Books | The Honestly Adoption Company

Books from The Honestly Adoption Company

Browse our library of award-winning books.

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New! Securely Attached

How Understanding Childhood Trauma Will Transform Your Parenting

Just as you prepared your home to welcome a new child, it is important to prepare your heart and mind—especially if the child has suffered from a background of trauma. Perhaps your invitation for love is met with hostility, and you find that this new member of your family rejects connection. If so, then it’s critical to acknowledge the effects of trauma on a child’s ability to attach. Mike and Kristin Berry realized this when they became adoptive and foster parents. In their twenty-year marriage, they have had the joy of adopting eight children and fostering twenty-three. They now offer guidance from their own journey to others parenting a child who has experienced past trauma. In Securely Attached, they offer practical insights that are supported by therapeutic and medical facts, so all parents can provide best for the children in their care. You’ll learn:

How trauma changes the brain
How to identify trauma-induced behaviors
How to identify attachment disorders
How to advocate for your child in the community.

Get the help you need to better care for the children in your home. Discover how you can create a family and home that is safe and supportive so your children can grow to trust and become securely attached.

Honestly Adoption

Answers To 101 Questions About Adoption & Foster Care

If you are considering adoption or foster care or are already somewhere in this difficult and complicated process, you need trusted information from people who have been where you are. Mike and Kristin Berry have adopted eight children and cared for another 23 kids in their nine-year stint as foster parents. They have experienced every emotional high and low and encountered virtually every situation imaginable as parents. Now, they want to share what they’ve learned with you.

Honestly Adoption will provide you with practical, down-to-earth advice to make good decisions in your own adoption and foster parenting journey and give you the help and hope you need.

Keep the Doors Open

Lessons Learned from a Year of Foster Parenting

As a teenager, Kristin Berry had heard all the horror stories surrounding foster care and adoption—abuse, neglect, rejection, anger, and misunderstandings. But instead of closing her heart, God opened it wide.

This is Kristin’s honest, unvarnished story of some of her experiences as a foster parent of twenty-three children over the course of nine years.

What she learned is that living in a foster home is like living with a revolving door. You never know who will arrive or who you will have to say goodbye to. Leaving the door open means there will be heartache and pain, but also adventure and unexpected joy. Kristin and her husband, Mike, have been through it all in their unique parenting journey.

If you have ever wondered what it’s really like to be a foster parent, this book will help you gain a true understanding of the everyday trials and triumphs these moms and dads face. It will also inspire you to consider opening your door…and to leave it wide open.

Winning the Heart of Your Child

9 Keys to Building a Positive Lifelong Relationship With Your Kids

Many of us enter parenthood with a perfect vision of what our family will be. But along the way we discover that the children we’ve been blessed with are real human beings, with their own minds, ideals, and views of the world. Our influence only goes so far, and when those children reach the pre-teen and teenage years, it may seem to have disappeared completely. Yet at no time in a kid’s life is their parents’ positive influence more critical.

For parents who are concerned that their child is pulling away, following poor role models, or making choices that will lead to pain and difficulty, there’s good news: it’s not too late. Winning The Heart Of Your Child offers parents nine keys to maximizing and leveraging their influence in their child’s life.

Born Broken

An Adoptive Journey

A must read for prospective adoptive and foster parents as well as those already in the trenches of caring for a child affected by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and substance abuse, early childhood trauma, abandonment, and attachment issues. This book is an eyes-wide-open look into one family’s adoption journey.

Kristin Berry tells her family’s adoption story honestly, and does not shy away from the challenges she and her family has faced, including isolation and depression. Written with her son’s blessings, in the hopes that others will learn about and understand what it is like to live with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders FASD.

Confessions of an Adoptive Parent

Hope and Help from the Trenches of Foster Care and Adoption

Adopting or fostering a child brings its own unique set of challenges only another parent facing the same uphill climb could possibly understand. From parenting children with traumatic pasts, to dealing with attachment issues, to raising a child with special needs, it can sometimes be a struggle just getting through the day. There are plenty of how-to guides out there on parenting, but this one-of-a-kind book is specifically designed to address your needs as a parent of an adopted or foster child. With a refreshing dose of honesty, empathy, and care, you’ll discover you are definitely not alone on your journey and God has a very special plan for you and your family.

Mike and Kristin don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk day in and day out with their own marvelously diverse adoptive family. In a way that combines knowledge, heart, truth, and grace they break down complex trauma and attachment concepts in a way that is both accessible to parents and supported by stories of their own parenting experiences.