How Being A Foster Parent Changed Me For The Better
May 20, 2016
*Editors note- this post originally appeared on Mike’s column on Babble.com, as recognition of May being National Foster Care Month.
Archive for fetal-alcohol-spectrum-disorder
Why Loving Your Child Through Their Trauma Isn’t Enough.
April 29, 2016
As much as we wish we were super-humans with the power to export the trauma out of our children’s lives, we’re not. How do we love them through the darkness of their past, but also help them grow?
Answers To Your Biggest Questions on FASD [Podcast]
April 13, 2016
Last month we hosted an online Q&A on FASD with Dr. Ira Chasnoff and Gabe Chasnoff from NTI Upstream and the results were amazing. Two hundred people showed up for the event. We’ve had so many requests for the replay that we’re sharing the audio on today’s podcast. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum disorder affects an estimated 40,000 newborn infants every year. While those statistics are staggering and shocking, FASD as a whole, is often overlooked, downplayed and even judged in today’s society. Our goal at Confessions Of An Adoptive Parent, as well as NTI Upstream, is to give this disorder a voice and
2 Game-Changing Steps In Parenting Children From Difficult Places.
March 18, 2016
It’s not easy to parent a child with FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder). Ask any one of us who are in this trench…keeping our cool when we’re pushed to the edge daily, is an uphill climb. How can we successfully parent our children when every day is a fierce battle?
5 Professionals Who Often Misunderstand Special Needs.
February 26, 2016
In 2004 our lives, and parenting, changed forever when we realized we were parenting a child with special needs. To say it’s been a journey is an understatement. Part of the challenge has come from our encounter with professionals who fail to understand, or know how to handle, the special needs our children have.
How 4 Simple Words Can Heal Your Deepest Pain.
February 15, 2016
There are classes, books, seminars, magazine articles, therapists, and websites, all at our finger tips for just about any struggle we have on the adoptive, foster and special needs journey. Most of them can help us heal from just about any wound we’ve sustained. But nothing is as healing as hearing the words, You Are Not Alone.
How To Discipline A Child With FASD.
February 5, 2016
Parenting children with FASD is an uphill battle. This is especially true when it comes to discipline. How do you balance necessary consequences with a child who’s brain lacks the executive functioning to understand?
5 Things Every Foster and Adoptive Parent Wants Teachers To Know About Trauma [Podcast]
January 20, 2016
Back in November, we posted a video on YouTube that helped teachers understand the traumatic pasts our children have come from. The video was a hit and was shared with hundreds of schools and teachers around the country. Today, we’re including the audio version in the latest episode of Honestly Speaking… Between Nicole and her husband, and us, we’ve been in hundreds of IEP meetings with our children’s teachers and principals. We’ve had many that went extremely well, and some that…well…didn’t! What we’ve learned from our experience is that teachers really do want to understand where we’re coming from, and why
5 Lessons I’ve Learned From Parenting A Child With FASD.
January 18, 2016
Ten years ago our oldest son was diagnosed with Alcohol-Related-Nuerodevelopmental-Disorder (ARND), very similar to Fetal-Alcohol-Spectrum-Disorder (FASD), and our lives have been a rollercoaster ride ever since. Recently, however, we’ve begun learning new lessons about him, ourselves, and what we need to do differently.
7 Realities Everyone Should Know Before They Become Foster Parents [Podcast]
January 13, 2016
It’s a common tale in foster parenting- A couple gets excited, joins the ranks of foster parenting, begins taking placements, and just a month in they’re completely overwhelmed or defeated! How can a person enter this journey better prepared? This is the topic of today’s podcast! We figured out just months into our time as foster parents, that we were in over our head. But it really didn’t need to be this way. If only there were some folks willing to give us the inside scoop on what we could expect from this journey. Instead, we took the foster parent
