Parenting Styles

We've hit the half way in our MAPP class!!! It's an exciting point. This past week we received a LARGE stack of paper work, and we were assured that this is the first of MANY stacks of forms. These papers were a part of the matching process. We answer deep and personal questions about ourselves to assure a child is a good match for us and we are a good match for the child. In the past week, we've combed our past and dreamed about our future. We've answered questions from our potential parenting style to what side of the bed we sleep on. (just kidding on the last one...but it feels like we went that in depth). 

We've also started our family scrapbook. This is the book that will be shown to the child when we are first introduced to them. They won't meet us in person first but will learn about us through this scrapbook that we put together. We feel like this is the most important scrapbook we will ever make. Neither one of us is that crafty, so we are incredibly thankful for the internet and websites such as shutter fly, snap fish, and mix book. 

In our last class, we learned about the "faulty/coercive" parenting styles, the things that don't work when raising kids. Our homework assignment was to go out and practice those styles and see how they turn out. It was the funniest homework assignment we've ever done. In essence, we were to go out and do it all wrong! We "practiced" on youth group kids, co-workers, and friends. So we apologize if we seemed a little "off" this past week, just chalk it up to "practice." Ha Ha! Hopefully, next week, we'll be learning about the proactive and proper parenting styles....maybe we'll get to practice those as well. 

Praying for that child or children who will soon enter our home. They may not have grown inside of us physically, but they are growing in our heart. We love them more and more each day. We love taking this unconventional path to parenthood. 

Below is a CBS news story about children waiting to be adopted. The children in this story are just like the children we will be adopting (foster care children). Not babies...but real-life, hurting children. 

James 1:27- Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.