Parenting After Adoption

Presumably due to their size and age, many people believe that an older child slips right into the family and the family can carry on with business as usual. It is easy to fall into this type of thinking since they are not one hundred percent dependent on their parent(s) for every need as newborns and infants do. This is even more so when the child joining the family is more than five years old.

Most, if not all, children who are entering into a new family situation are scared and feel quite vulnerable. Seldom do they have a history with their new family. Even if they do, they rarely have the kind of history and experience necessary for a relationship of trust and security. Therefore, it is imperative that their entire family–but the parent(s) in particular–create an atmosphere that is conducive to the new child feeling safe. It it not until they begin to feel safe that they can begin to bond and learn to trust. (more…)

Now that Lucas has been a member of our family for two and a half years, we receive a lot of inquiries regarding his adjustment and growth.

In many ways, he is doing great. His height and weight are well within the normal range for a boy his age, he is active in baseball and soccer, and he is improving academically by leaps and bounds. His English is nearly fluent for a child of his age. He states that he is truly happy here and has no regrets regarding his move from Haiti to America. (more…)

One topic that comes up among all members of the triad is who is the “real mother” for the child(ren) in question. Is she the woman who gave the child life? Is the woman who is there day to day to care for the child more real than the one who is not? Does a woman without contact with her child have a right to call herself his mother? Who is the real mom?

Everyone has their opinion. I have my opinion, and, yes, I’m going to share it with you. (more…)

Parenting in general requires that we communicate effectively with our children. Parenting children affected by adoption requires even more. Not just for the children who were adopted but also for the children in your family who were born into your family.

Through a chain of circumstances, Lucas lost members of his family, leading his mother to place him in the orphanage so that he could be adopted. My children did not give that much thought until Lucas arrived. His arrival and grief brought their own fears to the surface. What if they lost their family? (more…)

When my husband and I prepared for adding to our family through older child adoption, we did our homework by talking honestly with other families, who had experienced a wide variety of scenarios, as well as reading, reading, and reading. Just as we did when preparing for the birth of our first child.

As with our daughter’s birth, our son’s homecoming was not quite as we had envisioned. Though we certainly knew better than to expect sunshine and roses, we were not fully prepared for the raging rawness of our son’s grief. And though it was spelled out plainly in the books and we were certain we understood, the reality of living with a child experiencing attachment difficulties and fear was a whole new experience. (more…)

There are so many places I can go with this blog. When I stop to ponder just how many, I feel overwhelmed with the enormity of it. I also feel excited. In the weeks that I considered whether to return, I began a list of possible topics. Now I simply need to get busy researching and writing.

To begin, here is my vision for Parenting after Adoption. (more…)

Whether you are a grandparent, parent, aunt, uncle, cousin, sibling, friend, etc. of someone who recently adopted a child, remember that welcome a new child into the family via adoption means that you must take a step back and wait for the adoptive family to adjust before you will be able to spend time with the newest member in your family. This is especially if your newest family member is beyond the newborn age. You must allow the child and his family space to get acquainted, establish family dynamics and begin the attachment process. (more…)

The other day, during a conversation on another topic Lucas said to me, “You left me that day!” He and I both knew exactly what he was talking about. It was the day I left Haiti after my visit in February 2005. When Lucas is very upset with me, he doesn’t remind me that I am not the mother who gave birth to him. Instead, he reminds me that I left him after my visit. I don’t see this as a way to be vindictive, though. I view these moments as Lucas lashing out in fear that I will leave him again. Forever. (more…)

At the end of the last month, I introduced a books series for the Tuesday Top 5. My first week I shared my top five books for attaching in adoption with a bonus for general parenting after adoption. This week I’m covering domestic adoption. (more…)

Familial feelings and the feelings of love and adoration after adoption truly depend on the family dynamics as well as the child’s history and ability to adapt to life in a new family. It is not uncommon for a family to not feel like a family – to not feel bonded. There are a variety of reasons why this may happen, but often it is simply the fact that you can not expect yourself to immediately fall in love a perfect stranger. (more…)

As promised, here is the first installment of my eight-week Tuesday Top 5 Book Series. They are listed in alphabetical order by title. (more…)

It’s time for another Tuesday Top 5! I simply could not narrow my favorites down to only five book choices. There are so many wonderful, worthwhile, informative books on the market for the adoptive parent demographic. Likewise, there are so many unique situations in adoptive families. If I choose only five books over a broad range of situations, I would have to leave out other important books. Yes, I have that many favorites!
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No matter the age of your child when he was adopted, at some point you probably have experienced separation anxiety, yours and your child’s. It is a part of normal development for a child to experience anxiety about time away from parents, just as it is part of normal transitions in parenting for parents to feel anxiety about being apart from their child. This is played out every year as children go off to daycare when mom and dad both have to work, for little Suzy and her parents on the first day of preschool, and even for parents leaving their child at Kindergarten on the first day of school. Separation is inevitable. Anxiety about it is normal.

What about when the anxiety is not a part of normal development or usual life transitions? (more…)

Saturday evening one of our neighbors came over and asked if we wouldn’t mind feeding a stray kitten that showed up in their flowerbed that morning. They were leaving for a few days and didn’t want the little guy to go unattended. That night the rainfall was a torrential downpour. I was awake around 1:30 a.m. (as I am tonight) and wondered if I should go over to their driveway and try to capture him from under their car. My fear of stray dogs on our dark, dead-end road won out and I didn’t go.

The next morning he was wet, cold and shivering from both fear and a long, lonely night in the rain. We thought he might be feral because of the spunk and fight he gave us while trying to capture him. His “fight or flight” was a poignant reminder of L’s first days and weeks at home with us. (more…)

Not long after L joined our family, Sundays became a miserable experience for everyone. As we were getting ready for church, L’s mood soured and his behavior took a nose dive, which almost always included telling blatant lies. I kept commenting in private to my husband that it sure seemed as if L was trying to avoid going to church. Yet when we asked L if he liked church, he always said yes. We were so confused!

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