As you know we have been working for some time to complete the study guide for The Connected Child. We are excited to announce that this project is being finalized at this very moment. The study guide will be available for download free of charge on the Empowered To Connect website beginning Monday, May 3, 2010. This guide will help illuminate the biblical principles that serve as the foundation for the philosophy and the interventions detailed in The Connected Child.
Our prayer is that this resource will be another important tool for parents and others who are committed to helping children from hard places heal and fully experience the love of God.
When a child psychologist, one whom you highly respect, recommends a book, you take note. When she specializes in adoption and attachment and the book is for adopted teens, you pay even closer attention.
Upon this professional recommendation, I asked for a review copy of Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be?, a new book from adoption publisher EMK Press, edited by Robert L. Ballard. I haven’t been disappointed.
The book contains articles, poems and artwork, primarily by adopted teens, along with a few pieces by older adoptees and adoptive parents. The wide variety of perspectives ensures that teen readers will find stories from others with whom they personally identify. The contents are heartfelt, and contributors share the sorrows and joys inherit with being adopted. Several worthwhile assignments encourage readers to consider their feelings through writing and artwork.
The book contains mature content and parents of young teens may wish to preview and then discuss some of the more adult topics with their children. As a parent, I look forward to sharing the book with my kids. I only wish that the book contained more articles written by boys as most are penned by girls; perhaps that can be considered in a follow-up.
Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? fills a unique gap in the book industry…a book by and for adopted teens. I’m glad to have this resource available for my children.
Book Giveaway! (Now closed to new entries...thanks for participating!) EMK Press has generously offered to provide one copy of this book for a giveaway.
Ways to Enter:
1. Comment on why you would like to own the book.
2. Link this giveaway on Twitter, Facebook or a forum and leave a comment here about what you did. You may do this as many times as you like!
3. Visit the EMK Press site and leave a comment here about which other book you'd most like to own.
4. Leave a comment about what you would most like to see added to the A4everFamily site.
5. Blog about this giveaway and link back to this page. Post a link to your blog entry.
On your comment, leave an email contact such as JaneDoe at gmail dot com so we can reach the winner. Entries will be chosen at random and announced on May 3rd. (Note: when you comment, you are required to enter the numbers in the code box. This will hopefully save us from spammers.)
An interesting thing happened to me a few weeks ago – I ran into a friend downtown, and we stopped to catch up quickly. I asked how her job was going – she’s a Manager within a very large, multi-million dollar non-profit organization. “It’s great”, she’d said. I asked about her volunteer work – she’s no longer volunteering locally, but is the President-Elect for the national organization, and steps into the Chairperson role within this next year. On that day, she was hosting the current national President, regarding some potential projects that were in works. How about her oldest child’s soccer? Great, again – she’s playing year round, has moved up into the rep team. Her youngest child discovered camping this summer, always happy and on the go. I was so pleased to hear not only about all of these achievements but also about her children, and said so as we said our goodbyes.
I thought back over the years. I’d first met Ann when she was a teenager. She began volunteering in the organization I’d worked in, and over the years we became friends. Although she was15 years younger than me, we’d connected. She attended college to study the same career as mine. Upon graduation, I hired her. Ultimately, she left to begin with the non-profit she’s stayed with. I’d been her mentor, but she soon became a peer.
As we each went our own way, I was struck by the differences in our lives right now. Her role within the community has expanded and grown. My life seems to have shrunk. Her contribution to our society is immense. My life is centered around my work and home. She’s involved in the lives of many. My job has narrowed and my energies expended in smaller projects, and on trying to help our two children. Interesting, the difference. And then, I realized “She’s living the life that I thought I’d lead”.
Wow – time to think this one through. Prod, poke, examine. How did this happen? Well, that seems to be fairly simple. We wanted a family. We decided to adopt, first one child and then a second. Our children are beautiful, wonderful, and precious beyond belief. They are the most important part of my existence. But, as they grew and changed, we began to understand that there were challenges and issues. The oldest was diagnosed as a severe ADHD, when just a preschooler. Over the years we’ve added many more diagnoses, as we try to ‘peel the onion’ and understand her situation. Number two daughter seemed to be so much more difficult. The medical profession missed the cues. After much much research and heart ache, we finally realized she was a RAD child – anxious attachment disorder to be specific. When the diagnosis was confirmed, it took time again to find the resources and make the needed changes. I discontined my volunteer roles – finally understanding that being a role model outside the home wasn’t helping our children with coping in daily life. My husband found work that enabled him to have a flexible schedule, so that one of us was always home after school with the kids. I scaled back my work hours, and practiced saying ‘no’ to my boss – both of us realizing that there were limits to my ability to contribute in the workplace. We eliminated any programs that our youngest had been involved in, making her world small and focusing on our family. She and I both minimized her social commitments – she simply couldn’t cope. Our friendship circle grew smaller, and our lives simpler. It’s a very different life, than what I had imagined.
I wondered how I thought about all of this. Poke, prod, examine. Am I sad? Am I jealous of Ann? She has the life I thought I’d wanted. How do I feel about this?
Hmm, interesting, and perhaps a bit weird – because, I’m not sad….. or angry …….or jealous…….. That seems a little – odd !!! Shouldn’t I be?
I’m actually kind of surprised. I don’t seem to be driven towards the kinds of achievements that are part of Ann’s life. As a matter of fact, it makes me shudder since I don’t actually want to be involved in those type of situations any more. It appears that I’m not drawn in those directions. That is a big change. Does it mean that I’ve given up my dreams? No, it sort of feels as though my dreams have shifted and changed. I need to think that one through.
Poke, prod, examine. Well, I had always thought I’d lead the type of life that my own mother had led. She adored her career, it had been one of the primary areas of importance in her life. She’d continued studying throughout her life, aspiring to work positions with greater responsibilities. She was active, dynamic, and well respected. She volunteered with many organizations, contributing to our small town in grass roots initiatives. She helped organize a union for her profession. I realized that I had taken on her values and goals, I’d aspired to the same contributions that she had. But, somehow our paths had diverged.
In the last couple of years, as we’ve worked hard on the attachment issues, the bond and connection between myself and our children has deepened and strengthened immensely. We have a much closer relationship, than I’d had with my beloved mother. Hmm, that’s interesting.
Poke, prod, examine. I began to understand how much I’ve, kind of, acclimatized myself to our situation. In making our world smaller, my goals and dreams have become based on the needs of our children, rather than myself. I dream of getting our youngest to the point where she can cope without meltdowns, where she can leave the house without anxiety. I dream of raising our oldest to believe in herself, and to find her place in life, despite her challenges. I dream of raising children who are happy within themselves. My joys are no longer situated within the broader community – they are in the simple things in life, in the notes that my daughters left me on the front door one evening this week – ‘When you come home from playing cards with your friends tonight Mommy, come in and kiss me even though I’m sleeping’.
Then, yesterday, I ran into Ann again, downtown at the lunch hour. I asked if she had two minutes, I wanted to talk to her about something. We sat, and I told her that I’d been thinking of writing about this. I teared up, explaining how I’d been thinking of her and us, and how life has evolved for each of us. In her wise and mature way (and with tears in her eyes), she summarized it well. Indeed, her life is impacting and helping in the lives of many. Yes, my life is impacting and helping deeply in the lives of a few – that of my children. And what we each do, is immensely important, just simply in different ways.
I am so incredibly, inordinately proud of Ann. And, I am so incredibly and completely comfortable with the role and the life I lead. It is what I was meant to do. I’m living the life that I need and want to live.
In the last six months, Patty Cogen’s book, Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child, has come up in more conversations on adoptive family forums that I can ever remember happening with a new book. Now I know why.
It’s quite simply, AMAZING.
Imagine being invited to participate in a “First Year Home" support group alongside the families of:
Soon An, adopted at seven-months-old from Korea, foster care
Sonia, adopted at thirteen-months-old from Guatemala, foster care
Demetri, adopted at nineteen-months-old from Russia, orphanage/hospital
Mu Ling, adopted at two and a half years old from China, orphanage
Yi Sheng, adopted at four and a half from China, orphanage/foster care
Through the lives of these children, fictionally based on composites of many children with whom Cogen worked, the reader becomes a fly-on-the-wall, seeing behaviors through the eyes of a professional who recognizes that internationally adopted children take an average of four times longer to develop the “same level of behavioral and emotional self-control as their non-adopted peers.” Cogen teaches five reactive coping patterns typically seen in newly-arrived, internationally adoptive children:
The Warm Rock: Quiet, withdrawn, sleeping
The Stunned Rag Doll: Spacy, frozen, limp
The Dizzy Performer: Active: performing and charming, overly friendly to adults
The Royal Boss: Controlling and demanding; may throw tantrums
The Unwilling Guest: Rejecting and sad; waiting, searching or calling; or hyper-alert
Yet the “First Year Home” group isn’t just about recognizing initial behaviors; it’s also seeing how these issues play out over time and building a toolbox full of strategies designed for parenting these children throughout their lives. Age groups 3-5, 6-9, 10-12, and teen years, along with common issues, are addressed.
Cogen teaches strategies one might only expect to learn from a seasoned therapist: suck/swallow/breath (for calming), sleep skills, beanbag and slinky games, among many others. The “Magic Circle” becomes a basis for understanding family life, not just when children are young, but increasingly as they grow and have even greater needs for refueling with “Parent Juice.”
Down sides? Not many. Albeit exceedingly brief, the condemnation of “holding time,” is disappointing. For some children at A4everFamily, holding has been one of the first effective tools (of dozens!) in the therapeutic parenting toolbox. When classified as “coercion” and linked with such antiquated practices as rebirthing, the censure seems excessive, unnecessary, and a bit extreme. Other than that, the only other overarching concern might be that parents substitute the book for necessary therapy. The author states “if your child’s behavior makes you feel helpless or angry consistently…she probably has severe issues that need to be addressed.” Unfortunately, many of the mild/moderate issues described in the book may need the guidance of someone, like Cogen, who can provide regular, in-the-moment feedback as one might receive in her “First Year Home" group. Parents will need to evaluate their own abilities to carry out the many (good!) techniques suggested in the book, sans therapy.
That said, this is one of the best books I’ve ever had the privilege of reading on international adoption…and, more importantly, on how to parent an internationally adopted child. Having read pretty much everything in print, that’s saying a lot. This is a book that I plan to read again, this time, choosing excerpts to share aloud with my husband. It should be required reading for every pre-adoptive parent and should become a close friend and companion to anyone currently parenting an adoptive child. Read it. You won’t be disappointed.
This summer has been incredible. We took our 33 month old son Seong-Jin to the park where he shrieked with joy in the sprinklers, laughed on the swings, went headfirst down the slide, and bounced happily on the see saw. At the beach, Seong-Jin dug in the sand for seashells and ran giggling into the waves. Many days were spent with his little friends where they had toddler conversations, began to have interactive play, and of course fought over trains. In music class, Seong-Jin sang, danced, and banged/shook to all the songs. At home, we pretended to be Diego and friends rescuing animals and coloring pictures. We went on two short vacations with extended family that Seong-Jin loved and we saw no repercussions from. At the end of a busy day, Seong-Jin goes to sleep and sleeps deeply and peacefully for 10-11 hours. So secure in his attachment, Seong-Jin plays, eats, and sleeps normally for his grandparents while we began to go on dates again.
This might sound like a pretty typical summer but for a child like Seong-Jin who had a difficult infancy and numerous delays and attachment difficulties, this summer has been nothing short of a miracle.
Adopted from South Korea at five months, Seong-Jin had a very difficult transition to his new life. The trauma caused major sleep issues, hyper vigilance, difficulty forming secure attachments, and extreme behaviors. We used therapeutic parenting techniques recommended for promoting attachment with adopted children but Seong-Jin’s trauma ran too deep for loving parenting to be enough. So much of the behaviors we saw were because Seong-Jin was in a constant state of fight or flight. We believe the disruption to his infant development, in addition to other factors such as too many vaccines given too close together while sick, contributed to immune system problems, including multiple food/chemical allergies/sensitivities, sensory processing problems, and developmental delays.
When Seong-Jin’s Early Intervention evaluation at 16 months stated he had most of the signs of PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) and his attachment problems were worsening, we immediately changed his diet and scheduled an evaluation for neurological reorganization with Sarge Goodchild. After hearing about Sarge and neuro-reorg through adoption groups, we were convinced that it was what we needed to heal our son. We didn’t want to rely on traditional therapies to help Seong-Jin cope, we wanted to get to the root cause of all his issues and help him heal. We had high hopes for neuro-reorg but the success we’ve found is truly beyond our wildest dreams.
It hasn’t been easy. Trying to get a 17- 32 month old to get through the program has been draining. The “easy” days were difficult; the hard days seemed endlessly torturous. After adopting our son, starting neuro-reorg was the greatest decision we ever made. Our son is securely attaching, sleeps well, has no developmental delays or sensory processing issues, and is in every way “typical.” Of course, we think he is extraordinary but those with children with special needs know that being considered typically developing is a truly great achievement.
We wish there was a way we could repay Sarge for giving us the greatest gift- a child who can live up to his potential. Not only did Sarge expertly identify Seong-Jin’s problem areas and design a program to target them, but he listened to, supported, and helped us along when things were tough. Even when our son hated/feared all strangers, he adored Sarge. I can’t think of Sarge without tearing up with happiness and gratitude.
While we wait to bring home our second son from Korea, we are comforted that Sarge will be there if it is needed.
