Yesterday I went to a meeting at a local church where John Rosemond (well-known author on parenting) wanted to guide and share his theory that attachment is a MYTH (you can click here to read one of his articles to read a bit of his 2 cents here) and that our adopted children need “the […]
The Young Family Farm »
Author Archives: admin Ok…so I needed just about 4 days to recover from the weekend and the 5 months of planning…and this momma is READY TO GO!!! I am SO, SO, SO thankful for the life the Lord has blessed me with–and how He has opened my eyes to SEE. I love my “new normal”. That is perfectly […] Andrea- I love the Valentine’s Day cards and I love your bangs! Good job with all!! You didn’t tell me you cut your bangs yourself! They look great! I haven’t done that since I was 4 and it didn’t work out so well for me that time…. Kylie has been carrying Frank’s Valentine picture around all morning….she even put “him” in a chair next to her during breakfast!!! Not gonna lie, you would make a REALLY cool MIL 🙂 Andrea- you totally crack me up! Love your kiddos they are soo cute! Love your bag too 🙂 Can’t wait to hear your funny 🙂 girl… thanks for the shout out… me… you… Zambia… ITS ON!!!! AND, the bangs are actually impressive… quite cute! nice job…. love you girl… Hi Andrea. Been reading your blog for a while now but haven’t commented yet. I just wanted to say THANK YOU for not being content to just stay where God had you. Thank you for being willing to step out in faith and adopt and share about the good and the hard and to be a voice through your blog for orphans everywhere. God has used you to help me get a clearer vision of what adoption is about and strengthened my faith that God’s grace will be sufficient no matter what along the adoption process that we’re in. I really think the Lord must be so pleased with how you are seeking to be His hands and feet. Thanks for being His instrument of grace! Here’s a list of the songs we sang throughout the weekend during worship. I’ve already made a cd in iTunes from them, How He Loves Us None But Jesus The Stand How Great Is Our God Your Grace Is Enough Mighty To Save Our God Come Away Never Let Go Healer Oh Lord Your Beautiful […] Thanks for doing the leg work on this! I downloaded all this morning! 🙂 That’s awesome! I had tried to write down every song we sang this weekend to do the same thing, but knew I was missing a few! I’ll be downloading this shortly! Thanks for an amazing weekend! I’ve even been told I looked radiant! 🙂 Wow… your ministry just keeps continuing even after this is over. What a God thing! I AM PRAYING I CAN MAKE THE NEXT ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We should be settled into our new home in Tampa by then :)!!!!!!! I will be marking my calendar for sure!!!! LOVE the place you held it at this year…that King Bed was a-mazing! 🙂 BUT…thinking you’ll have to get the Braves stadium to fit all the people who want to come! So fun!!!! Thank you for sharing your stories and the encouragement you guys received at the Created for Care Retreat!!! I’d love to share your stories–so if you wrote something about the weekend on your blog–please send your blog address link about the weekend via my contact page so I can add it to the list! In […] I am so behind on blogging! Have still not blogged about this amazing weekend! Hope to get to it tonight, if I do, I will let you know so you can add my blog to the list, thanks for doing this, Andrea! Great idea! Just got all of my MANY pictures posted on our blog! Andrea, I know I’ve told you already, but the weekend was truly amazing!! What a blessing! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! Posted about our FABULOUS weekend retreat! I hope you realize just how MANY lives you helped God touch, Andrea! Your heart is beautiful!  WOW! I am finally coming up for air after crashing pretty early the last two nights! It was SUCH an amazing weekend–one that I really can’t put into words!! “REALLY, you say?” I know, I’m a writer at heart–but there are SO many things that were just amazing…AMAZING…about the weekend. Truly, I have NEVER in […] Andrea~ Thank you, thank you for taking me under your wing on Sunday and taking me to the airport. It was SO above and beyond and it blessed me – really! It was a treat to get to spend a few hours getting to know you. Thank you for all that you poured into the retreat. I’m praying for your new area of ministry this week. Praying that He will give you energy and wisdom to love and to listen and let Him move. You are Beautiful, Andrea, inside and out … I could feel the power and passion of this weekend in your writing. How awesome is our God – love this!! wow. what a beautiful weekend. sure wish i could have experienced it. but i feel like i am getting to live vicariously through everyone’s posts. it is obvious that the lord really met you all there. Sounds like God did immeasurably more than we prayed for! I just cannot tell you enough what a blessing last weekend was to my heart. I am so thankful that you said YES to God when He put this on your heart. I pray that your family will be abundantly blessed for being obedient to His calling. i am thoroughly enjoying reading on lots of adoption blogs about the Created for Care retreat! it seems like everyone had a blast and truly felt the Lord in that place! i can’t wait to see the dates for 2012; i’m ready to schedule it on my calendar…can’t miss it! thanks for all your hard work. God Bless! Thank you for following your heart and having this retreat. It was so encouraging to me. http://the-brown-brigade.blogspot.com/2011/02/sitting-at-foot-of-cross.html I’m still speechless about the weekend. It was awesome. It was life-changing. I’m going to try to crank out a post this week so it will have a page in our blog book for memories’ sake, but seriously, there are just no words to describe! Thank you so much for being God’s hands and feet in pulling it all together–it was clear that it was His doing and HE WAS THERE WITH US, but it only happened because you were willing to be the vessel! LOVE YOU!!! I am still processing this weekend as well. All I know is that I’m better for it!!! http://afr2007.blogspot.com/2011/02/created-for-care-retreat-2011.html It was a powerful weekend and I am looking forward to next year already! I posted it on my blog…but I was really challenged by Beth T. in one of the breakout sessions. She spoke about parenting your child in the Spirit…anyone that attended and did not get to go to that session be sure to listen to it…OUTSTANDING! God has clearly given her the ability to speak to the heart of women! Thanks Andrea for being obedient to God’s call not only on your life…but specifically in the planning of this retreat! Thank you for this amazing weekend! Such an encouraging, informative, challenging weekend for me-a first time mom! I blogged about it! http://www.addingastons.blogspot.com. I just posted one of several blog posts I plan to write about the retreat. It was so encouraging and refreshing. Looking forward to next year. Can you see all these comments??Is God not AWESOME!!! Loves to you girl! Such an amazing weekend. I’m amazed by the Lord completely showing up and speaking so loudly to so many of us. Thanks for taking the leap of faith to put it together. Thank you for following God’s leading for a weekend like this. I loved it and I still can’t come up with the words to express my time there. Andrea, it was an amazing weekend! And timed so perfectly for me! I can’t wait until next year! I posted (what I could with four precious children running around) 🙂 on my blog about the weekend http://www.bealladoptionjourney.blogspot.com Andrea! The retreat sounds absolutely incredible!!!!!! My heart just hurts when I read this b/c I wish I was there so badly! And, when I read that about what you said about orphans with HIV, it made me so emotional! It all resonated with my heart! We are waiting to bring home our little one with HIV, and I can’t stop thinking about him/her. I can’t wait to get him/her on the meds he/she needs…to hold him/her, love him/her, show him/her how special and loved he/she is! I never signed up to go on the retreat b/c we were already in the program and I assumed we would get a referral really quickly and that by Feb, we would be in travel-mode. But…we are still waiting!! Trusting in God’s perfect timing and sovereignty while LONGING for a little African baby to be in our arms! |
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by admin
Grrreat, just what adoptive parents need to hear – NOT! I am a bit of a mushy gushy mama as it is – I still “wear” my almost 17 month old because I love being close to her! I can’t imagine being heavy handed with any of my children, let alone an adopted one. Boo!
I am so thankful that God is not heavy handed with me and loves me where I am at…takes my hand and moves me to where he wants me! I pray that I approach my parenting with love and grace understanding there has to be structure too. Thanks for sharing!
so, so heart-breaking. i can’t tell you how deeply this disturbs me. attachment does not just pertain to adopted kids. it pertains to bio kids as well. studies show that 45% of low-income/high risk bio kids and i want to say 30% of “normal” kids are insecurely attached. all kids need to know that their voice matters. having parented two securely attached bio kids, then a baby from Ethiopian with pretty serious attachment issues initially, it have been SO clear that she was a *hurting* child. i had to take the initiative to work toward secure attachment, to show her i was dependable when she believed in the deepest parts of her being that she could depend on *no one*. it has taken a long time (been home 1 year soon and still not totally there). it has been painful for everyone, but so very worth it.
thank you, thank you for warning people about this person. it’s just gut wrenching to read this stuff coming out of the christian community. and in terms of discipline, it’s nothing new. so many christian parenting “experts” do not understand that the Hebrew women on the OT breastfed until their children were 3-5 years old, carried them, comforted them, slept near them. God is described as loving US in that same tender way. biblical parenting is NOT about being a control freak or raising mini-robots. it’s pouring yourself out to show God’s great love in a tangible way.
i’m sorry for all the typos above — i meant “a baby from Ethiopia”, “it HAS been so clear”, and “the Hebrew women OF the Old Testament”. i didn’t proofread well enough because i was still reeling from the post! attachment is near and dear to my heart…
I had to weep after reading your post. We had no instruction what so ever when we adopted our first child. We have stumbled around and we love her so much, yet we come from a legalistic background and I know its not working and I felt like we were causeing her more problems. I am so thankful that you posted this so we can get good instruction for the two new babies we will be bringin home soon from Ethiopia. Thank you so much agian for posting this. I finally feel like there is some hope and I have someone reliable to go to.
WOW-have read a book of his and never would have suspected him to say that at all!!!! SHOCKED!!!!!!
I think there is such a balance with any child, but especially a child that has been hurt. With 8 different children all have come from very different places…..I can say that it has sooo much to do with personality, with where they came from, with circumstances – some you may or may not know of, and how their heart heals. This is sooo different for every child.
I have read a couple of his books, and while some advice was helpful….in the end I found myself wondering if he had ever parented before. A 6 step plan is a nice idea…..and if it really worked we could all just follow the “rules” and turn out happy, dependable, responsible kids! However, I felt his books gave very little room for the “real meat” of a person…their heart. We all have strengths, weaknesses, sins, shortcomings, hurts…..and I believe each child’s little heart must be healed and guided a bit differently for each child. Yea for attatchment! We need to attatch to our kids so that we can learn, seek out and discern (with much prayer and wisdom from the Lord) how to best love each individual child and help them to heal and thrive! I am a little surprised he used the term “authoratative discipline”…..I did not glean that from his books! I really appreciate Dr. Purvis and all I have learned from her! Thank you for this post!
You gave me a lot to think about. We are adopting from Ethiopia and I am learning a lot from those of you who already have your children home. From what I’m reading I agree with a lot of the attachment philosophy and really try to connect with my own kids in that way. Even in our biological family we have times where we need to spend with each child for a “healing” session because they are harboring hurt or misunderstanding. So, a lot of this is already resonating with me. I think that attachment is going to be really important as we bring an adopted child into our family and I don’t want to make light of it or jump to the next part of my thought too quickly, which is: How do we know when it is the right time to enforce the obeyance of family standards/rules? (And I don’t mean enforce in a harsh, dictator-like way. Maybe “holding accountable” would be a better phrase than “enforce.”) I mean that all of my children are guided through how to be a part of our family, how to interact with one another in a loving and Christ-like way, and the older a child gets the more we help guide them in becoming responsible for things like picking up their rooms, doing their school work, etc. I’m not one to be legalistic, but I also want to make sure I’m not swinging the pendulum too far the other way and neglecting that piece with my adoptive child, especially since we will consider him or her part of our forever family. (Btw: we are adopting an infant, so I know this doesn’t apply in the same way for those adopting older kids.) Two things I hope for my kids besides loving God and serving Him with their whole heart are that they know they are loved by us and are confidently moving into age-appropriate independence so they can one day be secure adults contributing positively to society. I hope this comes across right because I am in no way trying to be controversial. I am merely at the beginning stages of it all trying to ask the right questions so I can be the best parent for a child who needs nurture and structure. Sorry to write a novel. I will keep reading your posts to see what else I can learn along the way.
Thanks for stepping out on this! It helps!
Rory Cookman
Portland, Oregon
woosterweester@aol.com
Andrea thank you for directing me to Dr. Purvis’ talk. Very interesting and compelling. One thing I have been thinking about a lot lately is how the gospel of God’s unmerited favor looks and plays out, so to speak, in our parenting. He is all about relationship–relationship is the essence of the gospel. And I want my life to reflect the beauty and power of God’s grace. Every part of my life–especially my parenting.
Good for you for going and speaking up! I am seeing the confusion in our little guy as he has started 3 visits a week with bio dad who he does not know. It is heartbreaking. That is crazy to think it is a myth.