Navigating the Adoption Process: Dana Parisi's Resilient Journey
Navigating the Adoption Process
Hosted by: Reesa Morala, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
In this episode of The Real Family Eats, host Reesa sits down with Dana, a mother of four, parent coach, advocate for trauma-informed parenting, and lover of comfort food. to talk about the real challenges and rewards of parenting through every stage of life. Dana gets candid in sharing the exploration of the challenges and triumphs unique to modern family life, adoption, and navigating persistent parenting struggles.
Here are some key takeaways in this episode:
Practical Family Dinners: Having a reliable, family-pleasing recipe like Tuna Noodle Casserole can be a lifesaver for busy parents, helping keep dinner routines simple, nutritious, and stress-free.
Adoption Realities: Adoption brings joy and new beginnings, but always starts with loss. It’s crucial to understand trauma’s effects and prepare for changed family dynamics.
Parenting Through Challenge: Persistent behavioral struggles are common—even among experienced parents. Seeking support, being vulnerable, and releasing the need for perfection are vital steps toward healing and resilience.
Community Matters: “It takes a village” isn’t just a saying—parents benefit enormously from practical, hands-on support and real friendship. Building intentional community can transform isolation into connection.
Self-Care Isn’t Optional: Carving out micro-pauses and tending to your own needs is essential for handling day-to-day parenting stresses and modeling healthy coping for your children.
Trauma-Informed Approaches Work: Focusing on relationship-building and understanding what behaviors truly communicate is more effective than searching for punitive consequences.
Breaking Cycles: Becoming a parent often involves revisiting—and sometimes reworking—the blueprints inherited from our own upbringing. Change is possible with intention and support.
Helping Others: Dana’s work as a parent coach is rooted in a desire to help others navigate tough seasons. Her resources, books, and coaching are designed for parents feeling overwhelmed or dealing with adoption-related challenges.
Finding Resilience Through Adoption
Right at the top, Dana introduces herself as a proud mother to four children—two biological and two adopted. Her family’s experiences led her to a meaningful career shift from physical therapy to parent coaching, with a focus on supporting families raising children with trauma, neurodiversities like autism and ADHD, and mental health challenges. Dana’s perspective is rooted in lived experience and a deep desire to help other parents who find themselves overwhelmed, isolated, or struggling with difficult behavior in their children.
The discussion jumps in with Dana sharing her family’s go-to recipe: Tuna Noodle Casserole, affectionately dubbed “Tuna Noodle Stinkle.” Inspired by Junie B. Jones and beloved by all six members of the Parisi household, this comforting casserole gets the stamp of approval for being quick, nutritious, and customizable to even the pickiest eaters in the house. With practical tips on hiding veggies, easy meal prep for busy nights, and clever tricks (like adding crunchy chips just before serving), Dana’s recipe is a real-life solution for parents pressed for time.
Adoption Journey and Parenting
Beyond the kitchen, Dana opens up about the emotionally complex journey of adoption. She describes the unpredictability of the adoption process—long periods of waiting, mountains of paperwork, and the fears of “rocking the boat” in settled family routines. Dana emphasizes that every child adopted has experienced loss and trauma, and—regardless of the amount of preparation—such realities bring unique challenges to family dynamics and parental expectations.
Listeners get a behind-the-scenes look at how adding children through adoption affected the Parisi family, leading to shifts in sibling dynamics, explosive behaviors, and the infamous “Lego Massacre”—a story that poignantly illustrates both the intensity and the learning opportunities embedded in everyday family life.
Rebuilding Community After Adoption
One hallmark of this episode is the willingness to engage in honest, vulnerable conversation. Dana shares how she struggled with feelings of embarrassment, the pressure to maintain a facade of perfection, and the profound isolation that can come from parenting through tough seasons. The myth of the “village” is scrutinized: while “it takes a village” is a common refrain, many parents feel that practical support and deep community are lacking, especially in moments of crisis, such as public meltdowns or trying to juggle competing responsibilities.
Dana describes her journey to intentionally build “her village” through a local women’s running group—finding not only exercise, but true friendships rooted in regular, honest sharing. She encourages listeners to seek out small, consistent opportunities for vulnerability and connection, emphasizing that deep relationships often start with being honest about the hard parts of life.
Finding Trauma-Informed Parenting
In a key segment, Dana reframes how parents can approach persistent, challenging behaviors. Moving away from the search for “perfect consequences,” she advocates for trauma-informed strategies—pausing to ask what a child’s behavior might actually be communicating and focusing on relationship-building rather than punishment. Practical self-care tips, such as adding regular pauses throughout the day and regulating one’s own nervous system, are woven seamlessly into the conversation, providing actionable insight for parents feeling stressed, anxious, and stretched thin.
Dana shares her own experience seeking help from a trauma-trained parent coach, overcoming the stigma and reluctance to ask for help. She normalizes tough parenting moments—acknowledging that even as a coach, she sometimes defaults to “no brownies tonight!” and urges parents to give themselves grace and humor when things go sideways.
Reparenting and Breaking Old Patterns
The discussion wraps with reflections on intergenerational patterns—how our “blueprint” for parenting is inherited from our own childhood experiences, and how becoming a parent can prompt a process of reparenting oneself. Dana and Reesa both share moments of realization about their own inherited habits, and the importance of intentional growth as their children grow and their families evolve.
As a final reflection, Dana answers Reesa’s “Back to the Future” question, expressing a desire to go back and offer her former self a hug and some gentle encouragement in those most demanding seasons—a powerful reminder of the resilience and wisdom that accrues when parents bravely face the messiest parts of family life.
Connect with Dana:
And as a special offer to our listeners, Dana is offering a 10% off of her Frazzled to Joyful parent support program using a specialized link here.
Tuna Noodle Casserole
15 oz macaroni or corkscrew noodles cooked and drained
10 oz chopped frozen broccoli thawed
1-2 tsp minced onion
1 can cream of broccoli (or celery) soup
1 can broccoli cheese soup
1.5 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 large can tuna, rinsed and drained
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Mix together, put into a buttered casserole dish
back at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.
* add crunched up chips on top, cheddar ruffle potato chips are are favorite
* add hot sauce if you like it spicy!
If you are a parent ready to share your real-life parenting struggle and dish up a recipe with Reesa, apply here!
