Brothers and Sisters in Adoption
Helping Children Navigate Relationships When New Kids Join the Family
Arleta James
Hardback: £15.99 / $24.95
2012, 246mm x 173mm / 10in x 7in, 544pp
ISBN: 978-1-84905-906-0, BIC 2: VFVK
JKSF
“One of the most common questions I hear from people already parenting typically developing children and now considering adopting an older child or sibling group is 'How are sibling relationships different when some or all of the kids have arrived by adoption?' Therapist Arleta James is the first to try to answer that question in any depth.
With Brothers and Sisters in Adoption: Helping Children Navigate Relationships When New Kids Join the Family Arleta provides parents – and placement professionals – with essential tools for helping already-resident children adjust their expectations and go into adoption of a child who has experienced neglect and/or trauma with eyes wide open.”
-- Patricia Irwin Johnston, MS, Adoption Educator, Author: Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families and Adoption is a Family Affair: What Relatives and Friends Must Know
“There's a problem with the title of Brothers and Sisters in Adoption: It is about vastly more! It tells the story of the whole family's response to a new member entering the circle through adoption. Everyone gets listened to in this amazingly thorough book. As a result, there is guidance and support available herein for every member of the family.
Adoptive parents typically have highly-attuned meters for detecting falseness and inexperience in professionals with whom they must deal. What they will detect in Arleta James' new book, Brothers and Sisters in Adoption, is cold-stone truth. They will know it by the “rings true” nature of her examples, and by the tenderness and clarity of her guidance. This elevates Brothers and Sisters in Adoption from the “bookshelf book” to the rarified world of 'handbook'.”
-- Michael Trout, Director, Infant-Parent Institute
“What a courageous treatment of issues in adoption. Arleta James dare to talk about the day the family becomes immobilized – that dark secret in child welfare that only the families themselves have, in the past, seemed capable of acknowledging openly. After walking with the reader through those depleting and terrifying days, she takes us to re-mobilization and renewal. She gets us to the place that families want to be, without overlooking the excruciatingly tough middle part.”
-- Michael Trout, Director Infant-Parents Institute, Co-author of The Jonathon Letters, Champaign, Illinois
“Arleta James has captured so much of what actually happens in adoptive families in Brothers and Sisters in Adoption. Children who are already in the adoptive family often are exposed to difficult situations when parents decide to add a child to their family, and James addresses the issues head-on. This book will become the Bible for those families who choose to bring children into their existing families and for those professionals with whom they work.”
-- Gregory C. Keck, PhD, Founder and Director of the Attachment and Bonding Center in Ohio, co-author of Adopting the Hurt Child and Parenting the Hurt Child, and author of Parenting Adopted Adolescents: Understanding and Appreciating their Journey, Cleveland, Ohio
“Arleta James has managed to write an engaging book that is so comprehensive that it may attain the status of a signature text. Arleta skillfully combines a scholarly review of the literature with numerous vignettes or stories which illustrate and educate so that the reader sees the situation or the problems through the eyes of the story teller. The perspective of the child adopted internationally or domestically, resident siblings, fathers, and mothers is so illustrative that an understanding of behavior as a form of communication should be enhanced. In addition, each family member will feel understood and validated as personal feelings and struggles are identified in the stories of others. Relatives, teachers, adoption professionals , social service social workers and mental health professionals will find this book essential if they truly want to understand the perspective of the child and his or her adoptive family. The letting go of the old expectations in the section on grief and the acceptance of a new normal in family relationships provides a fitting resolution to this realistic, insightful book.”
-- Joanne May, PhD, Founder of The Attachment Counseling Center of Minnesota
“Kudos to Arleta James, who has filled a gap in the classic adoption literature with this book devoted to the well-being of siblings. Her book is not only thorough, but thoroughly enjoyable. In particular I liked her charts, including her easy-to-follow trajectories of children's needs from placement into the coming years, and her “Mobilization Inventory” to help all family members to stay healthy. Thanks, Arleta, for this excellent resource. I will be referring to it in my practice and trainings.”
Deborah Gray, MSW, MPA, Author of Nurturing Adoptions: Creating Resilience after Neglect and Trauma (2007) and Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents (2002), Seattle, Washington
“Thank you, Arleta, for providing us an extremely important book that should be required reading for prospective adoptive parents and social workers involved in all the facets of adoption. What a fantastic basis for discussion as we design, develop, and implement preparation for post-placement supportive programs! As this book documents so well, noone's – parents or children's – can be put “on hold” until healing has occurred. In fact, as many of us doing this type of parenting will acknowledge, total “healing” may never occur. We do know, however, that how we parent our children has a chance of at least making our grandchildren's lives better. In my experience, that has served as a realistic expectation and goal. Thank you for providing some tools for us to ponder and use.”
-- Barbara Tremitiere, MSW, PhD, Author, Consultant, Trainer, Adoptive Parent, North Carolina
“The child welfare field, parent and practitioner, will unquestionably welcome this comprehensive guidebook to the world of adoption. Parents and potential parents, caseworkers, and therapists are given a great deal to ponder. This is ultimately a book about understanding, about communicating, and about normalizing adoptive family life... and it gives hope throughout. The “real life” family examples are excellent, as are the resources found at the end of each chapter. Although self-defined as a book about siblings in adoption, it actually goes far beyond sibling issues. Rather, it offers a great deal of valuable information for families who are still without children, or who have no birth children, and who are considering their first adoption. Congratulations to Arleta James, who reaches out personally to each reader!”
-- Maris H. Blechner, Med, LCSW, Executive Director Family Focus Adoption Services New York
“Don't let the title of this book fool you! Arleta James has written a book not just about Brothers and Sisters in Adoption, but about the dynamics of any family formed by adoption. This approach to how a child's past influences his blending into family dynamics is comprehensive, yet not bogged down with academic details. Examples from Arleta's work as an attachment therapist are interwoven into the narrative to enrich this thorough, yet fast. If you are a family seeking to grow through adoption, read this now, then again and again. If your family was formed through adoption years ago, this book will help you navigate the challenges of growing together as a family. This is an important tool for all who work in adoption to have at the forefront of one's professional and personal library.”
-- Deborah Borchers, MD, Pediatrician Specializing in Adoption Medicine, Adoptive Parent, Cincinnati, Ohio
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