It's been more than a decade since we said goodbye to him, yet I remember it like it was yesterday. We met in the parking lot of the CPS office. We'd known the day was coming for weeks, yet we didn't want to believe it. When they placed him in our home they asked if [...]
Listener Jamie asks, how do we prepare the kids already in our home for the journey into foster care? This is something as parents we do not always consider, especially if the kids already in our home are very young. Chris talks with Ryan and Kayla about ways to help kids prepare for and deal [...]
Connected parenting would be so much easier if there weren't so many kids. I often find myself handling one meltdown only to have another kid meltdown. Or worse yet...two melting down at the same time! I have always wanted a big family. In fact, I told Ryan before we got married that I wanted six [...]
Imagine a foster family shows up to your weekly Bible study with a couple extra kids in tow. You, half-jokingly, call the family crazy for adding more kids. "Are you trying to start your own sports team?" you joke. Then your curiosity sets in and you proceed to ask lots of questions: "What happened to their [...]
The 2016 Tapestry Adoption & Foster Care Conference will be held October 21 & 22 at Irving Bible Church. Last year we went BACK TO BASICS, this year we decided to go BEYOND THE BASICS. We will feature TBRI trained professionals, Empowered to Connect Parent Trainers, Dr. Mandy Howard, and Dr. David Cross, co-author of [...]
Today is Motherâs Day. It's the day we set aside to celebrate moms for all the hard work and loving attention they give to their children throughout the year. While it is a day of celebration and honor, it can be a day of conflicting emotions for some of us. Ten years ago I became [...]
Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis encourages adoptive and foster parents to embrace trust-based parenting as the ânew normalâ that God has called them to as an essential part of the journey. This video originally appears on Empowered to Connect.
I know people mean well, but good intentions are not necessarily an indicator of right actions. We've been asked some questions over the years that either leave us smiling or scratching our heads. These questions could be considered misguided or uninformed, perhaps the thoughts of people who donât know any better, but when strangers ask [...]
I met a girl named Jaime at Trader Joe's the other day. She approached me and asked me if some of my children were adopted. After many years of being a foster and adoptive mom I am used to random people stopping me and asking me about my kids. When I was a new foster [...]
I know people mean well, but good intentions are not necessarily an indicator of right actions. We've been asked some questions over the years that either leave us smiling or scratching our heads. These questions could be considered misguided or uninformed, perhaps the thoughts of people who donât know any better, but when strangers ask [...]