Friday, May 16, 2008

Adoption Update

We're one step closer to adopting little Amber!

We finished the required 33 hours of foster/adopt parenting classes last week.

Although, we did not like leaving our family to take these classes. We learned some valuable information. Such as the new point system we implemented with our teenager. She can earn 100 points a day for getting herself ready for school, keeping her room cleaned, and household chores. She gets $1 for each 100 points. (I know I'm cheap) She can also earn additional $ for doing extra chores above and beyond "house chores." But, and here's where it gets good. She can also loose points for things like being disrespectful. It's amazing how fast her mouth got in check! She also has to have a minimum of 500 points for a friend/boyfriend visit at the end of the week. We'll probably be instituting a similar system with Shayla only using extra playtime with parents as a motivator. She doesn't care much about money or stuff yet!

After taking the classes, we thought that all people going through divorce should also be required to take the classes. They explained how the foster/adopt parent can help or hurt a child based on how they treat and talk about the birth parent. This could easily be applied to ex-spouses.

We'll begin the other things to complete our homestudy now.

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