Book Review of the Week: Toddler Adoption, The Weaver’s Craft
I have read (and reread) Toddler Adoption: The Weaver’s Craft several times over the span of four years and have found that it can be both helpful and very vague.
Adopting a toddler is a very complicated process and personally, I don’t think that one resource can give a parent all the information a parent truly needs to forge through the first few years.
The book does discuss strategies for dealing with toddlers who are grieving or those dealing with attachment disorders. The author also touches on normal toddler development and how adopted toddlers may develop instead.
However, because we adopted a child who had significant special needs and who was so developmentally delayed the book ended up not being as relevant or practical as I had initially hoped. I do not believe it prepared me enough for the amountt of trauma AJ had.
Topics included in the book:
- Toddler Proofing the environment
- Holding Time
- Toddler Transition and new attachment
- Toddler Grief
- Parental Needs after adoption
- Toddler Development
I have read parts of this book and agree that it is helpful in the sense that it made me think of some things I might not have considered. I like the author’s writing style too. However, we expect to adopt kids older than toddlers, so I haven’t really concentrated on it. I think this is the book that first introduced me to the problem of post adoption depression.