Today I was directed to an awesome essay on transracial adoption, written by an amazing eighth grader, who was adopted from Korea by a white family.

The essay can be found on the blog, the Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus, and the direct link is here.

It is highly impressive that this essay was written by an eighth grade girl. It is well thought out, well researched, well expressed and well written. She also does a great job of being objective, and giving thought and credit to many different points of view. She did a better job on this than most adults would.

For transracial adoptive... more

Letter "Y" is a post I have had in my mind and in my heart for quite some time. In my Transracial Adoption ABCs, the letter "Y" is for "yours".

When you adopt a child, that child is yours. Adoption is not long-term babysitting. It is not an act of charity or a good deed. It is a way to expand your family, and it legally creates a relationship of parents and child.

There is a lot of emphasis put on the importance of birth parents, birth families and birth countries and cultures. It is true that adopted children have other people and places that... more

While earlier in this Transracial Adoption ABCs series I wrote about adopting teenagers, today, the letter "T" is for toddlers.

Toddlers - Toddler adoption is a unique type of adoption. Many people make the false assumption that adopting a toddler is simply adopting a bigger baby or an older baby, and that line of thinking can cause problems.

When you read parenting books and articles, teens and toddlers seem to get the reputations for being the challenging... more

If you pay attention to any of the online forums, blogs or email groups that have to do with transracial adoption, it will not take you long to find parents talking about hair and skin care for black children. Unlike black parents who have had a lifetime to learn how to care for their own hair, parents who have black children through transracial adoption often find there is a steep learning curve to caring for their children's beautiful hair.

Taking care... more

In my last post I wrote about some of the reasons why sleep can be a challenging issue for parents of newly adopted children.

In this post, I am going to offer some suggestions to help ensure that you and your child get as much sleep as possible in your early days together.

- Know what you child is used to, and as much as possible, make things familiar. Is your child used to sleeping with several other children in his bed? If so, he may sleep better in a room... more

Let's face it. Every parent knows that life is better, parenting is easier and the sun shines brighter when you are getting sleep at night. And for parents to get sleep, their kids need to be sleeping well at night. Therein lies the challenge. Today in my Transracial Adoption ABCs, I am going to write about sleep.

Sleep - If you go to Adoptionshop.com and search for "sleep", you will get over 50 products, most... more

The letter "S" is for siblings in this post of my Transracial Adoption ABCs.

Siblings - There is lots to think about when it comes to siblings and adoption.

Are you open to adopting siblings? Sibling groups are often the hardest to place, because many adoptive parents do not want more than one new child at a time, however it has been shown that siblings often do better with their adjustment than single children because they have each other as a "constant" in their lives.

From a child's point of view, being... more

School, and how to handle school with a newly adopted older child is a topic that comes up frequently on email groups and adoption forums. So today, under the letter "S" in my Transracial Adoption ABCs, I am going to write about school.

School - Choosing how to educate your children is a very personal decision. There are parents who find success in quality public schools, there are parents who choose great private schools and there are parents who find homeschooling to be the perfect way to educate their children.

When... more

In my last post, I shared a lot of the personal experiences we have had with our Belane in regards to attachment.

In this post I am going to offer some tips on building and fostering healthy attachment with your adopted child.

- Understand where your child is coming from. Think about his history and background and how that can affect his trust, attachment and adjustment. For many children who can remember the loss of their first parents, anxious attachment is common.

- Be prepared to do things differently than you have with your other children, and understand that you can not parent a newly adopted... more

Today I am going to take a break from the Transracial Adoption ABCs (looking at my list of topics, I am nearing the end of that finally, but I am still looking for something for the letter "Z", if anyone has any bright ideas!) and I am going to write about attachment and adjustment in adopted children.

Belane has now been home for almost eight months. From the moment we were united, she has done extremely well. I don't know if it is because the nannies at... more