Shannon Guerra - Upside Down: Understanding and Supporting Attachment in Adoptive Families

Upside Down is a great resource for adoptive parents and the ones who love them, wisely and compassionately shining a light on the deep challenges involved in parenting children with wounded hearts. If you are such a parent, this book will help you feel supported and understood. If you know and love such a family, you will come away from this book with a whole new level of understanding, and be better able to support your loved ones.

Mary Ostyn, author of Forever Mom:
What to Expect When Youre Adop ting

Shannon writes with raw, real, and hopeful narrative. We would recommend this book to any adoptive family facing attachment issues with their child, and to those who desire to understand and support them.

Mike and Kristin Berry, founders of
Confessions of an Adoptive Parent

www.confessionsofanadoptiveparent.com

Shannon Guerras book, Upside Down , will at once resonate with the adoptive family, and educate their loved ones. This gem of a book is a manual that reads like a letter from a dear old friend. The nuts and bolts of living in an attachment-challenged home have never been as warmly and succinctly addressed as in Shannons book. Her words are a balm to the weary soul, and should be required reading for anyone who is considering adoption, has adopted, or knows an adoptive family. Beyond that, every counselor, pediatrician, psychologist, and attachment specialist should have this on hand as a resource for themselves and their clients. Yes, its that good.

Cynthia Hellman, adoptive mama

Upside Down is a trip to the refreshing well of empathetic understanding for parents of attachment-challenged children. Shannon Guerras book, from cover to cover, delivers a safe haven that comes from experience. Getting away with fellow foster and adoptive parents for a weekend retreat is often not possible. Thankfully, we have the next best option in our hands with this very book.

Debi Rice, foster and adoptive mama

Shannon Guerra offers a light-hearted, easy read to address a difficult subject. Traumatic experiences can seriously affect early relationships and bonding for children. In Upside Down , we are offered insight from a mother who wrestles with these challenges daily. If you are fostering or adopting a child, read this book. You will gain insight into the mind of a child who doesnt trust love. If you are a parent, grandparent, friend, minister, dentist, or doctor, read this book. Learn to care for the heart of a child by caring for the heart of the parent. Upside Down helps us to care without judgment, while developing the counter-intuitive behaviors we must acquire to support families as they bond.

Julia Bolles, Special Needs Ministry Lead at
Church on the Rock

Wasilla, AK

As an adoptive momma to five kiddos, all from super hard places, I appreciated this book and every single word written in it. This book was all the words I needed and wanted to say but written so much better than I could have ever said it myself. I live this book daily. I read Upside Down in one sitting, then again the next day. So powerful, simple, and spoken with such truth. Thank you for writing this powerful book.

Nicole M., mom of nine children

Sharing from her wealth of knowledge on the subject of attachment in adoption and from her familys own experience with it, Shannon has written a wonderful book that really helps people understand what adoptive parents may be going through on a day-to-day basis with their adopted children and how one can best support them in their journey of attachment. Encouraging, honest, and engaging - this book should be on every persons shelf who is/has adopted or has someone who is adopted in their life.

Britney Carr, pastors wife and missionary in Asia

Upside Down, Understanding and Supporting Attachment in Adoptive Families by Shannon Guerra is an amazing resource of help to those who have friends and family who have adopted. The approach is both funny and sobering at the same time. It gives a glimpse into the trials parents of adopted children face, gives suggestions on boundaries, and shares real stories and insights from parents in the adoptive trenches. It is a must read for every friend and family member of adoptive families. You will learn a lotand learn you have much to learn. I had no idea of the effects of RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder). I am humbled to read this book. I will recommend this book. I will reread this book many times. Read it for yourself and begin the journey of understanding and the support that is deeply needed.

Ed Waken, pastor of ValleyLife Church

Over five years ago Jesus led our family of three to join our hearts with Gods heart through the journey of foster care and ultimately adoption. Now, three infant girls later, our forever family of six is in the thick of our new journey with both its joys and its challenges.

As a pastor of a large church and a father of four (plus a german shorthair), it isnt very often that I come across someone who so clearly gets us. Yet, Shannon has captured the life of an adoptive family in a way that brought me to tears time and again as I read the words from her heart on the pages of her book.

If you want to understand and support adoptive families or if you just want to know someone is in it with you as an adoptive family, Shannons book is a must read!

Jonathan Walker, lead pastor at Church on the Rock

Wasilla, AK

upside
down

understanding and
supporting attachment
in adoptive families

shannon guerra

Copyright 2017 Shannon Guerra.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 (866) 928-1240

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,
and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5962-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5963-1 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/16/2017

to Cody and Sara,

who have long been our heroes

and

to Larry and Sharon,

who have loved us well

contents

bonus sec tion

Our family is not glamorous. We are loud and messy, quiet and nerdy, transparent and complicated. We were all of those things before adoption, and now we are justmore so.