Adoptive parenting has this in common with regular old parenting: just when you start to feel like you’ve mastered a stage, like babyhood, toddlerhood, tweenhood, or beyond, your child keeps growing and enters a new stage. And you’re back at square one, learning the ropes all over again.

This is why it’s so important, all along the journey, to update and refresh your parenting credential — or at least the knowledge behind it. Sure, you can do this the hard way, as we all do, with the school of hard knocks. But do you really want to start from scratch with every new thing?

I didn’t. I wanted as many heads-ups as I could get. Creating a Family came on my radar early in my journey, and 15 years later, it is still a top resource for me and for others living adoption. For one thing, it offers a wealth of educational content on its website and through its podcast. And for another, it has a vibrant and well-moderated Facebook group that avoids being an echo chamber of similar voices that somehow narrow each other’s views rather than expand them.

An unconscious expectation some adoptive parents have is this:

If we’re good enough parents, the adoptee will not have an interest in or need to think about their birth parents.

Dawn Davenport of Creating A Family
in Ep 402 of Adoption: The Long View

There are many ways and places to continue your adoption education and hear from cross-triad voices, and with this episode, we speak with Dawn Davenport, adoptive mom herself and longtime Executive Director of Creating A Family.

Prefer to read? Here’s a transcript (but listening is so much better!).

Here’s more about Dawn.

Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating A Family

Dawn Davenport is an attorney, educator, training developer, and trauma-informed adoption/foster/kinship specialist. She is the host of Creating a Family Radio Show/Podcast, which began in 2007 and is now ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts in the US. Dawn is the author of a book on adoption published by Random House and has had articles published in many national and regional publications. She is a mom of four by birth and adoption.

I’d like to say to some adoptive parents:

You don’t need to be so sensitive.
This is not about you
and you’re not that fragile.
You can hear strong words without getting in a huff.
You can handle this.

Dawn Davenport of Creating A Family
in Ep 402 of Adoption: The Long View

Show Notes: Resources for Ep 402 with Dawn Davenport

•  Website: CreatingaFamily.org
• Facebook: Group
• Twitter: @CreatingaFamily
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creatingafamily/
• Creating A Family Podcast
• Interactive Training/Support Curriculum for Foster, Adoptive, & Kinship Families 
• Online Education 70+ courses
• Free courses thanks to Jockey Being Family

The Other Side of the Mic

Dawn interviewed me for her very popular Creating A Family podcast. Check out “Navigating Sticky Relationships with Birth Family” here.

How to Tune In Regularly

You can find us on any podcast platform and on Adopting.com.

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Amazon Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Castbox
• YouTube Channel
• Search for “Adoption Long View” on your preferred podcast platform.

A new episode comes out the first Friday of the month. Thank you for sharing, subscribing, and rating this episode!