Julie Gumm — Post-Adoption

Hope for adoptive moms in new book

August 29, 2012 by Julie 1 Comment

Today’s guest post is from Shelly Roberts – an amazing lady with a huge heart for adoptive moms.

You’ve already said “YES!”, to the Fatherless, but now you realize you don’t have all it takes to make it through this journey. You sometimes feel alone, isolated, fearful, overwhelmed and even defeated.

During the early phases of adoption, it seemed like paperwork and finances would be your biggest obstacles. Once you’re further into it, you realize there is so much more.

Your children’s needs may be far more complex than you ever imagined. Perhaps you’re a veteran parent, yet you feel like you’re learning to be a mom all over again. Months were spent in preparation for the journey you are on including training of all kinds. Yet nothing could truly prepare you for what was to come. All those exhaustingly wonderful fund-raisers you poured your time and resources into? – they are a distant memory.

When you come to the end of yourself, and realize you can’t do this alone, an opportunity is born. You see, God knows you can’t do this on your own. He never expected you to. He knows your children’s needs, their past and their brokenness. He is well aware of your weakness, your fears and your limitations.

In the pages of 31 Nuggets of Hope, you will find encouragement to stay the course! Whether you are facing exhaustion, attachment struggles or isolation … you don’t have to feel completely alone in your situation. Nugget after nugget of the Father’s HOPE for you is just waiting to be grasped. His love for you, your new child(ren), and your whole family is SO vast. Never do you have to walk this journey alone. He is faithful both in the mountain top moments as well as the valleys. There is HOPE.

Info for 31 Nuggets can be found at www.31nuggetsofhope.com. SPECIAL PRE-ORDER PRICING is going on right now.

Shelly is a dedicated wife and mother of five blessings from around the globe. She is known for being an encourager, prayer warrior and advocate for the Fatherless. While serving with the ABBA Fund, Shelly strives not only to see children be placed in families, but for those families to thrive. She blogs at reachingheartsblog.com and is also a women’s speaker and enjoys traveling all over the US, bringing inspiring insight to impact and encourage all who hear.

Filed Under: Adoption, Post-Adoption

Stuff You Should Read

November 8, 2011 by Julie Leave a Comment

protecting kids from pornography: the new responsibility of parents in the internet age (from Rage Against the Minivan)
Studies show that each year, about 40 percent of kids aged 12-17 visit sexually explicit sites either deliberately or accidentally. I think that as parents, we really need to come to terms with these numbers and be proactive about protecting our kids.

How to Be The Village (from Jen Hatmaker)
Having benefitted from a community that practically smothered us with support throughout our adoption journey, I am so grateful for all the other good friends out there, loving their people and asking how to help. Since reading this email, I’ve been marinating on her question, and I’ve decided to write this Field Guide to Supporting Adoptive Families.

The biggest lie about travel we all believe. (From Jon Acuff)
…And here’s the lie hidden inside that statement: “You need a plane ticket to be distant from your family.”
You don’t. You just need an iPhone. Or a laptop. Or a million other media distractions we throw our lives at.

Six Things Adoptive/Foster Families Need When New Children Arrive (From One Thankful Mom)
What would have helped you the most in the early weeks and months of adding a child to your family through adoption or foster care? If somebody had asked you, “What can I do to help?” and you were able to answer anything at all with no shame, guilt, or concern about whether they really would want to do it, what would it have been?

Filed Under: Faith, Our Adoption Process, Post-Adoption

Attachment & Family Growth Pt 2 (Together for Adoption)

October 22, 2011 by Julie Leave a Comment

Kristen & Mark Howerton

Healthy people make healthy parents.

Foster a sense of empathy, compassion and understanding.

Discipline ideas that foster attachment.

Kids need nurture, love, structure and guidance. We need to foster their God-given strengths.

Attachment is a surfacey enjoyment, appreciation but there is also a deeper connection on a brain level.

Behaviors – manipulation, lying, pretending they don’t know how to do something. They will try to pull an adult into drama.

We need to constantly monitor ourselves so that we don’t reward them with the adrenalin hit. That shows them they are not in control.

#1 thing – don’t be emotionally reactive to your children. Nothing is changing, nothing is learned in the midst of that adrenalin rush. Need calm, consistent approach to discipline.

The first three seconds after a behavior is the most vulnerable and ready for learning (so if you’re not calm, wait).

A child from a hard place will test YOUR hardest places.

Responses:

“Let’s try that again.”
“What usually happens when you do that? Is that really what you want to do?” “How is that working for you.”
When a kid pretends to forget something – “that’s a real bummer but I’m only taking kids who know how to put their shoes on to the park.” identify and give language to what the real need is. (sometimes this may need to happen later and that’s ok.)

Use empathy when disciplining “that’s a bummer that you made that decision and have this consequence”. Next time remind them and give them a positive “i know you’re going to make a good choice”

Always state what you DO want, not what you don’t want.

Spanking is not recommended – it puts them in that adrenalin cycle, they could have past abuse, etc.

Consequences – Loss of privileges (tv, playing outside, computer time)

“Correction does much, encouragement does more.”

Empathetic, authoritative parenting – “I see you’re not putting your shoes on, why is that? … Ok, great I hear you but you need to get in the car.”

Balance of making yourself emotionally available to attach but not emotionally available to be manipulated and drawn into the battle. A lot of their behavior is “noise” they are putting out to engage you in a power struggle.

Be gracious to yourselves and remember that your kids are on a healing path. Get support that you need.

Filed Under: Post-Adoption

Attachment & Family Growth w/ Mark & Kristen Howerton (Together for Adoption)

October 22, 2011 by Julie Leave a Comment

(Live blogging so excuse the occasional lack of capitalization.)

Coming from a point of self-care and loving the WHOLE child.

Empathy can change how we view the whole child – understand their challenges and experiences as we approach an issue.

Why is attachment so important?

Optimal parenting is 2 loving parents but usually these kids are not coming from this. Kids may have had trauma or major transition. rotating caregivers (even when they’re good) are not consistent and that affects the child. Too many caregivers, prenatal distress or drug use, abuse neglect, trauma and loss – all affect the child.

PTSD can happen anytime a child has trauma. even the adoptive process is trauma for the child (loss, language, etc.). Fight or flight mechanism fires at any trigger that can move them into an altered state (fear, paranoia, etc)

How do we best parent our child? Have to look at both the biochemical side and discipline side.

The amygdala (center of the brain) develops first and activates the sense of safety, attachment. Breastfeeding activates this. If they miss this the child feels unsettled in their own brain chemistry so they look for alternatives. One alternative is adrenalin so they will seek out those kinds of experiences. This will come out when dealing with behaviors. Us keeping calm will help.

Dopamine experiences (this feels good) need to be felt. We need to give our kids pleasurable
experiences in a bonding activity that calms them down in the midst of the adrenalin seeking behavior.

Besides chemistry issues there are issues of “learned behaviors” – feeding themselves, every man for himself, acting out abandonment (push us away before we can push them away), aggression, manipulation, yelling.

Make the assumption that your child has SOME level of attachment issues! (This is a spectrum.) the good news is that regardless of where they are these methods are good for EVERY child – you can’t attach too much.

Don’t overwhelm the child with your excitement over attachment. They need a gentle transition. Think about how it feels from their perspective. Study your child. What is their love language? What makes them feel safe and loved?

Basics – tons of kisses, hugs, soft tickles “safe touch” that doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable.

Lavish with encouragement, affirmations, intentional focused time w/ eye contact (staring contest game).

Consistency in saying “yes” we’ll provide for you. The child needs to understand that you are the one that meets their need. Let go of the idea that our kids have been “longing and waiting for a family” – they may not even know what a family is.

Give a child lots of “yeses” – 7 “yeses” to every “no”. (Let some stuff go – matching socks, etc.) sometimes this means giving them 2 choices that way they still have say but you can say “yes” and still show you are in charge.

Create dopamine experiences – dance party – that are safe.

Book recommendation “Therapeutic Play”.

Using scents – put your shirt on them, or in their bed. Create a new “scent of safety”.

When you get pushback, keep trying. Open your heart wide open and be ready to attach but be ready to be rejected and let it not hurt your feelings. It’s a dance and it is hard.

Pray for acceptance of your child no matter where they are in their attachment journey. Just like marriage, love is a decision.

You may feel resentful and hurt but don’t let those feelings affect how you act.

We need to change some of the scripts we have as parents. Pare down to the basics – gentle attachment, gentle discipline & self-care (forget the PTA). Remember “seasons of life”. This season of life is going to mean saying “no” a lot.

Attachment is about both quantity AND quality! If you’re wearing yourself and are frazzled by the quantity, they will pick up on that. (They are extremely adept at reading people.) They need you to be “present” as much as they need you to be physically there.

Good news is that we know God can heal! He is a restorative God.

Be gracious to yourself, get support.

Filed Under: Post-Adoption Tagged With: adoption, attachment

Our Ethiopian Family

October 12, 2011 by Julie Leave a Comment

One of the great things about Mark’s frequent trips to Ethiopia is that he gets to visit with Luke and Beza’s Grandmother at least once a year. He’ll take some updated pictures and she is always SO excited to see him! Huge smiles and lots of hugs and lots of talking in Amharic – some of which gets translated by the family friend who coordinates the visits for Mark.

The other beautiful young lady in the picture is their half-sister Meseret who is 15. As Beza gets older I can see the resemblance more and more.

So grateful that we’re able to keep this connection. We hope to take the kids back for a visit someday when finances allow.

Filed Under: Post-Adoption

“Which mom should I love more?”

June 17, 2011 by Julie 7 Comments

Beza was sitting at the kitchen table eating ice cream while I loaded the dishwasher.

“Mom, I just don’t know what to say when my friends say ‘Do you mean your REAL mom?’ Which one is my ‘real’ mom?”

Wowzers.

As adoptive parents, we hear and talk plenty about positive adoption language to/from other adults, but this was the first time I had to sit down and talk about our choice in words with the kids. I just hadn’t thought about it.

Obviously her 9 and 10-year-old classmates don’t mean anything negative by it and are simply trying to clarify if she means her Ethiopian mom or me. But I had never stopped to equip her with the right words to teach them. In our house I will usually either say “your Ethiopian mom” or “your mom” (because if I’m saying it, it’s pretty obvious).

So I encouraged her to find a term she was comfortable with using within her circle of friends to define her moms. Of course she could say “birth mother” or “biological mom” – but those are pretty complicated words for a bunch of third graders.

We started coming up with other alternatives when she said, with a smile on her face, “I could just say my black mom and my white mom.”

That sent both of us into the giggles. I told her “That’s fine by me!”

When we calmed down she turned serious and said, “But I don’t know which one of you I’m supposed to love more.”

Wowzers again!

I assured her that it wasn’t a contest. I told her that I was sure there might be times when she felt like she loved me more, and times when she didn’t. And that was okay. I loved her. I knew she loved me. I knew she loved her Ethiopian mom. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

P.S. Would you please put in your daily vote for our blog in the Top 25 Adoption Blogs. I need your daily votes to stay in the Top 25. It just takes 2 seconds to click the orange thumbs up

Filed Under: Family Matters, Favorite Posts, Post-Adoption Tagged With: adoption, transracial family

Hairs the Thing

June 16, 2011 by Julie 5 Comments

Ha, ha. Like that play on words in the title. My mom will be proud. (Perhaps I should not write late at night when I’m a bit punchy.)

Anyhoo…..

Now that the food challenges are mostly over (except for the fact that Beza says she doesn’t like cheese, except on pizza) my biggest struggle is hair.

Luke is easy. He’s got pretty loose curls and we keep his hair fairly short. I even cut it myself. Throw some hair goo in it and he’s good to go.

Beza’s hair. Well that has taken some getting used to for sure. First, she has got THICK hair. As in if I bunch it together in a ponytail I can barely wrap my fingers around it and hold it with one hand. It’s kinky – on the chart of hair types she would be a 4. That means it’s tightly coiled and very fragile.

It’s not the hairstyles that stump me. Although my cornrows still leave a little to be desired in tightness, I’ve got a good handle on yarn braids, two-strand twists and have even tried some bantu knots. Beza is a pretty willing participant when it comes to trying new hairstyles as long as I can show her a picture first.

The hard part comes down to two things: care & maintenance and TIME.

What I need is a hair consultant who could take one look at her hair, tell me what products to buy and when/how often to use them. The key, however, is they have to be products that DON’T break the bank. (As in you can get them at Wal-Mart, Target or Sally Beauty Supply.) I cannot begin to tell you how many half used products I have in my closet. Some work okay but I have yet to find the perfect product.

Each new hairstyle (anything designed to last more than a day or two) requires HUGE blocks of time. For example this week I spent 4 hours unbraiding and combing out Beza’s hair. Because it’s been a crazy busy week, I actually had to do it in two sessions. We found a way to make it look cute half undone so she wouldn’t go to VBS looking crazy.

My two favorite styles are either a head full of two-strand twists (faster to do and undo) or yarn braids. The head full of twists takes about 3-4 hours – a large portion of that spent on combing out. The yarn braids? Well I’ve done them as fast as 6 and as long as 8 hours. That’s an ENTIRE Saturday pretty much The good thing about both these styles is they last. The twists will usually last 5-6 weeks and the yarn braids have gone as long as 6.

Yesterday I stumbled on a blog and found this recipe for homemade “Magic Hair Elixir“. Seems pretty easy so I’m thinking about whipping up a batch.

So any one with type 4 hair have any pointers on products – both as I’m doing styling and what I should use to keep hair moisturized while it’s in one of these styles?

P.S. Would you please put in your daily vote for our blog in the Top 25 Adoption Blogs. We slipped a few spots over the weekend so I need your daily votes to stay in the Top 25. It just takes 2 seconds to click the orange thumbs up.

Filed Under: Family Matters, Post-Adoption Tagged With: adoptive children, ethnic hair care

BAD adoptive mommy

June 14, 2011 by Julie 4 Comments

I will admit that I am a horrible adoptive mother in one particular area – native food. My poor Ethiopian children only eat Ethiopian a few times a year, if that. Honestly, most of the dishes are not terribly hard. I’ve mastered Doro Wat (chicken “stew”), lentils, cabbage & potatoes and they love it.

The problem is that with EVERY meal, you need injera.

You cannot eat Ethiopian food without it. For awhile I used the excuse that I couldn’t find Teff flour. (Trust me, we tried it without, and it’s not the same.) But now Sprouts carries it with their specialty flours.

But it’s not just something you can whip up. You have to mix some of the ingredients together and let it ferment for 3 days. Which would mean I would need to actually remember to start said process 3 days before Ethiopian meal.

There’s a little ethnic market not far from my in-laws house and they used to carry fresh injera. IF I thought about it I could call Cathy and have her pick some up when they were coming out. But now it has new owners and you have to call the day before because they only make it as ordered. So again, I would have to plan ahead. (Are you sensing a pattern in my difficulties?)

Last year for his family birthday party Luke requested Ethiopian food. I had all my ingredients, was ready to go. I was just short of starting to cook it when Cathy called. The market was out of injera (this was before the new owners). Uh oh!

Luke kindly agreed to just switch to hamburgers and I PROMISED him that I would make Ethiopian food.

“When?” he asked.

“Before your next birthday,” I promised.

And suddenly 51 weeks zoomed by before you knew it.

See, bad adoptive mommy.

With everything going on last week (Dave Ramsey interview, etc) I was stressing about said meal and finally decided to suck it up and drive the 50 minutes across town and pay the money to take everyone to the Ethiopian restaurant. Luke was ecstatic. Beza too.

We ordered their classic mixture and added shiro and lentils to it. It was REALLY good. Their injera was not as sour as it is in Ethiopia. Perhaps an attempt to be a little easier on the patrons. (We went on a Saturday for lunch and Luke and Beza were the only Ethiopians in the place besides the staff.)

Noah is our one hold out and so we took in a sandwich for him Natalie can keep up with the other two when it comes to ET food.

At nearly $80, it’s not something we can do very often, but it was definitely worth it for a treat.

I’ve vowed (not out loud) to attempt injera sometime this summer.

Filed Under: Family Matters, Post-Adoption Tagged With: adoptive parents, Ethiopian food, injera

Questionable Parenting Moments

March 24, 2011 by Julie Leave a Comment

Last week Mark had an orphan conference in Santa Barbara to attend and as it was the kid’s Spring Break (and my trip to Haiti got cancelled) we decided to go a few days early and stop in Anaheim.

We are EXTREMELY blessed to have friends who work for Disney and can get our entire family into the park for free (the ONLY way we’re able to go as often as we do). We dragged Mark’s sister who’s visiting from England, her 2 daughters (5 months and 2.5 yrs), and his mom along with us.

Before we even got on the shuttle to head to the park, 2 of our children were having the pouts. Not entirely surprising – sometimes BIG days are even harder on adopted kids. But usually they snap out of it fairly quickly.

Well 3 hours later and the pouts were still hanging on and bringing the rest of us down a bit too. Luke wasn’t too bad, but Beza was definitely having trouble getting over whatever it was that had started it. Mark was tempted to take everyone back to the hotel and make them nap.

Instead I sent him on ahead with everyone else, and me and Beza found a bench to sit on so we could talk it out.

To make a long story short, that morning they were gathering snacks from the car and Luke made a joking comment which she interpreted to mean “he thinks I’m fat”. (Come to find out later that Dad had dealt w/ it at the time and made Luke apologize, etc but obviously she was not over it.)

Already at 10 Beza is very self-conscious about her body. I’m not sure if it is because she is the same size as Luke who is 18 months older or what it mainly stems from. In no way is she the LEAST bit overweight. Her main complaint (maybe her only complaint) is her thighs. She has larger thighs but the are SOLID MUSCLE. She has gymnast legs, or runner legs – not an ounce of fat on them. It’s not surprising to me because she is very athletic and both their parents were fairly tall (as much as we can tell from pictures).

Nevertheless she is extremely sensitive. She’s given me capris and said she doesn’t like to wear them because they “make her look fat”.

I’ve given her the same speech a MILLION times – your not fat, your strong, your legs are muscular, your healthy, your beautiful, etc.

But she’s fixating on that word “fat”.

I’m sure you won’t find what I did next in any award-winning parenting books. (Some people may even be offended but dude, I was desperate.)

I started watching the hundreds of people walking by us. I would have her look at a certain person and tell me whether or not she thought they were overweight. (I may or may not have used the word fat – I normally don’t but for learning purposes I might have, can’t remember.) We looked a people who were overweight by varying degrees but also people who had all kinds of body shapes and sizes – people who were tall and big but NOT overweight. I even tricked her and pointed to a VERY obviously pregnant person. (She was too smart for me though.)

I gave her the whole “God makes us all different” speech. Explained that for some people it’s really easy to stay skinny and some people have to work SUPER hard to not be overweight. I told her that more than anything what’s important is that a person is treating their body well and being healthy. That’s why we work super hard to eat healthy in our family while still enjoying the occasional dessert or treat.

I don’t know if this episode will have any more of a lasting impact than others I’ve had but it did get her out of her slump that day.

Again, I’m sure my technique was NOT the greatest but desperate times sometimes call for a thinking outside of the box.

Any advice from anyone else dealing with body image and their daughters?

Filed Under: Family Matters, Post-Adoption Tagged With: adoption, moods, older children, Parenting

Double Digit Day

January 10, 2011 by Julie 7 Comments

Today is the day that Beza enters into double digits. The big 10.

This girl is NOT what I expected!

I created this picture of how I thought she would be based off a 3 minute video. She was timid, quiet – being prompted by her big brother to answer questions. (You can see some of that video here.)

Stupid really, to imagine an entire persona off of one video. A video where she probably had no idea why this strange white man was asking her what her favorite thing to play was.

Not what I imagined her to be, but oh so much better…

She is strong – physically and emotionally. She could easily beat either of her brothers in a wrestling match. I envision her being the base of the pyramid as a high school cheerleader!