A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

One of our interviews centered on our parenting philosophy. I really did not have one other than that I did not plan to spank my child and that I wanted to do things differently from the way my parents raised me. That wasn't a whole lot to go on.

I knew that my sister used time outs with her son, so I talked about using time outs. I also said that I liked "creative discipline" in which the punishment fit the crime. One example I had heard from a friend was that a good punishment for skipping school is for mom to come along with the child to every class the next day. Beyond that, I really did not have much else to share.

We talked about how we would talk with our child about his adoption. Would we keep the adoption a secret? Or would we tell him about his adoption from the very beginning? I said that I planned to talk about his adoption from the beginning because I did not want him to have a "moment" where his world exploded when he learned that we had been hiding this important fact about his life from him.

The social worker asked how we planned to handle a request to search for his birthfamily. That was a hard question for me because that was something we would not face for two decades. The social worker told us that the agency would help our child find his birthmother and facilitate the reunion for free if we wanted. I was glad to hear about that option. I said that I would be supportive, but I really did not know what else to say.

I stressed that I would love my child wholeheartedly and that I would learn how to parent him at different stages as they unfolded. I also said that I would read lots of parenting books to learn about different options. This is pretty much how I have parented him since he joined my family. Much of parenting is about following your intuition and tailoring your parenting to meet your individual child's needs.

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Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt