by Gayle Swift | May 22, 2019 | General Discussion
My GIFT colleagues and I have just returned from our annual retreat. Because we live in different states, we believe it is important to get together and reconnect. It’s one of the ways in which we invest in our relationship both as colleagues and as friends. It’s also...
by Gayle Swift | Aug 1, 2018 | Blogs by Gayle Swift, General Discussion, Intentional Parenting
Parenting has an evolutionary endpoint: at some point, our children will leave the family nest and fly out into the world to carve their path in life. Even as we change diapers, read bedtime stories, or tuck them in, we know someday, they’ll be on their own....
by Gayle Swift | Nov 15, 2017 | Blogs by Gayle Swift, General Discussion, Strengthening Family Relationships
Back in April, I blogged about a letter that a now-adult adoptee had penned to her birth mother when she was ten years old. The poignant, heart-breaking note was also an example of a very common mindset of young adoptees in closed adoptions. I received another,...
by GIFT Coach | Feb 15, 2017 | Blogs by Gayle Swift, General Discussion
Adoption matters; Talk about it! For far too many years adoption was buried under layers of secrecy. People considered it a sensitive subject. Off limits. Some parents kept adoptees in the dark. Families mentioned it only in whispers. Adoptees absorbed the subtle...
by GIFT Coach | Aug 19, 2015 | Blogs by Gayle Swift, General Discussion
Readers of this blog demonstrate intentionality in their parenting and an interest in enlarging their parental skill set, deepening their understanding of their children’s needs and a commitment to adoption attunement—a very admirable and worthwhile goal....