I want to share with you what I'm learning from the books we are reading. Adoption is not just the immediate family issue but it is a family affair. Just as each of you have a hand in helping our biological children grow, learn, and love, you will also have that much and if not more of a hand in helping our son as he joins our family: adjust to a new world, learn to attach to a family, trust a family, love a family, respond to people and accept the loss in his life. You too will need to be prepared for his questions, outsiders comments, and even know why we might do the things we do with him. Below is my "cliff" notes from a book called Twenty things adopted kids wish their adoptive parents knew. The author is from Indianapolis and is an adoptee. It is long but hopefully helpful. Thanks for taking the time and investing in his life this way!!!!!
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge
• Difference doesn’t mean he is inferior rather they are proof that he is UNIQUELY and WONDERFULLY MADE!
• Don’t overemphasize differences…bring them up only as they seem appropriate and at times that EDIFY him
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“Please respect my privacy regarding my adoption. Don’t tell other people without my consent.” Don’t share medical history or even his adoption story with everyone. The only people outside of extended family that needs to know is his doctor and maybe teacher. We want him to meet people with a "clean" slate. Don't want people to already have "judgements" in their mind about him because they know about his medical history or birth family history.
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Just as we would not introduce a child from divorce parents as “a child of divorce” why introduce him as the “adopted child”…he is our child!!!!! If people ask in front of him questions about his adoption, don't give his life history just sweet short answer but with pride. don't want to make him feel like it is an embarrassment to the family that he is adopted. want him to be proud of his heritage.
• To deny adoption loss is to deny the emotional reality of everyone involve (birth parents, child, adoptive parents, relatives)
• Loss, if left unresolved, this grief can and often does sabotage the strongest of families and the deepest potential within the adopted child
• One reason adoption loss is not grieved is that the adopted child may outwardly appear “fine”. What they want and need the most, they often resist.
• If ungrieved adoption loss hurts so bad, they why don’t they talk about it? Terror…terrified of rejection
• **Adoptees not only need to be given permission to talk about their uncomfortable feelings, they need to be openly invited and encouraged to do so.
• Sometimes it is hard to put into words what they are feeling
• One of the most sacrificial acts of love adoptive parents can do is to give up their preconceptions and agendas about what their child’s views “should” be and be open to hear the conflicting emotions and thoughts their child often experiences.
• Talk to him about his birth mommy. “you must miss her.” “I bet you get that from her”
• All adoptions are OPEN – all the child’s history is shared with him.
• He needs education about adoption, through adoption children books, support groups,
• Every adopted child has “Special Needs”
o Emotional:
Help in recognizing loss and grief
Assured that his birth parents decision not to parent him had nothing to do with anything defective in him
Help in learning to deal with his fears of rejection – absence doesn’t mean abandonment
Permission to express feeling and fantasies
o Educational
Taught about adoption
Know his adoption story first, then his birth story, and birth family
That he is prepared for hurtful things others may say about adoption and about him as the adoptee
o Validation
Validation of my dual heritage (biological & adoptive)
Assured often that he is welcomed , worthy, needed
That we delight in his biological differences and appreciate his birth family’s unique contribution.
o Relational
Friendships with other adoptees
• Best way young adoptees can accept the reality of loss is through parental validation
• Okay to say “I don’t smell like your birth mom, don’t sound like her. I love you and I’m not going to leave you.” Acknowledge our differences but sharing our love for him.
• Might be difficult for him to enter new groups or take on new endeavors
• Need simple connection to the birth family: name, location
• Reassure your child: emphasize to him the true reason for the relinquishment/abandment, okay to be angry, find a counselor
• One way to help him talk is through fantasy, story telling
• Adoption story as a fairy tale: themes of loss (being forgotten), rescue (being found), & redemption (being worthy)
• The adoptive parent’s greatest fear is rejection from him
• Foster a non-competitive spirit
• Be confident in our roles
• At earliest age possible: introduce information about his birth family. Let him lead! Expect questions about his birth family as early as age 3
• Affirm your child’s value
• Need to know “I’m here…you’re safe…I won’t leave you” is one that eclipses all others.
• Birth mom and him are not the same…her lifestyle and choices don’t define his identity…he is his own person.
• Let him know that his “no” (his attitude, his rejection, his unwilling to talk) is just as lovable as his “yes”
• Affirm, Affirm, Affirm
o I will do my best to connect with him
o He can count on me
o He might push but I will not let him push me away
o I will care for him and myself
o We can both tell the truth and be responsible for our behaviors
o I support him in learning what he may want to know about his heritage
o He is lovable just the way he is
• In most cultures many assume that resemblance in family is the most important thing, what about adoptees…if we put so much on resemblances?
• Look for differences and praise them
• Not knowing his medical history will be difficult for him…filing out doctor forms, when asked “ does_____ run in your family?, college forms.
• Even if he decides to search for his birth family. We will always be his parents.
