For adopted children, separation anxiety often stems from circumstances far beyond their control. Being removed from their biological family, and then foster carers, leaves children feeling anxious when they are separated from their new caregivers.

New experiences and situations can be particularly difficult to manage for adopted children, such as starting school or moving into a new class. We can do a lot to help with this before the start of a new term, such as visiting the new school/classroom/teacher. We found regular walks to her new school in the couple of weeks before she started, and helped our youngest familiarise herself with the route and routine.

Separation anxiety is difficult for a child, but it’s also distressing for parents. There’s nothing worse than leaving your child in tears at nursery or school. Even if they settle quickly after that, it’s something I struggled with when our youngest daughter was unsettled at nursery.

Managing new situations is something all children have to experience. As parents, although we’d love to be able to take away any anxiety about a new situation, we can’t. But we can use techniques and props to help our children manage their feelings.

Here are five tips recommended by parents to help manage separation anxiety:

Talking

As our daughter gets older, we’ve all learned how to manage separation better. A big part of this has been talking. We talk through what’s going to happen in advance of the new situation, and if she’s got questions I can’t answer, I’ll find out and tell her.

Knowing which door to use, where to hang her coat, and where the loos are, are all things that help her manage her anxiety. We try not to force conversations and talk about things when she wants to. Like a lot of children though, she tends to bottle it up and her anxiety comes out in anger. So we often talk things through once she’s calmer and is able to express what she’s worried about.

We’ve found the school website a great starting point for conversations. There are some photos of classrooms and we talk about where hers is going to be and how she’ll get there.

Smells

We’ve found familiar smells work really well for our eldest. She has a spray of my favourite perfume on her wrist and on her clothing. This helps her to feel safe and know that I’m with her, even when I’m not there physically.

We use this technique not just for school, but any situation where she’s nervous about something new. It’s a discrete way of helping her feel safe as no-one else knows what the smell means to her.

Physical things

We used this technique for the first time last year. Covid meant there were no physical visits to her new classroom. This was particularly hard for our daughter as she was moving up into juniors. It’s a completely separate school which she wasn’t familiar with at all.

I bought her this lovely badge from Clara and Macy which I ironed on the inside of her school cardigan. It worked a treat. It gave her a little boost whenever she needed it. And she also used it to help her friends. One of her friend’s mum stopped me in the yard and said our daughter had let her daughter hug her badge when she was missing her mum in the first few days of the new term which I thought was lovely.

You can also buy the design as a pin or with different versions of mum and dad. Click here to see all of their designs. They’re such a simple idea, and a brilliant way of helping your child remember you’re always close.

Wrist drawing

A lot of parents find drawing a heart of something similar on their child’s wrist and their wrist, helps with separation anxiety. Depending on your child’s age, they could draw something on your hand or wrist, and then you do the same on theirs. It’s a simple and effective reminder for them throughout the day, that you’re with them.

The drawing on their wrist could also be used as a hug button. When you’re child is feeling anxious or worried when they’re apart from you, they can touch the drawing and imagine a hug from you. A lot of parents say this works well for their child.

Books

I’m a huge lover of using books to help my kids understand something new. There are some great picture storybooks available about starting school and managing separation anxiety.

Without a doubt, our favourite is “The Invisible String” written by Patrice Karst. It’s a beautiful story about two children who were worried about sleeping on their own. Their mum told them about the invisible string which always connects them.

We went through a stage where this was the only book our eldest wanted to read at bedtime. She absolutely loved it, and we still talk about the concept of our invisible string that connects us, even when we’re apart.

Read my review of the book and The Invisible String is available to buy from a range of outlets such as like Amazon.

Transition box

Creating a transition box is a great way of helping your child feel safe and secure, and understanding they’re still connected to you and home when they’re at school. The box doesn’t need to be big, just something you can put in things you’ve made together at home. You could make things specifically for it, or use things you made together that you’re child has kept.

Your child can then add in things to the box that they’ve made at school for you.

Make sure you speak to the school or nursery first to agree that your child can bring a box in. Some schools don’t allow children to bring things in from home so if that’s the case at your child’s school, you’ll need to get permission beforehand.

If you’d like some more tips and advice about managing school year transitions, read Emma Spillane’s article, which is packed full of tips and advice.

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Please note that this article contains affiliate links to Etsy and Amazon. That means if you click on the link and go on to buy the products, I get paid a fee from the store.

Until then, most of the children’s books I’d found were American and didn’t fit the bill in terms of explaining how adoption works and who all of the different people involved in the process are. So, it was a welcome relief to find a book written by an adopter that covered everything to help us talk about adoption with our eldest and then youngest daughter.

Please note that this review includes an affiliate link for the book. That means if you click on the link in the article to the book and then buy it, I get paid a fee from Amazon.

“The Family Fairies” is a beautiful rhyming storybook following the journey of a special couple on their search to find their forever family. 

It’s written for adopted children to help them understand the role of the people involved in finding their forever family. Social workers and foster carers are referred to as “Family Fairies”. The book covers how families come together and refers to key stages of the adoption process in a child-focused way.

The book has been reviewed by Hayley, whose daughter was two years old when she wrote the review.

The Family Fairies

“The Family Fairies” is a beautiful book that explains the adoption process in simple terms for children to understand. The first time I read it aloud to my daughter, I had a lump in my throat and struggled to finish it. 

My little one is two. Although she’s too young to fully understand what’s happening, she loves this book and knows it’s about her.  So much so that she always wants to skip through a lot of the story and head straight to the part when we meet her. 

She loves the part where we say this story is “all about….YOU”. She looks so proud of herself, which is what we’re aiming for. 

We all want our children to embrace adoption and be proud of it. This book is a perfect way to get the message across in those early years. The idea of using fairies and their spells to help bring a forever family together engages children. It makes the whole experience magical for them.  

I would definitely recommend adding this book to your collection.

You can buy the book from Amazon and other bookshops.

Reviews of adoption books

Have you read a brilliant adoption book you’d like to review? Get in touch to share your recommendations and reviews. If you’d like to find out about other brilliant adoption books for adults and children, head to the book review section.

Until the adoption order is granted, your child is still a looked after child and is therefore under the care of the local authority. They will share parental responsibility with you until the order is made.

Social work visits

Your child’s social worker should come out to visit within the first week of placement, and then every week until the first formal review. These statutory reviews can be a blessing and a hindrance. It can feel like an extra layer of scrutiny while you’re learning how to be a parent and getting to know your child. But it can also be reassuring having someone to talk to who knows your child.

When our eldest came home, it was our social worker who visited as our daughter’s social worker had left the agency. To be honest, I quite liked the fact that she came around a lot. She was lovely and it felt more like a friend dropping in to check we were ok rather than anything formal.

I appreciate that we were very lucky to feel like that. A lot of people find the visits difficult for a number of reasons, not least because they are unsettling for their child. But they have to take place, albeit on a less frequent basis as the placement progresses.

As with everything to do with adoption, how these meetings take place will vary depending on your agency. If your social worker is from the agency that placed the child, the visits may be split between them so someone comes each week, but they don’t both come. If the placing authority is a different agency to where you were assessed, both may come out. However, it’s done, they’re are a statutory requirement and the visits should be recorded.

The adoption process: Statutory review requirements

Social work visits should be weekly until the first review. The first review should take place four weeks after placement and is a “Looked After Child” review and the social worker might refer to it as a LAC review. The venue of the meetings will usually be in your home so that everyone can see how your child is settling into familiar surroundings.

Don’t feel you have to blitz the house and clean everywhere. They’re expecting the house to look lived in so as long as it’s safe, don’t worry about everything looking perfect. Real life is far from perfect and everyone would worry more if it looked like it was.

Either your child’s or your social worker (sometimes both) should attend the meeting, together with the independent reviewing officer and usually your child’s health visitor. Your child’s social worker should have prepared a report outlining a brief history and everyone’s views on the placement. The role of the independent reviewing officer is to make sure the local authority are carrying out all of their statutory obligations. So if there’s something they promised they’d do and haven’t, the review meeting is the time to raise it.

The second review should take place within three months of the first, and if a third one is needed, within six months of the second review. Reviews continue until the adoption order is granted.

Our experience

Our experience of the reviews was that they were informal. We were very lucky and didn’t have any particular issues following the placement of either child, so it may not be as informal for everyone.

There is a statutory framework for the review so that everyone is satisfied the child’s needs are being met by the placement. How this is covered will vary depending on the social worker. Some may go through every question in that type of format. Others may do it as part of a general chat.

If there are things that you feel are not being addressed by the local authority, this is a chance for you to air them so they are minuted and a plan agreed as to how the issue can be resolved. Make sure there’s a clear plan and it’s clear whose responsibility it is to do what.

Medical visits

In addition to there being statutory requirements for the number of social work visits in the early months of placement, there are increased visits from your health visitor. For a birth
child, health visitors visit regularly during the first six weeks, but then the visits become much less frequent although you can ask them to come out if you have any issues.

When a child is placed for adoption, a health visitor from your area should contact you to arrange to come out. You’ll get your child’s health book (ours are red but the colour changes) which details all of their health visits, immunisations etc since birth. This book is in your child’s birth name and stays that way until the adoption order is granted.

We didn’t ask for new books to be issued for our girls once the orders were granted. We felt that they should stay in their birth names because it’s part of their history and the vast majority of entries were made before the order was granted. Whether you ask for new books will probably depend on your child’s circumstances.

Health visitor

With our eldest, the health visitor was the same one she had been seeing ever since she was born. It was decided it would be of benefit for her to have the same health visitor because she knew of the issues in the first few months of our daughter’s life.

With hindsight, I’m not sure that was the best decision. I often felt that things that weren’t really an issue, were being seen as an issue because the health visitor knew about the history. An example of that is the fact that our eldest didn’t really like lumps in her food.

This was brought up in our initial meeting with her foster carer and medical adviser. We were told it could be a sign that her mouth and throat muscles weren’t developing properly which could lead to speech problems. It’s something that the health visitor made a big thing out of too.

I’d talked to my sister and mum about it and they suggested going back a stage with weaning which is what I did (our daughter was nine months old when she came home). I blended lots of foods until they were smooth and gave her that for the first few weeks with finger food. I gradually made the purees lumpier and she ate them quite happily. It turns out that her issue was that she didn’t like buying pre-made meals. I’ve since read that babies fed bought baby food are more likely to not like lumps. I’ve no idea why that is.

Training in trauma

I was disappointed that the health visitor jumped to the worst-case scenario about our eldest’s dislike of lumps, rather than talking through what she was eating and suggesting trying different things. We had several other experiences of her doing this over the next few years too. I suspect it was due to a lack of specific training about adopted children rather than anything else.

Health visitors are a great resource but our experience is it’s best to be cautious about issues that may be due to your child’s early life experiences. The majority aren’t trained to deal with adopted children and the kinds of issues they are likely to be affected by.

If you have concerns about behaviour or development, I would speak to your social worker about it first. They’ll be able to say whether it’s normal behaviour in the context of your child’s history or something that you need to be concerned about. If it’s the latter, I would ask them who they recommend you seek help from.

Other meetings

There may be other meetings with medical professionals, but those will depend on your child’s circumstances. If they are having treatment, that should continue and will have formed part of the placement plan. You may be asked to attend reviews of this before your child is placed so that you know what stage it’s at and how long it will continue.

Depending on the age of your child when they’re placed, there may also be meetings with nursery or school to review how they’ve settled following placement.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to show your support for the magazine? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

Today’s article is written by Mikenda Plant who is a family therapist, supervisor, and trainer. Mikenda has worked for 25 years with children in care and adopted children, their families, and the professionals who support them. She is a Consultant & Practitioner in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy.

Mikenda is also the author of Tippy Moffle’s Mirror, a therapeutic storybook for adopted children and parents. Head over to the book review section to read my review of the book and if you want to find out more about the book and other Moffle stories, check out Mikenda’s website.

Attachment-Focused Family Therapy

My name is Mikenda Plant and I’m a Family and Systemic Psychotherapist, specialising in Attachment Focused Family Therapy. This is also known as known as Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). It’s a treatment for adopted and looked-after children, who have experienced trauma and are struggling to develop secure relationships with their parents and carers.

DDP was developed by Dr Dan Hughes and is based on attachment theory. It focuses on the importance of the child and parent working together with the therapist. By having parents involved, the child experiences safety, comfort, and nurture with the people who matter most to them.

I use a range of attachment and trauma-informed ways of working in my practice as I’ve found that there is no ‘one size fits all’ when supporting adoptive families. A responsive and flexible approach is needed to meet each family’s individual needs.

When children have been hurt by early life experiences of abuse and neglect, they can develop a whole range of coping strategies that can feel alarming, confusing, and upsetting to their adoptive parents.  I have often been told by parents that their child’s behaviour seems to be designed to push them away and seems to be saying that they do not need them or their love.

Therapy sessions

At the beginning of therapy, I spend time with parents to allow them to look at the impact on them of living with a traumatised child. We explore their own parenting and attachment histories, to understand better why their child might so readily ‘press their buttons’ and generate strong feelings and responses in them.

When parents have been on the receiving end of their child’s distress, anger, controlling behaviour, or rejection for long periods of time, it is not uncommon for them to find it hard to maintain feelings associated with being a loving parent. This is a natural neurological reaction to trying to relate to a child who struggles to attune. It is referred to as ‘blocked care’ and is very distressing for parents who suffer from it. It often provokes feelings of deep sadness and shame.

In therapeutic parenting sessions, we can work through this state of blocked care and find ways to help parents become kinder to themselves, as well as more receptive, open, and empathic to their child. Overwhelmed parents need and deserve to feel cared for themselves. When they do, it can free them up to care for their children in the way that they would like to.

I invite parents to join with me to become a therapeutic team. While they may bring their child to therapy for one hour a week with me, they love and care for their child full time and I know that they are the experts, and their child’s best resource. We need to understand and trust each other. I believe that the foundation of therapeutic success is the quality of the relationship that is developed between parent and therapist.

PACE

We work on understanding and developing PACE as a therapeutic parenting attitude. Playful (being optimistic; using humour when appropriate); Accepting (being validating/accepting of their child’s experience), Curious (showing non-judgmental interest and curiosity in their child’s experience), and Empathic (to convey their experience of their child). We couple this with psychoeducation to develop a ‘therapeutic toolkit’ of strategies for offering safety, structure, and boundaries to their child, alongside PACE.

All the time it is important to remember that ‘we don’t do perfect’! In my experience, adoptive parents can give themselves a very hard time and hold themselves to impossible standards of parenting, even under very difficult circumstances.

I invite parents to treat themselves more kindly and to invest in their self-care. I have found that when parents are supported in this way and regain their confidence in themselves and their abilities, sometimes there may be no need to bring the child into therapy. Parents may report that family relationships are improving, their child is closer to them and their difficulties are reducing.

When a child joins their parents in the therapy, our focus is to continue working on their relationships, to increase the child’s sense of safety and security. We work to connect and chat; develop resilience and resources and celebrate the child’s abilities and achievements.

Understanding their life story

Over time, we can begin to help the child to process past trauma memories and to make sense of their life history more fully. Good mental health requires that we have a ‘joined-up story’ about our lives – a coherent narrative as therapists like to call this – where we can make sense of our experiences and reflect on how they have influenced our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, others, and the world around us.

For me, one of the great joys of working in family therapy is finding lots of creative ways to do this. Ways that fit the family and that they can take home to continue using together. These can include sensory exercises, structured play, mindfulness, art, and storytelling.

If you’re looking for a UK therapist qualified in DDP, have a look at the DDP Connects UK website. You’ll find a public register of practitioners qualified in DDP, as well as research, training, and information relevant to parents and carers there.

Preparing for adoption introductions: meeting baby sister

We’re starting introductions next week with baby sister. Preparing to meet her has sent me right back to when we were waiting to meet her big sister. How different things were then. We were very new to parenting. It felt like nothing was expected of us other than we needed to turn up and learn as we went.

This time things are very different. Apparently, we’re experienced parents. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud when we were referred to as that for the first time. Yes, we have experience of parenting. But it feels like we’re making it up as we go along most of the time. I’m experienced in my job and a lot of the time I can do it without thinking. Parenting is a whole different kettle of fish. Each day is a new challenge and just when you think you’ve got it sussed, the rug is pulled out from under you.

As your child grows, you adapt to their ever-changing needs. Our eldest daughter is four and a half. She hasn’t worn a nappy for a long time. And she hasn’t worn a “proper” nappy with side fastenings for what seems like forever. Next week I’ll have to remember how to change a nappy on a baby. Our eldest was nine months when we met her. Baby sister is just shy of six months old. I haven’t changed the nappy of a baby who’s that young since my youngest niece was that age. She’s nearly 11 now.

Remembering how to change a nappy

When we met little Miss, she had a virus and her nappies were hideous. I had to change the first one with her foster carer watching my every move. Don’t get me wrong, the foster carer is lovely and it’s the same one this time. That doesn’t stop me from being very, very nervous. She’ll be expecting us to know what to do.

I’ve never had a birth child. I don’t know how you prepare to meet the baby you’ve grown in your tummy for nine months. When you meet your child through adoption, you already know what they look like. They have a name and routines. They have attachments to their foster carers. We’re expected to go into the foster carer’s home and effectively take over. That’s a lot of pressure.

When we were preparing to meet our eldest, I did a lot of reading about adoption introductions. The adoption forums on Fertility Friends provided a lot of invaluable information about what to expect.

Photographs and smells

Photographs and smells help your child become familiar with you. As our eldest was a young baby, we bought her a couple of cuddly toys and a snuggle blanket and slept with them for a few weeks. This meant when she played with them, she was familiar with our smell.

A lot of adopters make some kind of scrapbook or photo album of immediate family. My mum is a whiz at crafting and put together a fabric photo album so that little Miss could play with it without there being any sharp edges. Not a Fictional Mum has created something similar.

We also laminated some photographs of hubby and I so that the foster carer could put them up around the house. It really broke the ice seeing our photos stuck everywhere the first time we visited the foster carer’s house. I burst out laughing every time I went upstairs as our photo was at eye level on the door. We’ve done the same things for baby sister and handed everything over at panel to be given to the foster carer.

Introductions with a sibling

It’s hard enough getting to know your child under the spotlight, but this time around we have the added dimension of our eldest being there too. We’ve got the first few days on our own while she’s at school and then she’ll be involved from day three.

Our eldest is so excited about meeting her baby sister. I know she’s going to want to be involved in everything so it’s going to be hard making sure she doesn’t overwhelm her baby sister.

We’ve bought her a present from her baby sister and will leave it at the foster carers the day before she meets her. We’ve also bought her a book about becoming a big sister which comes with two pairs of socks. One is a big sister pair, the other is a little sister pair. I’ll have to remember to keep both pairs when they grow out of them and put them in their memory boxes.

Adoption introductions

Introductions are a necessary means to an end. The end is we bring baby sister home for keeps. Getting to that point will no doubt be stressful and exhausting both mentally and physically.

We’ve known about her for nearly as long as a pregnancy would have been so I just want to meet her now. I’m trying not to get stressed or worried about my feelings towards her. One of my first blog posts was about it not being love at first sight when we first met our eldest. I’m prepared for it to be the same this time around, and that’s fine. I know with time the love will grow.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to show your support for the magazine? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

It makes perfect sense as we can’t try and save someone who’s drowning, if we don’t have a life jacket on. And it’s the same in parenting. How can we look after everyone else, if we aren’t looking after ourselves? But the reality is, we don’t look after ourselves first. And mums are particularly prone to putting ourselves at the very bottom of the list. Which often means we’re left with an empty tank and no energy to help anyone.

However you come to be a parent, it’s full of challenges. Being an adoptive parents brings with it a whole different level of challenge. Which makes it even more important for us to take some time to focus on us and our well-being.

Self-care takes a backseat

I’m very bad at doing this. I managed to ignore the fact that I was perimenopausal for probably three years until it had literally brought me to my knees. I burned out badly during the summer of 2020 trying to spin too many plates. They came crashing down around me and I promised myself then that I’d make time for myself.

But I haven’t kept it up. I’ve felt myself becoming overwhelmed again recently and have been looking for some other things to do as well as my go-to help which are a long walk (preferably on my own), a bath with no interruptions, listening to Anna Marthur’s podcast or my favourite playlist.

I was recently asked if I wanted to review a book from a list published by Summersdale Publishers. “Self-Care for Busy Mums” written by Zeena Moolla piqued my interest so I asked if I could review it.

Self-Care for Busy Mums

The book itself is hard-backed and fits into your hand. A great visual representation of its content as the book is full of small things mums can do that will make a big difference to their well-being. It’s split into five chapters. The first looks at prioritising yourself, then finding your balance, everyday self-care, investing in yourself and then sustaining healthy habits.

I read about half of the book in the bath and only stopped reading because the water had gone cold! It’s the first book I’ve read like this for a long time! Everything about it is bite-sized and easy to digest. Zeena’s writing style is brilliant. Her words are full of humour and relatability. A self-care book that preaches isn’t going to persuade anyone that they need to put themselves first.

This book definitely doesn’t preach. It feels like having a good natter with your friends, sharing tips that work for them. From the incredibly simple things like making your bed when you get to help to improve your frame of mind. To using mindfulness as a technique for managing guilt and cloud glazing.

There are some lovely quotes dotted around the book. My favourite is one from Lucille Ball “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”

So, if you’re a frazzled mum who needs some quick, easy, and effective tips to help you slot self-care into your day, this book is definitely for you. It’s available from a range of bookshops including Waterstones and WHSmith. Please note that the link to Waterstones is an affiliate one which means if you click on it and buy the book, I get paid a fee from them.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to show your support for the magazine? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

The traditional British approach is to keep calm and carry on. Just get on with it and it will go away. A lot of people still view illnesses such as depression as something you can snap out of. “Just pull yourself together” are words that are still uttered by some. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t say that to someone if they’d broken their leg. “Just pull yourself together and go for a run.” Clearly it isn’t physically possible for them to do that. However much you want the pain to go away and the bone to heal, it won’t without time and treatment.

Depression can affect you at any stage of your life. For some it is genetic with sufferers experiencing symptoms on a regular basis. Some might not have suffered from it before, but then it hits them out of the blue as a result of a life experience. Like becoming a parent.

Becoming a parent

Becoming a parent, whether you’re a birth parent, step-parent or adoptive parent is tough. It’s full of challenges that are often difficult to face. It’s 24/7, 365 days of the year. Unpaid with no holidays. It’s also blooming amazing and filled with incredible highs. It’s no surprise that a lot of new parents suffer from some form of depression. Mind reports that 1 in 5 women suffer from a mental health problem during pregnancy or the first year following the birth of their child.

I was aware of postnatal depression but not post-adoption depression. I assumed depression after becoming a parent only affected women who gave birth to their children and was something connected to hormones and giving birth. It’s not. Becoming a parent, however it happens for you, is a massive thing. You’re charged with the care of a real human being. The younger they are when you meet them, the more they rely on you. A baby is unable to care for itself. You, therefore, have to tend to its every need. To make sure it is clean, fed, stimulated, and safe. That is a big ask.

Pressure to be perfect

When you become a parent via adoption, there’s a whole new layer of pressure on you. You’re learning to be a parent and getting to know your child in what can feel like a goldfish bowl. You’re being watched and monitored by social services and health care professionals to make sure there are no concerns. Of course, that’s how it should be. Children who are in care have already suffered trauma and loss. Social services have a duty to make sure the people those children are placed with, are getting it (mostly) right. It’s a lot of pressure though.

Most people who become adoptive parents have endured a lot of heartache and pain due to infertility. I think because of that, we put ourselves under even more pressure when we do become parents, to be perfect. After everything we’ve gone through to become parents, surely, we should be the happiest people alive? Our dream has been realised and we’re parents so we should be living every day with a grateful smile on our face.

Parenting isn’t like that. It’s an amazing privilege to be a parent, but it’s also very challenging. Trying to work out why your child has screamed non-stop for 2 hours is tough. Trying to keep a 2-year-old occupied while you cook food is tough. Actually, doing pretty much anything with a 2-year-old can seem tough. Their brain is working faster than their body and they’re getting frustrated with everything around them.

The realities of parenting

Finding out that the realities of parenthood aren’t quite what you’d built them up to be, can be hard. There are days when you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished nothing other than helping your child sleep / feed / clean them. In the early days after baby sister was placed, I felt like I was in a constant Groundhog Day. The words from Fatboy Slim’s “Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat” resonated with me except the lyrics should have been “Eat, Don’t Sleep, Clean up Sh*t, Repeat!” Every weekday, there was about an hour and 15 minutes where I could actually get out of the house and do something exciting like go to the shops. The rest of the time was feeding / dressing / school run / nap / eat / play / eat / school run.

My experience of post-adoption depression

I started to feel quite low and my get up and go had got up and left. Post-adoption depression isn’t something that was covered in our preparation course and isn’t something our social worker had talked to us about. Luckily, I had read about it, so I was aware of it. I’m not prone to depression, but it was on my radar. I found talking to those around me and squeezing in a bit of me time, started to help. I forced myself to get out in the fresh air as being cooped up inside really gets to me. Exercise also helped. Recognising the signs and a bit of self-care has so far been enough to keep my low moods at bay. Like anyone, I have bad days, but they don’t feel like they’re getting the better of me like they were.

Adoption UK has created this useful factsheet about post adoption depression. There’s also a lot of helpful information on the Mind website about depression and mental health issues after becoming a parent. I think it’s something that all adopters should be aware of and given information about. There’s nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about if you have post adoption depression, just like there’s no shame in breaking your arm. It’s something that is very common and needs to be talked about a lot more so that any stigma around it is banished. If talking to friends and family doesn’t help, speak to your social worker or GP. Don’t suffer in silence.

To read more articles about post-adoption depression, click here.

When you are trying to help you improve your child’s education, there are a lot of ways you can go about achieving this. Now, this is something that you need to focus on as much as possible, and there are a lot of ideas that you can use to help with this. Being able to improve this process is one of the key ideas that you can use to improve this, and allow your kid to get the education they deserve.

Make sure you come up with some of the best ideas you can use that will help your kid improve this process, as well as find the perfect route for learning and development. There are so many things that you need to be making the most of, and allowing your kid to gain the educational opportunities they deserve is so important; so here are some of the great ways of being able to achieve this. 

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Take More Interest

Taking more interest in your child’s education is one of the key things that you can do to help with this. There are so many ideas that play a part in this, and you have to make sure you focus on some of the key ideas that will allow you to make the most of this. Try to do the best you can to come up with some of the best ideas that you can use to help your kid learn and thrive, and being more involved in your child’s education by helping with homework, debating, and encouraging a love of learning can all be hugely effective. 

Encourage Them to Pursue What They Enjoy

Try to make sure you do the best you can to come up with some of the best ideas that will help your child be motivated to learn. Encouraging them to pursue subjects and topics that they enjoy and find stimulating. This is the best way to help them discover subjects that they are really good at and find interesting, and this is something that can help to drive them towards greater learning potential this year. It is also a great way of being able to find the ideal educational path for them, and the subjects they may wish to learn more about.

Help Them Choose the Right University

Choosing the right university for your child is one of the key things that plays a massive part in this process. Helping your kid find the perfect place to attend university is essential, and this is a decision that you can help with, but it should, ultimately, be their decision. Considering things like the courses available, reading list, accommodation, night life, and employment prospects can all make a huge difference to the appeal of the university that your kid wants to attend.

Making sure you think about the best ways of keeping your kid inspired and helping them to achieve the education they deserve is so important. This is one of the best things that you can do to make your child’s future more appealing, and this is something that you need to make the most of right now.

She was four at the time and knew that some of her friends had become big brothers and sisters. But their mummies had all given birth. Although she knew she didn’t grow in my tummy, she struggled to understand how the process was going to work for her. Having a book to read about it would’ve really helped.

When Holly Marlow asked if I’d like to review her new book, I was delighted because it’s exactly the book I wish we’d had for our eldest daughter. Holly’s new book is called “Adopting a Little Brother or Sister”. And, as the name suggests, it explains to young children what happens when they become a big brother or sister through adoption. I was kindly gifted an electronic copy of the book so I could write the review.

What I liked straight away about the book is that the front cover is very different. The whole of the book has a black background which may sound odd, but works beautifully to showcase the brilliant illustrations created by Holly’s daughter, Zoe. I think the front cover will connect with the book’s young readers and help them feel that the book is for them, not the adults in their lives.

The story is about a little boy whose family are adopting a little brother or sister. It explains the stages in an age appropriate way, introducing people like social workers and the role they have.

I think our daughter struggled to understand what our social worker did. She remembered our original social worker from when we adopted her, because she’d seen photos of her in her life story book. Meeting a new social worker was confusing for her. Being able to read a book like would’ve really helped.

The book looks at what the social worker’s job is and the types of questions they might ask. This part really resonated with me because I can remember our daughter being asked how she would feel about sharing her toys with her little sister. She said she’d be happy to share them, as long as her little sister looked after them and gave them back.

The story then moves on to look at what happens when a child finds out about their little brother or sister and the mechanics of bringing them home. There’s some great questions at the end of the book to use to start conversations with your child about becoming a brother or sister through adoption.

The book is perfect for biological and adopted children to read to help them understand the process of becoming a sibling through adoption. It’s also a great read for their friends so they can understand it too.

Adopting a Little Brother or Sister is available to buy from Amazon. If you’d like to find out more about Holly, click here to read her article about her first book, “Delly Duck: Why A Little Chick Couldn’t Stay With His Birth Mother”. If you’d like to read more reviews of adoption and parenting books, click here. 

This review includes an affiliate link to the book. That means if you click on the link to the book, and then buy it, I get paid a fee from Amazon.

It’s funny how we attach so many memories to objects or clothing. We’ve recently bought little miss a new car seat. We got a new one partly because she had just about grown out of her old one. However, the main reason was the old one absolutely stank. She’d had a couple of accidents when she was potty training and I clearly hadn’t cleaned it properly.

The stench of wee that came from the car every time we opened the door was often overwhelming. I dreaded going in when it was hot. I’ve driven round with the windows wide open in the pouring rain because I couldn’t stand the smell. My nieces were horrified when I collected them from school in a car that stank of wee.

We’d been counting the days until she got the wee thing sorted so we could buy a new one. Throwing the old one on the skip was a good day. We bought a lovely new Frozen (of course!!) car seat which little Miss absolutely loves. She climbs into it herself. The best bit is it doesn’t smell of wee so we can drive round with the windows closed when it rains.

I’d been looking forward to it’s replacement for so long so was surprised when I felt sad to see the skip collected and the car seat gone forever. Despite it’s recent falling from grace, it held some very special memories for us.

When we were waiting to be matched, my mother-in-law bought us a fab pushchair which came with a free baby carrier. I’d always thought we’d be matched with an older child so it probably wouldn’t be needed, but having it in the house helped me remember I was going to be a mum.

As it turned out, our daughter was nine months old when we met her. We arrived at the foster carer’s house with our lovely carrier, only to find that our daughter was too long to fit in it. So, for our first outing in the car with her, we had to borrow the foster carer’s car seat. In between visits we did a hasty trip to Mothercare to buy a new one.

I was very nervous about going. I felt a complete fraud because I had no bump or baby and thought we’d be told to leave for attempting to buy a car seat under false pretences. We weren’t and the assistant was lovely. I think that’s one of the first times that I actually felt like a mum.

Little Miss didn’t like travelling in the car so, on the advice of the health visitor, foster carers had moved her into a forward facing seat. We weren’t happy with it but there was nothing we could do about it. Little Miss got hysterical being put in a car rear facing. I was convinced the assistant at Mothercare would tell us we were terrible parents for wanting to buy a forward facing seat for such a young child.

I was very relieved when she didn’t, nor did she think I was a fake mum. She was so excited when we told her we were in the middle of introductions. When we explained the position about the forward facing seat she said she wouldn’t recommend going back to rear facing, and showed us seats that tilted to make little Miss safer.

I can remember driving back to the foster carer’s house feeling very happy. A car seat is a practical bit of kit to keep your little person safe taking them from A to B. Somehow though, it felt much more than that. It felt like a really big thing to have bought it. I can’t really explain why, it just did.

Our daughter loved her new seat and seemed very happy to be put in it which was a huge relief. A lot of her previous experience of travelling hadn’t been particularly nice. She had a long trip to contact to see her birth mum which was several times a week initially.

Unfortunately, more often than not it was wasted trip and little Miss seemed to associate travelling with that. Having a new seat felt like a fresh start for her as right from the start, she was happy and relaxed in it. I couldn’t wait to take her to lots of fun and exciting places in her new seat.

The seat that came with the pushchair had helped to keep me sane while we waited to be matched. The new car seat helped me feel like a proper mum and signified the start of a new adventure. It has helped us explore new places and kept little miss safe on our journey there. It let her sleep when she needed to and did a very good job of containing her wee when she struggled with potty training.

So it wasn’t really just a car seat. It was so much more than that.

If you’d like to read more adoption stories, click here