News from NACAC (North American Council on Adoptable Children)

Web: www.nacac.org

Your Input Is Needed!

To help shape our advocacy message and priorities, NACAC is seeking input from adoptive parents about the types of post-adoption services that families need (if any), what services families have used, and any barriers they have encountered.

We encourage all adoptive parents complete the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6BNG7WH, and to share the link with other adoptive families.


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Together we can make a difference in the lives of adoptive families!


U.S. Post-Adoption Legislation Introduced

In August, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the Supporting Adoptive Families Act (S. 3726), cosponsored by Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Tim Johnson (D-SD). The bill seeks to increase pre- and post-adoption services by designating a portion of existing child welfare funding streams for adoption support programs. The bill also proposes a grant program that would allow states to establish mental health support programs for adoptive children and families.

In addition, the bill would require states to track and report data on dissolution and disruption for children who are adopted within the U.S. or from other countries. After six months, HHS would be required to create an advisory committee to study the disruption and dissolution data and make recommendations to Congress on the data collection system.

It's been two weeks of school....

and already I'm bored of making lunches. I spend a good part of one of my Sunday afternoons baking for the upcoming week in a futile attempt to keep my kids in muffins, cookies, bars, etc. Here's just a short list of what I've made over the past two weeks:
snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, zucchini chocolate chip muffins, rhubarb muffins, 2 lemon loaves, dream bars....yada yada yada.

One child will only eat cheese sandwiches, although he will eat muffins instead of a sandwich in his lunch.

One child will eat anything but peanut butter sandwiches.

One child will eat most things in her lunch, except for the apples. (Great - we live on an apple orchard.)

Then, once they get home from school the feeding frenzy begins! One child will head straight to the Wii for his 30 minutes of game time without eating. One heads straight to the pantry when she gets home for cookies/muffins/whatever. She can never seem to grasp the point that it's not a race to see who can get to the snacks first and who can consume them the quickest. The third one is usually at the fridge staring into the great abyss wondering why "There's nothing to eat." When I suggest yogurt, fruit, cut up veggies, etc. her response is "Nah, I don't want anything cold." "Then why are you looking in the fridge?"

The rule in our house is that all snacking must be completed by 4 pm. Despite my warnings of "30 minutes until the kitchen closes" or "15 minutes left for snacks" and of course my final "last call for snacks", my son will still appear at 5 pm whining about how hungry he is cause he didn't know snack time was over at 4. (The 4 pm rule has been in place since he started school). Then the whining continues if his older sister gets to eat a sandwich at five because she's heading out to soccer game in 20 minutes.

Finally it's dinner time around 6 pm and my poor starving son gets to eat. Last night's dinner was roasted chicken, boiled potatoes, rutabaga and salad. My son takes one chicken drumstick on his plate and sits at the table. Then he's up again to get a drink of milk. Then he sits down again. Then he gets up again because he didn't put the milk away. But his chicken is still too hot to eat, so I tell him to have some salad while he's waiting for his chicken to cool down. He has to get up, get another napkin and wipe off his plate with the napkin to clear off a space for the salad to land. You see, he can't have his salad touching his chicken. Then he gets up again because his favorite salad dressing is still in the fridge. Then back to the table to apply the dressing to his salad. Finally the chicken is cool enough to eat, but instead of picking it up and eating it with his fingers he picks little pieces off bit by bit and eats them. When the chicken is finished he gets up to put the bones in the garbage and to get another napkin to wipe any trace of chicken off his plate. Now it's on to the salad. He'll eat all the tomatoes in the salad, then all the carrots, then the cucumber, then the lettuce. Unfortunately for him I had added green onions to this salad so he had to pick all those out and get up and put them in the garbage.

Thank heaven my other two kids aren't like this. They eat pretty much anything that's put in front of them, although my oldest daughter likes ketchup on the strangest things. Oh and every meal usually involves her performing a version or two of whatever she's listening to that day.

Yes, dinner and a show are common place at my house.

W.I.S.E. Up! for adoptees....

W.I.S.E. Up! – It's Back to School
Is your child or teen empowered or prepared to answer the inevitable adoption questions from new classmates, teachers and friends?
Are you from China? Are your REAL parents still there? Did you live in an orphanage? Is that your real sister? She doesn’t look like you.

Nearly all kids who were adopted by their families get asked these kids of questions. Haven’t you as parents encountered questions or been subject to comments about adoption? Well-meaning people may ask to be friendly or just out curiosity.

“Oh, is your husband Asian?”, “Do you know anything about her real parents?”, or “Are they really brothers?” or comments like “Oh, those children are sooo lucky!”, and “She’s so adorable, how could anyone give her away!”

Most parents therefore quickly learn that in order to minimize and cope more effectively with the distress these experiences can bring, they must prepare themselves for the questions and develop responses that they are comfortable with.

Adopted children and teens likely encounter these very same experiences – with their peers – friends, classmates – and perhaps even with teachers. It is important that they be prepared. Children often receive misinformation about adoption – from television/movies and the media. Do birth mothers sell their babies sold on the Internet? Are some adopted children kidnapped from their birth parents?

Driven by fears and understandable curiosity, with little understanding of what adoption means, non-adopted children may relate to the adoptee as they might to a child with a physical disability - asking questions and making comments to accentuate how they are different – to distance themselves from the adoptee in order to comfort themselves that this could never happen to them. Knowing that they are delving into private territory, non-adopted children are likely to ask these questions when other adults are not around.

The children we see at The Center for Adoption Support & Education, Inc. (C.A.S.E.) have shared the kinds of questions they get from their peers. These experiences create an added burden of emotional vulnerability. In response to this predicament, C.A.S.E developed the W.I.S.E. Up! Program to empower children to respond to questions and comments made about adoption. It is a powerful tool that is taught to children in groups, in individual, and family therapy, at camps for adopted children, programs run by adoptive parent support groups, and parent workshops. So that parents could teach this empowering tool to their children, the W.I.S.E. Up! Powerbook (written by Marilyn Schoettle) was created, and a complete facilitator’s guide for teaching the program to parents is available through C.A.S.E. as well.

WHAT IS W.I.S.E. Up!
The W.I.S.E. Up! Program first helps children realize that they are smarter than their peers – or WISER about adoption because of their experience of growing up in an adoptive family. They can take on the role of “expert”. This understanding alone helps introduce and prepare adopted children for the distinct likelihood that they will get asked questions and the reasons why.

Second, children learn to think about who is asking the question/making the comment and what they think is the motivation behind the question. Is the question coming from a trusted friend, from the class bully, from a teacher, etc. Is the person just curious or trying to tease?

Third, children learn to identify how they feel about

1.the person asking the question/making the comment
2.when the question is being asked – are they alone with their friend, or in front of other classmates; what kind of mood are they in – how are they feeling at that particular moment
3.how they feel about the question/comment. Children are usually shown a list of possible feelings including – sad, angry, surprised, shy, happy, confused, embarrassed, etc.
In the final and fourth step, children learn that they have four possible options for responding – each represented by the four letters of W.I.S.E., a tool designed for quick memorization. They actively CHOOSE how to respond.

W = WALK AWAY, or ignore what you hear.
I = IT’S PRIVATE, I do not have to share information with anyone, and I can say that appropriately, even to adults.
S = SHARE SOMETHING about my adoption story, but I can think carefully about what I want to let others know.
E = EDUCATE OTHERS about adoption in general, for example, I can talk about how adoption works today, successful adoptees, inaccurate information in the media, etc. I know a lot about it.

With practice, children can choose between W, I, S, or E without hesitation. In the process of embracing the W.I.S.E. Up! Program into their lives, they sometimes find themselves able to “take the sting out” by laughing at the question. They also learn to anticipate additional questions that may come when they respond with S or E. The W.I.S.E. Up! Tool can turn a challenging moment into an experience of confidence and success.

Parents and therapists who use this program with children also find that it is often a door opener that can lead to other important discussions/conversations about adoption.

The W.I.S.E. Up! Program was created by Marilyn Schoettle, former director of education and publications at The Center for Adoption Support & Education



Adoption Issues - Adoption Information, Resource

FASD Awareness Day and I Hate Lindsay Lohan Day

Yes it's a double whammy day today.

Although perhaps you're not as current with celebrity gossip as I am (although my daughter would disagree completely!!), surely you've heard about Lindsay Lohan, AKA Lilo, and her struggles with addiction issues, drunk driving, her 4, yes 4, stints in rehab, and her jail sentences.

As I was reading through my favorite gossip website (on my lunch break in case you're wondering!) which is www.laineygossip.com, there was a link to an article about Lindsay Lohan who wants to have a baby to keep herself sober. YIKES!

InTouch Weekly reports:
The star (Lilo) has confided to a pal that she’s determined to stay sober and thinks the best way for her to achieve that goal is to get pregnant. According to the pal, Lindsay, 24, hates being alone and thinks a baby would make the perfect companion. She’s seen what motherhood has done for former party girl Nicole Richie and thinks it can do the same for her. “She needs to be around someone nearly 24 hours a day,” the pal says. “She thinks having a baby could straighten out her life.”

And on today of all days. It's FASD Awareness Day. Those of us who work with, live with, care for and love people who have been exposed to alcohol in utero, and who struggle daily to support them, have zero tolerance for people like Lindsay.

I love reading my gossip site just for the distraction (and photos of Colin Farrell)and I know very few people who think the celebrity lifestyle is something we really want to achieve. Unfortunately, there are young women who look to Lindsay Lohan as a role model and want her lifestyle with endless shopping and parties.

Got a problem with alcohol? Drugs? Here's a solution - get pregnant. Because all your addiction issues will disappear the instant that baby starts growing inside you. Don't worry that your body isn't in any shape to carry a baby to full term, or that you may not even know you're pregnant for a few months anyways. Sure, then you can stop drinking. Right? You won't take any drugs once you know for sure you're pregnant. Right? You can stop anytime because you don't have a problem.

I hate Lindsay Lohan.

I'm not lying.....honest!

There are days when I swear my daughter could pass a lie-detector test. She's always been one of these "creative" kids who will think up a quick story instead of telling the truth. Even for ordinary, everyday day stuff.

For example:
Me: Did you bring your planner home from school?
Her: My teacher said I wasn't supposed to bring it home every day.
Me: Oh. Because two days ago, your teacher wrote a note in it that you are supposed to bring it home every night and get it signed, and bring it to school the following day.
Her: That's for everyone else, not me.

Crazy eh?

Here's another example:

Me: Did you clean up all the Lego pieces on your bedroom floor that you were playing with?
Her: Yes.
Me: When I check, what will I find?
Her: I'm not lying, honest.
Me: Then I wonder how all that Lego escaped the box and got all over your floor?
Her: It was him. (Meaning her brother who has been over at a friend's house all day.)
Me: Well I guess you should clean it up now.

Do you ever watch the show "Lie to Me" starring Tim Roth? I want some of those skills in reading people to detect if they're truthful or not.

Here's some things I learned.
- people don't usually fidget or look away when they're lying (so much for the eye contact thing)
- Less blinking, more pauses in talking, vocal tension, pupil dilation, chin raise and nervousness don't consistently mean someone is lying.
- it's difficult to detect lies in people we know well and that we like, because we tend to trust them to be truthful

So how can I tell if someone is lying to me? Well here's some tips I picked up from a psychology blog...
- Individual differences are key. Some people's natural behaviour looks honest while others' natural behaviour doesn't. This won't tell you whether each is lying. E.g. introverts or socially nervous people tend to look as though they're lying when they're not. The way to do it is using comparisons. It's possible to spot falsehoods when they are compared with truthful statements.
- Micro-expressions. Good lie detectors can pick up on tiny facial movements that give away lies. The problem is that they're 'micro' so they're difficult to detect.
- Vocal inflection can be vital. There's evidence it's easier to detect lies just from the voice. The eyes are relatively easy to control and it can be better if we can't see them.
- Rely on intuition. People may be better at detecting lies with their intuition. Implicit or broadly unconscious processes can be more effective than conscious directed thought.
- Lying is hard work. Lying can place high cognitive demands on an individual - putting more pressure on a suspected liar can help with detection.

Hmmmm....what do they mean by "more pressure"? Water torture? (That wouldn't work - the kid already takes too long in the shower - my water bill is high enough!)
Bamboo under the finger nails? (She doesn't have any fingernails. And I don't have any bamboo.) Have her sit on a chair in a dark room with a bright light aimed at her? (There goes my electric bill.)

Oh wait....I heard about this technique that they use at Guantanamo Bay for suspected terrorists. It's dangerous, and although it doesn't work with everyone there it has proven quite effective for hard core liars.

It's called...losing your TV and computer privileges and having to be my helper for cleaning the house.