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The Whole Life Adoption Book: Realistic Advice for Building a Healthy Adoptive Family | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jayne E. Schooler, Thomas C. Atwood
Publisher: NavPress Publishing Group
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $11.14
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 386855
Media: Paperback
Edition: Rev Upd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 267
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.8 x 0.7
ISBN: 1600061656
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.734
EAN: 9781600061653
ASIN: 1600061656
Publication Date: June 15, 2008
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Product Description
Recommended by the National Council for Adoption, this powerful book addresses the needs and concerns facing adoptive parents with encouragement for the journey ahead.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Fantastic September 30, 2008
This book gives real life practical suggestions. It is well written, easy to read, and comprehensive. Anyone who wants to learn more about adoption should definitely pick this up.
 Important resource to add to your booklist on adoption September 17, 2008
Adoption can be a wonderful and rewarding way to grow a family. But, like anything that is life changing, it is often a good idea to go into it with as much information as possible. Or, following an adoption, parents may still have questions that need answers. Enter The Whole Life Adoption Book.
In this revised and updated book (original was published in 1993), people exploring or living life as an adoptive family can find many answers they seek. Topics range greatly and cover most, if not all, aspects of adoption. A few are: what to consider before you adopt, adopting and parenting a child with special needs, understanding attachment and the impact of trauma, how to communicate about adoption from infancy through adolescence, and searching for birthparents.
They discuss positive word choices and negative family responses. And this revised version explores more thoroughly the aspects of international adoption and transcultural adoption in response to the adoption boom in those areas.
I found this book to be highly informative if not a little dry. It is fact filled, and when discussing so many different aspects of the adoption process, there probably wasn't much room for feel-good fluff-though it did seem to focus on the problems one encounters when adopting. Again, good information to have, but it occasionally left me panicky. It might very well scare off people just beginning to explore the idea of adopting.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that though this book is all encompassing, it is by no means a one stop adoption resource. Those looking into domestic infant adoption or foster adoption or international adoption will want to also look for resources that cover those specific aspects more in depth. Why? Because sometimes we adoptive parents also want the beautiful warm fuzzies.
Armchair Interviews says: Excellent resource, but be aware, it is mostly about the possible problems, none of the joys and successes of adoption.
Great revised edition July 17, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Do not make the mistake of buying earlier editions of this terrific volume. The new, June 2008 edition is considerably longer and more detailed than the original book, good though that is.
First off, this edition deals in much greater detail with questions and issues surrounding the inter-country adoption process, which today is governed by the Hague Convention for International Adoptions. (Would that the convention had been in effect when we adopted abroad.)
From our perspective, a decade-plus into the adoption experience, some of the material here is of little interest. But for families considering adoption or in the early stages of building and adoptive family, there is much good advice, beginning with discussions of the healthiest motivations for wanting to adopt, and acceptance of the "foundational realities."
It's appalling to learn here how many families have adopted children and never told them they were adopted. It should be understood that children have a right to know where they come from, even if the available details are very sparse. Along with accepting that foundation is the reality that adoption generally involves healing for the adoptive parents as well as the child. The parents must accept their inability to conceive, and understand that their child does and will continue to suffer from a Primal Wound that requires nursing and extra care to heal.
The book also has excellent chapters on attachment trauma and the difficulties of dealing with adopted kids during their teens. Children may say being adopted has been easy for them. And children adopted as infants, especially, do fare pretty well. But the fact is that at least 5% of children adopted as infants have extraordinarily difficult teen years---much more so than the average child raised in his or her biological family.
And another fact is that raising an adopted child is a much different deal than raising one's biological child. There are a vast range of questions and issues that just don't come up with the latter. And while adopted kids generally emerge from the teenage years in good shape, helping them through this rough period requires super-parents. Don't go into it if you're not prepared.
Kids and families want control of their lives. This book can help give them control where otherwise, thanks to all the unknowns and separations, they might feel helpless. (I also recommend Beneath the Mask.)
Finally, the book reassures adoptive parents fearful of their child's search for his or her birth parents. Personally, I can't imagine feeling that way, but apparently it's very common.
This book, though, explains that searching and learning a child's origin and "story" can most often help them resolve questions and issues, without which, the child will probably lead a much less productive and meaningful life.
This is a book that adoptive parents certainly need, for their child's whole life. As in holistic, and whole.
Great for Domestic Adoptions but lacking on the International front January 13, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I believe this book is a great resource for any adoptive parent, however, the book seems to be more for domestic adoption rather than international adoption. This is especially true of the chapter "Searching for a Past: Why adopted Children Seek Their Roots and How Parents Can Respond". My issue is that since my daughter is adopted from China there is absolutely no way that I can help her find out anything about her birth parents. In China, babies are abandoned. Birth parents do not have the option to take a child to the proper autorities to be placed for adoption, they do not get to make an adoption plan. Due to governmental restrictions birth parents are prohibited from doing these things. So what do I tell my daughter when she wants to find her birth parents? I was hoping for some direction in this book but found none. Also, the section on how to explain Abandonment does not work for children adopted from China because that is never how it happens there. This book is an excellent resource for parents adopting domestically and was helpful in explaining things that all adopted children will go through regardless of when they were adopted.
Must read for parents adopting the older child October 29, 2006
Jayne Schooler's book is well written and easy to read. She offers many suggestions the adoptive family needs as they grow together as a family. Our family recommends this book to all parents beginning the adoption process.
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