The month of May, rich with burgeoning life after winter’s severity, brings motherhood to mind . The observance of an official holiday further nudges our awareness! So, a question comes to mind: What does it mean to mother? Like the iconic, multi-tasking mother herself, the word holds several jobs: noun, adjective, and verb. Each category […]
Finding Joy: Life as a Learning Conversation
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listen time 5:32 Babies are the most determined learners. Their survival depends on their ability to learn. Even in the face of persistent failure, they pick themselves up and try again and again until they achieve mastery. Whether it […]
Rainbows, Relationships and Unknown Relatives
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listening time: 5:31 After a long winter of confinement and challenging weather, most folks are glad to add a bit of festivity to their lives. I suspect this explains why so many people who aren’t actually Irish enjoy […]
Yearning to Belong: the Quest to Feel at Home
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listening time: 5:49 Winter has arrived. Even here in South Florida temperatures have plummeted! Our instinct to hunker down drives us to turn to home for shelter, warmth, and safety. Home and family provide a reassuring sense of belonging. […]
Voices Matter in Adoption: Loving enough to Listen and Learn
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listening time: 10:17 Lessons from 2020 The past year taught us we must learn to discuss hard things, listen to multiple voices with respect, and complete attention. We must strive to understand all sides of the conversation. Adoption […]
GIFT Giving 2020: What Do Adoption Attuned Parents Choose?
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listening time: 6:21 November features National Adoption Awareness Month (#NAAM). One thing 2020 has taught us: truly valuable things in life have no price tag. The things that genuinely matter are priceless: family, friends, health, companionship, security. As we […]
Gratitude, Adoption, Connection, and Community!
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listening time: 4:07 November features National Adoption Awareness Month (#NAAM). This has gained enthusiastic support from adoptive parents who wish to declare the benefits of adoption. Adoption provided them children to love and parent and they eagerly share their […]
The Indispensability of Community
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listen time 7:39 At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious: our lives have been totally blown off their normal courses. Covid-19 realigned our lives, redefined our social interactions, upended our educational systems, shuttered businesses, destroyed jobs, sickened millions, […]
Parents, We Need to Handle Our Own Tough Stuff
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listen time 7:11 Families follow a core set of values that governs their priorities, shapes their belief system, and guides their behaviors. (We’ve blogged about the process of being intentional in defining these core values.) GIFT Family Services also has […]
Adoption Legalities and Ethics Have Life-long Repercussions
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listen time 8:00 Recently I've been providing full-time day-care for my four-year-old grandson and will be homeschooling him when school restarts. The words of my grandmother have been on my mind: Parenting is the hardest job you will ever […]
Intent Versus Impact: Why It Matters
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Listen time 10:24 Intent Versus Impact: Why It Matters It is easy--and naive--to expect that our good intent guarantees a positive result. Even the purest intentions can still yield negative consequences. Negative results--even if unintended--are no less consequential. Most […]
Speak Truth Aloud.
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. This blog explores how Adoption Attunement (AQ) and intentionality provide a clear approach to follow, one that helps adoptive families to flourish. It is firmly rooted in a belief that adoption is complex and therefore recognizes the hard truths […]
Look, Look! What Do you See?
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. As adults, we "know" the world through direct physical experience. It is easy to assume that we all "see" the same thing. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. How we stand in the world governs what we […]
Observations on the Road of Life
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. This unfolding pandemic will forever alter our lives and divide time into a distinct Before and After. Our only choice is to confront the situation with intention. Life flows unrelentingly forward. Although we can remember and reflect on […]
Difficult Situations, Difficult Conversations
To listen to this blog, click the arrow to play. Our families, our country, and the world at large is currently facing an unprecedented challenge. We are collectively facing a Difficult Situation of unparalleled proportions. The survival of many people directly depends on the collective actions of all. Each of us is challenged to think […]
Parenting Beliefs Create a Mindset and Guide Our Actions
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Read time: 4:16 The coaches at GIFT work to help families acquire the skills and knowledge that will enable them to succeed at Growing Intentional Families Together. We believe in being intentional and conscious about the values and beliefs […]
Luck, Gratitude, and Adoption
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. Read time 6:25 During this month folks who are Irish—literally or metaphorically—celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Like many holidays, a non-sectarian sense of fun has overtaken the religious aspects of the day's origins. So what does St. Patrick's Day have […]
Parental Certainty, Blindness , and Humble Pie
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this blog post. We’ve all experienced moments which left us embarrassed and needing to be accountable. Humble pie is never tasty and yet life serves it up regularly. (Honesty compels me to admit it is precipitated by my own actions and […]
The Super Power of Parenthood: Be Fully Present
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. We’ve all experienced moments in our lives when we needed someone to be there for us. Often, we’ve had the misfortune of being let down, abandoned to face difficulty on our own. Yet when people truly s answer our […]
Looking Adopted, Thinking Adopted
Feeling short of time or finding it difficult to concentrate? You can listen to this post. An adult adoptee I know described a recent conversation she had with the eight-year-old daughter of a coworker. Somehow the child learned that my friend was adopted. This shocked the little girl because my friend didn’t “look adopted.” In […]
