Day 30: Online Might Be Your Lifeline

"He really is a little wild man. He's bouncing on the beds in the hotel room and grabbing all of our electronics. We. Are. Exhausted."

When we didn't know what to do the first few days in China, I quickly turned to my online adoption community.

My plea on the adoption message board was quickly answered. Encouragement poured in. Seasoned adoptive moms helped me look at the situation through Wenxin's eyes. A few offered ideas for gently setting boundaries.

Online became our lifeline.

Karen has been talking to us about getting the help we need in real life. But if you are preparing to parent in an older child adoption, you should also make the most of the incredible resources available to you online.

Let me make three suggestions.

1) Use Pinterest to create an adoption toolbox. We talked about this back at the very beginning. I've been creating a 31 Days Pinterest Board. You can head over there right now and repin any posts that have been especially helpful to you.

2) Follow a few adoption blogs. Unlike books, which are written by experts, adoption blogs show real life in real time. I'd love for your to follow Death by Great Wall. Just click join this site over on my sidebar. You can find other adoption blogs I like on my blog list, also on my sidebar.

3) Join an online support group. My favorite group these days is Parenting with Connection, a Facebook group for parents of kids from hard places. When you join, write a quick post to introduce yourself. This is a place where you can ask questions of experienced adoptive parents and get timely answers.

To read the whole series, start here.