The decorations are packed away, guests have departed, and your kids are melting down. Experienced foster parents, adoptive parents, and stepparents know that things don't just return to "normal" after the holidays. What should be a special time of year can become a…
Holidays can be a profoundly difficult time, especially for our foster, adoptive, or stepchildren. No matter how wonderful we are as Plan B parents, their world remains fundamentally out of joint. Foster children and stepchildren in particular feel, whether consciously or not, that if the…
An extended family member emailed me in mid-October, asking about our family plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was surprised, since I was still working on Halloween. I hadn’t even thought about later months, much less made plans. At first I…