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Title: LifeBooks : Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child
Author: Beth O’Malley
Summary: Simple and easy-to-follow; just what I needed to get this project started.

This book addresses a task which is fairly simple, but extremely emotional: make a book that describes your child’s life from birth through finalization of adoption into your family. A lifebook is like a scrapbook, only not focused on photos; like a baby book, only covering the tough topics with honesty; like a timeline, only in child-friendly terms. The thing which complicates this process is that you, the adoptive or foster parent, have to think about things you might rather avoid: birth parents’ importance to the child, incomplete information about their life before entering your family, and tough topics like abandonment, abuse, or neglect.
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Popularity: 1% [?]

Title: Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents
Author: Deborah Gray
Summary: Surprisingly readable and eminently useful.

This book is completely awesome for adoptive parents, especially if your child was adopted at age 6 months or older, or if your child has any special circumstances (past abuse, neglect, trauma, etc.). The book is a bit like a textbook, but a very readable one – I did not find the presentation dry, and the material was all compelling.

If anything, some of the vignettes (illustrative stories about adoptive children/families) were so compelling as to be heartwrenching – it is just such a shame what some children have been through! However, every story was wrapped in hope, as the author gives concrete steps regarding what you can do to help your child in virtually every situation.

The first half of the book covers the various problems that may occur related to attachment – what it is, why it is important, and the impact of grief, trauma, cultural change (i.e. international adoption), etc. I felt that these chapters laid an excellent groundwork for the remainder of the book, which covers practical steps for handling the various issues. In fact, throughout the first part of the book, as each issue was described, the author cross-referenced the later chapter which would address that issue.

Chapter 8, one of the longest chapters, was particularly helpful. The author covered all phases of child development (from birth through teen years). In each phase, she described the characteristics of that phase, what the parents’ role is to help the child through that phase, and what we can do as parents if our child did not get the proper attention (i.e. has an emotional delay) in that area.

This is an excellent and thorough coverage of attachment in adoptive families!

Popularity: 15% [?]