Growing Intentional Families Together Blog
Read our blog to find out the latest on adoption.
Reflections on Community and Powerful Conversations
“Hard” conversations can benefit & strengthen relationships. Sit with the discomfort to work through it. Encourage community to counter isolation. Find Adoption Attuned, adoption competent guides to support you through the years.
Recognition Matters in Adoption
In adoption, recognition matters! When we recognize the complexity of adoption and when we give recognition to those who raise awareness, encourages and informs families, provides examples of how to address issues that face adoptees and their families. When we recognize people doing outstanding work, it helps support their work, expand their influence. We are pleased to recognize @Isaac Etter as the recipient of the 2024 recipient of the “Shaping the Future Award.”
Talking About Adoption Matters
Of course, how, with whom, and how often we are talking about adoption matters! In the last few decades, adoption gradually emerged from behind a solid wall of secrecy and a pervasive sense of shame. This is a good thing. As people grew more open to talking about adoption, the tone and content of conversations improved.
Talking through Tough Times
Family communication. When you read that, what came to mind? How do you feel about the communication patterns in your...
Adoption. We’ve GOT to talk!
Adoption. We’ve GOT to talk! Adoption is complicated and overflows with coexisting ambiguities. It both creates and...
Set Your Parenting Course for 2024
To set your parenting course for 2024, review the past, make adjustments, enjoy your successes, identify your priorities & ask yourself these questions.
Adoption: Possibility, Parenting, and Coaching
Adoption means living in possibility, believing we can build families & love children not born to us. Hope isn’t enough however. We must meld hope with action.
Informed, Adoption Attuned Parenting Is a Gift
Gift-giving holds center stage at this time of year for most of us We feel pressure to find the perfect present and...
Adoption Matters. Talk about It.
It’s National Adoption Month. You’re ready to do your part to spread awareness about adoption. Before you start posting & talking up adoption, ask yourself what do I not yet know? Does what I currently know form a complete picture? How much do I know about perspectives beyond my own, like that of adoptees and birth parents? Read more…
Sustaining Regulation and Building Resiliency
Sustaining Regulation and Building Resiliency is one of our main parenting tasks and it is not always easy because our lives not only unfold in the security of our homes, but also against the backdrop of the world at large. The world feels more unsettled and dysregulated than ever, doesn’t it? Sadly, much of the stress and concern about world events, national politics, and the multiple challenges of daily life can easily overflow into our family lives. Even though our family relationships are our most important, often they feel the brunt of our frustrated, overstressed selves.
Our partners, family members, and co-workers are also buckling under the weight of similar pressures. That’s not a match made in heaven. Just the opposite, it is a pairing that demands our alert selves, our fullest commitment, and our strongest intentionality. Yes, friends and family will generally forgive our snark, inattention, and our blow ups. That is, if they are the exception, not the norm. And if we make the necessary attempts to acknowledge and repair.