Listen to excerpts from Growing Intentional Families Together's Discovery Webinar Is Adopting a Child Right for Me? 

Hosts, adoptive parents, and adoption coaches, Susan David and Gayle Swift, continue their hiatus 'til June. Meantime, they've been busy working with their colleagues and have recently launched Is Adopting a Child Right for Me? Child-centric and adoption attuned, it’s a six-module, on-demand course that offers information, preparation, and competency to make that important, life-changing decision to adopt a child ... or not. Learn more about what’s covered in the course here on this 58th episode of The Essentials for Adoption Attuned Parenting 

More information about this course as well as access to a free on-demand discovery webinar with Susan and Gayle and their colleagues at Growing Intentional Families Together can be found at www.giftfamilyservices.com. 

Join hosts, adoptive parents, and adoption coaches, Susan David and Gayle Swift, as they discuss their upcoming course, Is Adopting a Child Right for Me? Child-centric and adoption attuned, it’s a six-module, on-demand course that offers information, preparation, and competency to make that important, life-changing decision to adopt a child ... or not.  

More information about this upcoming course as well as a free discovery webinar with Susan and Gayle and their colleagues at Growing Intentional Families Together can be found at www.giftfamilyservices.com.  

Taking a break is an opportunity to catch a breath, reassess, and tweak ... SO this episode is a rebroadcast as your hosts take a winter-into-spring hiatus. Join us for new episodes in June!   

A desire to connect with another person is at the heart of every conversation. Too often our words land in an unintended way. Mismatches are not uncommon in conversations between parent and child. So what can we parents do to avoid these conversation mishaps?     

Join hosts, adoption coaches, and parents, Susan David and Gayle Swift, as they discuss how to listen so your kids feel seen, heard, and loved. As always, the discussion is Adoption Attuned and child-centric.   

A note from your hosts:  

Deeper listening questions/comments referenced in this episode include: 

I see this is hard for you ... Do you want me to …

• Simply listen or….
• Offer suggestions or …
• Get involved and if so, what are your ideas about how to handle this?

Offer empathy, so they see we "get" their pain, anger, frustration, and disappointments and then eventually, ask them what they are learning from this.

• How will it help them to do things differently moving forward?
• Will this be a temporary or permanent challenge?
• How does it require them to adjust their long-term goals?
• What skills/knowledge does this challenge reveal they need to address?
• Get clear about whose problem it is?
• How does their problem create situations that they need to face?
• How does this problem create a situation that we parents might need to address?
• How do we disentangle the factors so each of us is clear whose stuff is whose?

Join adoptive parents and adoption coaches, Susan David and Gayle Swift, as they discuss 4 EASY things to do as resolutions for the year ahead. These suggestions were designed with the holiday weary listener in mind. They remain applicable as we move further along in the coming year. Like all parents, adoptive moms and dads can neglect their own self-care and this can affect how we "show up" with our kids. So together in this short episode, let's review and resolve so that we can be the adoption attuned parents our kids need.        

Join adoptive parents and adoption coaches, Susan David and Gayle Swift, as they discuss how to go about building an Adoption Attuned Library. Last month they discussed "The Top Six Reasons You Want an Adoption Attuned Library." And now in this follow-up episode, 3 types of readers are addressed and an example of how a specific book for each type fits the bill of Adoption Attunement is identified. All under the umbrella of Adoption Attuned Parenting, from accurate information to evoking empathic responses, you'll learn how an Adoption Attuned library can be invaluable for helping families address many complex adoption issues.       

Join adoptive parents and adoption coaches, Susan David and Gayle Swift, as they discuss why its important to develop a family library that is Adoption Attuned. 

Books serve as an immensely valuable tool for helping families address adoption complexity. And, a loving parent’s lap offers the perfect, safe place to share a book. So you can see why developing a well stocked adoption library can help adopted kids talk about this significant part of their family. Both parent and child benefit in powerful ways. Let’s get started and discuss the Six Top Reasons You Want an Adoption Attuned Family Library.

Did you realize that adoptive parenting and hurricane preparedness have a lot in common? Think of it as “hope for the best yet prepare for the worst.” 

Join adoptive parents and adoption coaches, Susan David and Gayle Swift, as they discuss how preparing to be an adoptive parent is like storm preparation. We can’t think that challenging parent/child issues won’t head our way. We can’t think, "Not my kids or It will never happen to us." It can. In fact, it almost certainly will! Perhaps it will be the equivalent of a Category 1 storm. Perhaps it will be more like a Category 5. Certainly, it is better to be prepared than to be blindsided by challenges as we raise our adopted children.