If you adopted older children then holidays may be difficult for your family. Since Christmas is almost here, your child may have already started misbehaving, acting inappropriately, or just plain bad. Most of the family is excited about the Christmas holiday. They pitch in to decorate the tree and the house. They look forward to a break from school and seeing extended family members. Children talk excitedly as they anticipate opening gifts on Christmas day. Faith has blogged about holidays triggering abuse survivors. But even if your child did not suffer sexual abuse before coming home to your family, the holidays may still trigger all kinds of emotions. Children are unable to process these conflicting emotions and may need extra attention and counseling. Even your usually good (well-behaved) adopted child may act bad.

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof seeking the answer to the question:

Where is God when your child is abused?

As someone who was severely abused as a child, I have wrestled with this question for years. I have written about this topic extensively on my personal blog:

• Getting Past Feeling like God Deserted You after Child Abuse
• Shouldn’t God be Expected to Protect Children?
• Where is God During Child Abuse?
• Where Was God When I Was Being Abused?
• Why Would a Loving God Allow Pain and Child Abuse?
• Words of Wisdom from “The Shack”: Where is God During Abuse?

After wrestling with this question for years, here are the conclusions that I have drawn in a nutshell:

A group of medicines known as atypical antipsychotics including, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify, Geodon, and Risperdal were recently scrutinized by the FDA for their use in treating children with bipolar and schizophrenia symptoms. Drug reviewers feel that further study may be warranted for the metabolic effects these drugs have on children. This scrutiny was initiated in part by a study of health insurance claims indicating that children treated with atypical antipsychotics "were much more likely to experience an adverse metabolic effect than adults, and the likelihood was directly correlated with age." These adverse effects include weight gain, diabetes, and increases in blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof by searching for the answer to this question:

Is it normal to dream of the person who sexually abused you?

The short answer is yes – this is completely normal. It is also normal for the abuser never to appear in your dreams. It all ties into how ready a sexual abuse survivor is to begin dealing with the aftermath of the sexual abuse.

After my father passed away, I used to dream about him all the time. This is because my subconscious was trying to process the fact that my father was dead. He died suddenly in his early forties, so I had a lot to process as a teenager. However, I never dreamed about my mother, who sexually abused me throughout my childhood. That did not happen until I was ready to begin healing from the sexual abuse.

Dreams after sexual abuse can be very scary and disturbing.

 If you do not agree with the way I parent my FASD and LD teenager then please, take her home with you. I cannot guess at the number of times people have talked behind my back and to my face about the way I parent my daughter. She came to us as a preschooler already traumatized, exposed to alcohol both before her birth and after, with a cognitively impaired diagnosis. You could not understand a word she said, she could not run, jump, use a toilet, or sit still. She stole, lied, acted inappropriately, and had poor (nonexistent) boundaries. Like so many hopeful/naïve adoptive parents, we thought she would grow out of those behaviors like other children normally do. We thought we could help her. We did help her, she now has an average IQ, however she did not grow out of lying and stealing. I am not alone in being judged by others for my parenting techniques, I have several good friends who are hurting right now.