Reducing Stress

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Reducing Stress

Here are some tips for reducing stress

Be prepared

Prepare as much in advance. This can be cooking, cleaning, shopping or decorating will ease the load

Perspective

Keep things in perspective

 When something causes you stress,

ask yourself ‘Does this really matter?’

Minimise stressful situations when possible,

if you don’t like to have too many people in your home during this time, limit the number who can come.

Say No

Don’t be afraid to no. You are in control of what is happening in your life.

Take a Break

Even if its 10 minutes for a coffee, taking time out for you will make you feel refreshed

Breath deeply

Practice breathing deeply.

Exercise

relieves stress, gets rid of negative feelings and improves your fitness.

What tips have you got for reducing stress? Tell me about a time you were under stress and how you dealt with it.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Relationships

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Connecting with others creates great growth both emotionally and spiritually. People who have strong relationships with others, whether it be family, friends, colleagues, groups, etc tend to live longer, happier and healthier lives. Each relationship brings something different in to our lives, the more open you are to develop these links, the more you enhance them and hence it will increase your level of happiness.

Who matters most to you? Do you take your relationships for granted or do you try to enhance them, so both of you get the most out of it?

You are not alone

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You are not alone when adopting internationally, here are some statistics:

Over the last decade, U.S. families have adopted on average approximately 20,000 children from foreign nations each year.
Source
http://adoption.state.gov/adoption_process/what.php

How important is International Adoption to you?

The stats for the UK are mentioned in the previous post

Homestudy

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The homestudy is a process that provides a picture of the potential and adoptive parents.
Some facts:

  •  Your Social Worker will complete the homestudy
  •  It can take several weeks to several months to complete
  •  You  will need letters from your current employers and possibly some previous employers
  •  You will need a health assessment
  •  Letters of reference
  •  Financial statements
  • A series of visits to your home by your Social Worker

The documentation requirements vary according to where you live and to which country you want to adopt from. When the homestudy is complete, your Social Worker will prepare a report about you and your family.

Many people get caught up in thinking the Social Worker is coming to see how clean and tidy your home is. This is not the case, they need to get to know you.
Don’t agonise over your house, remember it is a home…….

What advice would you give to somebody starting out on their Home Study?

Start the Journey

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Does the International Adoption idea seem scary, with lots of unknown variables to it? Some of you who are reading this, may know somebody who has been through this or may not know anybody who has adopted, let alone internationally.

Being fearful is natural, sometimes we let that fear dominate our thoughts and actions and we end up going against our intuition. A good exercise is to project yourself forward 5 years and imagine what you will be doing. I am sure you don’t want to be in the same situation you are in now.

Here are some things you can be doing

Take action – by actively doing something it helps to alleviate your fear.

Research support groups for International Adoption on the internet and see if you can join.

Contact your local Adoption team and see if they can tell you about any support groups locally.

International Adoption – First Steps

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So you are thinking about adopting a child internationally.

International Adoption is a complex process that brings together parents and children from different countries and different cultures. As the process involves two countries different laws apply and this can be challenging.

My advice to you is to ensure that you are committed to this, do your research in to the country you want to adopt from and start planning. It is a long journey but the outcome is priceless.

How do you feel about it? Post your comments here