Blending Children by Birth and Adoption
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
05/21/21
•62m
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Have you ever considered adopting after you had children by birth? Or thought about trying to get pregnant after you adopted? Is it a good idea to combine kids by birth and adoption. In this episode, we talk with Rebecca Ricardo, an LCSW who has worked in the field of adoption since 1991. She currently serves as the Executive Director for a licensed, child-placing agency that provides both placement and support services. She is an adoptee and a birth mom. The son she placed for adoption was raised as the only adopted child between two children born to his adoptive parents.
In this episode, we cover:
• What are the typical reasons why families have both adopted and non-adopted kids?
• What does the research show on how children and families adjust when there are children by both adoption and infertility?
• Do parents have a tendency to favor their biological children? Kin Selection Theory based on evolutionary psychology.
• Does it matter if the adopted child is adopted after the family has had bio kids, or if the adopted child comes first (most often because the parents were infertile) and they went back into treatment after they adopted to try for a biological child? What different factors come into play?
• Favoritism by grandparents or extended family. How to handle?
• The tendency of parents of families that combine biological and adopted kids to downplay genetics, birth stories, etc.
• How to handle conflicts with children or extended family members when children require a different type of parenting because one child has experienced trauma?
• How to handle conflicts when one child requires more of the parent’s time than another child?
• Tips for parents who are combining kids by birth and adoption. How can social workers help families that are considering this?
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Previous Episode
Taking Care of Yourself When Parenting Harder to Parent Kids
May 14, 2021
•38m
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Do you sometimes feel that self-care is an impossible goal when you are parenting kids who have experienced trauma. There isn't enough time in the day to do it all, much less take care of yourself. Or is there? Join us to talk about how to find time to take care of yourself. We will talk with Angelica Jones, MSW, Program Director of Intercountry Services and the Intensive Service Foster Care Recruiter and Trainer at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services.
In this episode, we cover:
· “Selfcare” or “take care of yourself” are overused but still vitally important terms for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents.
· Why do all parents but especially parents of kids who’ve experienced trauma need to practice self-care?
· What is secondary trauma?
· Why are kids who’ve experience neglect, abuse and other childhood traumas harder to parent?
· The busyness of foster and adoptive parenting.
· What are some of the barriers to taking care of ourselves as adoptive, foster or kinship parents?
· The importance of respite care and the barriers to parents using it.
· Practical ideas for providing self-care.
· Think small when thinking self-care.
· Ask for help and accept it when offered. If someone offers to help, say “yes” and suggest something specific. Ex. A meal on Wednesday night. Babysitting or taking a child to the movies once a month.
· Parent Support groups
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
· Weekly podcasts
· Weekly articles/blog posts
· Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Next Episode
Interview with Sarah Sentilles, author of "Stranger Care"
May 28, 2021
•54m
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In this episode we interview Sarah Sentilles, author of a newly released book by Random House titled Stranger Care. "Stranger Care" is a beautifully written book that captures the promise and often the failure of foster care. And it is a beautiful portrait of love with no promise of a future.
In this episode, we cover:
Beautifully written book that captures the promise and often the failure of foster care. And a beautiful portrait of love with no promise of a future.
· How did you come to the decision to become foster parents? And did you come to that decision or were you really trying to become an adoptive parent?
· Discussion of “ethically cleaner”.
· I appreciated how you showed Evelyn, the birth mom, to be human and to love her child. You did a good job of showing the nuances, which are hard to do, especially when you are the one losing the child. I very much enjoyed seeing how that relationship grew. What helped change it?
· Rooting for and against birth mom
· Love and yet not belonging to you
· The power of the state to remove kids should not be used without great care.
· What qualifies as good parenting and is “good enough” enough. Ex. of the car seat.
· Keeping siblings together.
· It is discouraging that organizations, such as Creating a Family exist to support people like you when you were first considering your options. And if we didn’t reach someone like you who is educated and I would assume someone who researches and gathers info then how in the world do we reach people. Education research focused woman are our demographic!
· How long has it been and do you know what has happened to Coco?
· How have you and your husband been changed by this experience?
· Is this book in part an attempt to reach out to Coco. Did you write it with an ear to her reading it later in life and you talking to her. Do you hope she will hear about it and read it?
· Did you decide to give up on fostering? What about adopting?
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
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