This past fall I had the privilege of spending 3 days in the mountains of Colorado with 72 fellow foster and adoptive dads for the very first Road Trip, an experience for foster and adoptive dads, created by foster and adoptive dads. I walked away learning some very valuable lessons.
Not that long ago, my two teenage daughters and I headed out for a father-daughter weekend camp. I knew it would be awesome. What I didn’t know was how much I would learn from my time with them.
The adoptive and foster care journey is a fantastic, overwhelming, beautiful, and sometimes defeating journey. However, there is a reality to this journey that many people are not aware of. It’s easy to go into the process with high expectations but a misunderstanding of what your role is.
Yawning, yawning, and more yawning. If that describes you, we want you to know- You’re not alone! There’s a way to find rest and it’s not as difficult as you think it is.
On the journey of adoption, foster care and special needs parenting, we’ve experienced numerous difficult and heartbreaking moments. The only way we we’ve made it through these trying times was through the support and love we received from our support community.
When we first started down the foster and adoptive road, we were energized and excited. But exhaustion quickly kicked in and left us defeated. We soon wondered: Will we ever find our way back to a place of rest?
*Editor’s Note- A few days ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Maria Cooke for this story, which originally appeared in my column on Disney’s Babble.com. It was an amazing interview and I walked away from it inspired and moved. I’m sure you will too!
As parents of children with special needs, particularly Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, we often receive the question, “How do you know if your child’s behavior is a choice, or if it’s their disorder?”
The glares, stares, and judgmental glances. We’ve seen it all in our 15 years on the adoptive and foster care journey. Particularly as we’ve worked hard to parent children with major special needs. While we owe no one an explanation, we have some solid reasons for parenting our children the way we do.
