Adopted Adult Confirms Book Choice

Hello, my name is Sheila Kruis and I live in Gallup, NM. This past weekend I attended a women's conference at a local church. One of the speakers, Barbara Pack, spoke to us about how we need to take care of our children. What really caught my attention with her was her story and testimony of how she grew up in the foster care system and was eventually adopted as a teenager, but also got involved with drugs and ended up in jail. Her life turned around 180 degrees and she is now raising her three daughters and has a ministry to women coming out of prison or jail.

At one of the breaks I was able to introduce myself to Barbara and I told her that my husband Brian and I have five children total and have adopted three of our children and are working on adopting our foster baby. When she heard that, the first thing out of her mouth was, "You NEED to read the book, 'Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adopted Parents Knew', by Sherrie Eldridge." Then I was able to tell her about my position as a Family Contact with FIESTA and that we are currently reading and discussing that very book in our Gallup Support Group. She was so thrilled! Barbara personally knows Sherrie, the author of the book, and said she would share this information with her as well. This was such a confirmation to me that reading this book is exactly what we need to be doing. I also noticed on Amazon.com that Sherrie is coming out with a new book in about a week, that would seem to follow well after this book.

Beatitudes for friends of special needs children

Saw this on mommylife.net....


Blessed are you who take time to listen to difficult speech:
For you help us to know that if we persevere,
We can be understood.

Blessed are you who walk with us in public places,
And ignore the stares of strangers,
For in your companionship,
We find havens of peace.

Blessed are you who never bid us to "hurry up",
And more blessed are you
Who do not snatch tasks from our hands to do them for us,
For often we need time rather than help.

Blessed are you who stand beside us
As we enter new and untried ventures,
For our failures will be outweighed
By the times we surprise ourselves and you.

Blessed are you who ask for our help,
For our greatest need is to be needed.

Blessed are you when you assure us,
That the one thing that makes us individuals
Is not in our peculiar muscles,
Nor in our wounded nervous systems,
Nor in our difficulties in learning,
Nor any exterior difference.
But is in our inner, personal, individual self
Which no infirmity can diminish or erase.

Author Unknown

Gallup Family Hike

Fall is here and it is so refreshing to be outdoors when the seasons are changing. The Family Activity that is being planned for the Gallup area is a hike up Pyramid rock on Saturday, November 7 from 10 a.m. - noon. Come meet at the base just before 10 a.m. and we'll grab a water bottle and some trail mix and start hiking. Please RSVP to Sheila @ 803-3163 by Nov. 2.

I feel a meltdown coming on

I went to Gallup last Friday to attend Monica’s class on re-parenting and learned a ton! I’ve got to also say that I’m tempted to put the house on the market, pack up the gang and u-haul it over to Gallup because the group there was so friendly, intelligent, and supportive. So on the trip home, when I had time to digest the information and brainstorm, I came up with an idea. I’d like to address a specific challenging behavior, such as chronic lying, stealing, or tantrums for example, and give some solutions that have been successful by some of our experienced parents. Then if you have some wisdom to add, you can help the rest of us by leaving your comment. We could do about one a week. What do you think? I’ve had a question lately about tantrums, so let’s start with that. There’s the good old “ignore it and it will go away” tactic, but what happens if that doesn’t work? Maybe you have a kid that is “too old” for meltdowns, and you suspect that something more is going on. I’ll make some calls to some of our family contacts and get back with you. Oh- and so I don’t get in trouble, I’ll add a disclaimer (my kid is in law school): the ideas shared will be parent-to-parent and not to be taken as professional advice ;-) Also, if there is something specific you’d like us to address, let me know.
Carol

Book Club II

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Want Their Adoptive Parents to Know
Book Club session II, Chapters 3 and 4

I’ve been telling people that I think I’ve developed adult onset ADHD and here is one proof. I am currently reading six books at once. Now, I’m a reader, but I usually stick to one or two at a time. One of the books I’ve been reading along with this one is called, "The Art of Helping…What to Say and Do When Someone is Hurting", by Lauren Briggs. I highly recommend it and it is a good companion to this book. Many of us are so uncomfortable around suffering, afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid maybe to address our own pain, that we avoid the very ones who need us the most. Staying alongside our child in his grief, instead of trying to make everything better with a quick hug and a cookie, is what is required.
So here are some things to think about from chapters 3 and 4.

1. Did you have a romanticized view of adoption when you first started the process? If so, how has that changed?
2. Is the term “special needs” overused? Offensive? Are you comfortable giving your child this label? Is it a blessing or a curse?
3. How do you feel about your child’s losses? Does profound loss ever go away?

I loved the section on meeting needs. The lists are so specific and ring so true, that I feel like laminating them and reading them every day. In my busy-ness, I assume that my children must know how much I value them and I don’t verbalize it nearly enough. Now that I think about it, that is also true for all of the people I love.
Please let me know what you think.
Carol

Support Group Book Study - Gallup

I was trying to post a comment to Carol's questions RE: the book, "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew," and was unable to, so I decided to post a comment this way. When our group in Gallup met to discuss ch. 1 and 2, we talked about some of the ways to "Gain Access" with your children. One way that we discussed that we have found to be effective is if your child is from a different culture, to celebrate their culture in your home in a variety of ways. Some of those ways are to have art, clothes, pictures, books, language and food from their culture in your home. Other ways are to connect with people who are from their culture. Whatever you can do to help your child see that their culture is important to you, it will help open the doors to further communication in other areas as well.

For those of you reading this book and are in the Gallup area, we will discuss ch. 3 and 4 on Sat. Oct. 24 from 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. at Indian Hills Elementary. Kids who come to this Fall Fiesta Fun night are welcome to dress up in their favorite fun Halloween costume and get their trick or treat from the FIESTA babysitters a week early! (No scary costumes please.) Please RSVP to Sheila at 803-3163 by Oct. 20th if you will be coming to this event.

Book Club!

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew

I’m probably going to love this book, because I have kind of avoided reading it. Like I’ve said, “The title didn’t yell out, ‘Read me!” I’m trying to figure out why that is. It could be that I don’t want to look at my children’s pain, not necessarily because I would hurt so badly for them, but because it requires work on my part. (selfish, but true) It’s much easier for me to only look at what is pleasant or immediate. Easy to try and change unwanted behavior without digging into the “why’s.” Difficult to look at my child’s life without myself on a throne in the center.
The other reason I’ve avoided it, I think, is that I thought it would be a book based on generalizations. I have known many adult adoptees and have been exceptionally close to two. They both fit the category of non-curious, emotionally balanced and not interested in delving into their losses or finding a biological link. Again, I admit my own lazy attitude in assuming that my own children will follow this pattern. If one looks at her childhood with too strong a microscope, nearly everyone can claim dysfunction. Then again, putting on dark glasses to avoid seeing the hurt is the opposite pitfall, isn’t it?
So, here we go….I’m going to jump in and hope this book will help me recognize my shortcomings and motivate me to change. I truly hope that I will become the kind of parent that will be a healing force, encouraging my children to trust me with their pain, questions, and anger.
The format of this book club will evolve, I think, because new things usually do.
Please leave a comment or give me a call if you’ll be participating. After this installment, we will move to a Face Book group in order to facilitate better dialogue. I’ll put reminders on the blog and a schedule. I’ll come up with a few discussion questions, but feel free to stray from them if something strikes you while you’re reading. For now, leave your answers and thoughts as a comment. Please don’t feel as if you have to be grammatically correct or have your thoughts super-well organized. If your style is rambling and informal- all the better. This is a time for friends to learn from each other.

Chapters 1 and 2. (Introduction)
1. Are you comfortable with the author’s credentials for writing this book? Why or why not?
2. Does it seem logical to you that a pre-born infant has already bonded to her mom? Does she grieve or become confused if she is “taken away?” How does this relate to you if your child came into your life when they were older?
3. If you’d like to, please share any success or failure that came to your mind while reading the section, “How to Gain Access.”
4. Do you think that you can bring up your child’s adoption too often? Do you agree with the mother mentioned in chapter 2 who said she talks about adoption with her children every day? Can you create feelings of loss where there weren’t any by planting, even encouraging, those ideas in your child?

Carol

One Happy Mistake!

Well, my boy is out of the hospital and doing better. He’s scheduled for surgery (out-patient) in about a week and we’re hoping that he’ll be as good as new. We’ll have that book club I promised you up this next week…you are reading the “Twenty Things…” book aren’t you?

I had a cool “Fiesta” thing happen last week and couldn’t wait to tell you about it. I had arranged to go to a conference I ran across online. It’s kind of a big deal, but I hadn’t heard about it before this year- the SW Conference on Disabilities at the Convention Center in Albuquerque. I got the okay to attend, but not knowing how helpful it would be, I chose to go the day in which the most workshops were related to kids. (Everything about this conference is kind of pricey.) I also put down the big bucks to rent an eight inch piece of real estate on a table so I could park a pile of our brochures. We thought about renting an entire table, but it was either that or pay the electric bill. (I am sooo cheap- I parked about a mile away to avoid paying $6 for the parking lot. Besides, I figured I could count it as working out, as long as I could avoid getting mugged in the back ally.) After I got my bearings, I searched for our bright orange flyers on the designated table and they weren’t there! When I am in these types of situations, my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality disorder surfaces and I have to choose one, so I put on a smile and went to find someone who looked official. After explaining the problem, the reply was, “Oh, I know about that. We made the mistake of putting them into the bags instead.” Well, Hallelujah! That option would have cost a squillion dollars more than just sticking them on the table, so now everyone who went to the conference will have an opportunity to know about us. It’s the kind of mistake that you love to hear about!

Anyway, the conference itself was very good and I learned a lot to pass on to other parents, but the best part was the people I met. I must have run across everyone who attended that had an adoption story, several of them adoptive parents themselves. What fun! Oh- and I didn’t get mugged.