Toddler Adoption’s’s Reviews

FromMidwest Book Review’s June, 1997 issue.."Toddler
Adoption is a resource designed to help adopting parents and placing
professionals involved in adoptions of children in the unique
developmental stage from ages one to three, usually referred to as
toddlerhood. Books focusing on parenting an adopted infant, and those
written for the special needs adopters of school-aged children contain
little of relevance for thoseadopting a toddler. These children are up on
their feet and walking, and have achieved cognitive growth providing a
store of remembered life experiences

with caregivers and age-peers to whom they have probably become
attached, but the language and cognitive skills of toddler-aged children
are still too unsophisticated to allow a toddler to make use of the
therapies that can help smooth transitions and deal with losses. Toddler
Adoption fills this gap admirably. Toddler Adoption is
essential reading for anyone considering the adoption of a boy or girl
falling within the one to three year age bracket."



From Library Journal (July, 1997)… "When a
child is adopted as a toddler, his needs and those of his adoptive family
are different from the needs seen in infant or school-age adoptions. Yet
few resources are available to deal with these special issues. In this
work, Hopkins-Best, a child development expert and mother of a child
adopted as a toddler, provides a guidebook for those considering toddler
adoption or those already struggling with its special challenges. She
discusses at length strategies for dealing with issues such as a grieving
toddler or attachment disosrder. She also explains normal toddler
development and possible variances in the adopted toddler. The appendix
provies a wonderful list of resources. Perhaps most valuable are the
anecodtes fof both successes and failures from other toddler adoptive
families. An important addition to all adoption collections."



Adoptive Families (May/June 1997)… "Rarely does a day
go by at AFA when we don’t receive a letter or call from a prospective
adoptive parent interested in adopting (sepcifically) a toddler. Many
times the inquirer is unaware of or under informed about the challenges
associated with toddler adoption. Now we can provide an invaluable
resource to help such inquirers make the best decision for themselves and
the toddler-aged child(ren) they may adopt. This also is an excellent
resource for those who are parenting a child who came home between
the ages of 1 and 3, and for adoption professionals who are involved in
pre-adoption counseling and provide post-legal adoption services for
families. With practical advice, personal insigts, and the shared
experiences of a number of parents who adopted toddlers, this new book
offers suggestions and strategies tht will certainly contribute to the
readiness of parents undertaking the challenges of caring for newly
arrived toddlers."



Snipped from July 1997’s Adopted Child… "Hopkins-Best
combines her personal experience with the experiences of other parents who
adopted toddlers and with authoritative child development material to
create a book both informative and reassuring…. provides solid
information for the prospective and new adoptive parent of a toddler. This
is someone who has ‘been there,’ and yet the author goes beyond her own
experience, drawing on child development, psychology, attachment and other
disciplines to explain the toddler’s actions."



A pre-pub consumer reader says "At last someone has put
into words those fears and frustrations I experienced as the parent of a
newly arrived toddler and has offered practical stategies for dealing with
unique issues. If this book had been available when we were adopting, I
would have felt affirmed and empowered instead of isolated and
incompetent!"



From Pact Press, Spring, 1997…"Practical,
realistic and supportive advice for prospective and in-the-trenches
adoptive parents of children between one and three years old… H-B is a
clear thinker who has done her homework. Her discussion of the factors
that make adoption and parenting issues different for parents of toddlers
than older children with special needs or infants is thorough, well
grounded, and a good read. Substantiated by her study of what really
happens when children join the family at a developmental stage typically
preoacccupied with the need to be dependent and independent at once, she
presents without flinching the challenges and the rewards for parents and
children. This book is must reading for any parent or prospective parent
of a toddler. We strongly recommend it."

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