Important letter to family and friends
Dear Family and Friends:
We're very, very excited about bringing our new child home! We've done a lot of reading and research into adoptive parenting and feel knowledgeable and prepared to help our child become an excellent family member and successful person.
There are some things about adoptive parenting that are the same as parenting a biological child. There are quite a few areas, though, that we've learned are different. Through our adoption agency, books, other adoptive parents, psychologists, and more, we've learned that our child needs a specific type of environment and parenting when he first comes home in order to feel safe and secure and to learn how to live successfully in our family.
While we know that every child is different, we understand that there are many possible things that will impact our child's beliefs and behavior when he gets home. These include the degree of love he got, if he was abused or neglected, how much he ate, if he's been ill, the quality of parenting/caregiving he got, and more. The result of these things can include behavioral issues, emotional disorders, and a huge sense of grief and loss.
Adoption is a traumatic, scary, disconcerting event for any age child, whether they're newborn, or 10 years old. They're being removed from all of their routines and familiar surrounding. Even babies will feel grief and sadness at an event like this. In order to help our child feel safe and learn that we are his new parents, we are creating the type of environment that he requires during this stressful time.
Below we've listed a few things to help you understand how our child will feel when he first gets home.
Even children that have lived in dysfunctional homes with abusing and neglectful parents, are traumatized to leave their homes.
Even when they are moving to a family with more food, toys, and love, they will still be grief-filled.
Even if their past is filled with many traumatic and negative things, it wasn't ALL bad. They may have fond and happy memories of certain people, foods, smells, activities, or places.
He will be overwhelmed with EVERYTHING. New people, new rules, new foods, and more.
When our child gets home, at the recommendation of experienced adoption professionals, we need to implement specific parenting approaches to help our child become a strong, attached, emotionally healthy family member. The child we're adopting needs to learn that we're his parents. And, he needs to feel nurtured and safe. Older adopted children are generally coming from multiple placements in foster care, or from an orphanage. In either instance, our child is not used to having parents to love and care for him.
These are some things we'll be doing for our child, based on research and experience with other adopted children.
We'll be living a very quiet life with limited trips out and few visitors in. Social workers and psychologists tell us that when children are first adopted, they are overwhelmed, scared, and nervous. By keeping his life very boring at first, we'll be helping our child to feel safe.
We know you'll all want to hug, kiss, and help "baby" our new child, but pleas understand that you'll have to wait for awhile. According to adoption specialists, older adopted children, whether from foster care or an orphanage, need special parenting during their first few months home so they can strongly attach to us. Some children don't even know the difference between a parent and other adults. Until we feel our child has attached and clearly knows we're his parents, we will feed, change, and take care of him.
Our child will get all of his hugs, kisses, and cuddling from us, until he's attached and bonded to us.
Many older adopted children act very outgoing and affectionate with strangers. For safety's sake, we need to keep him close to us until he stops exhibiting what's called "indiscriminate affection, a common behavior of older adopted children."
We appreciate your time and understanding in reading this. We've given you this letter so that you'll understand how dedicated and committed we are to helping our new child adjust and adapt during this very traumatic time in his life.
******************************************************************************
I read the letter above on the adoption forums and thought I would post it as you all can understand the adoption process better and how the children react or feel. Something a lot of us might not understand otherwise or even think of if not brought to our attention. Even the youngest babies will feel grief and a loss of the only place or people they have known. Kinda sad when you think about it. I did mention some of this in my post with my opinions but this letter is written well.
Our agency is telling us to get our documents in so they can get them to Valdimir to translate and Fed ex the orginials for our court petition. That is very good news!!! Marching on......
We're very, very excited about bringing our new child home! We've done a lot of reading and research into adoptive parenting and feel knowledgeable and prepared to help our child become an excellent family member and successful person.
There are some things about adoptive parenting that are the same as parenting a biological child. There are quite a few areas, though, that we've learned are different. Through our adoption agency, books, other adoptive parents, psychologists, and more, we've learned that our child needs a specific type of environment and parenting when he first comes home in order to feel safe and secure and to learn how to live successfully in our family.
While we know that every child is different, we understand that there are many possible things that will impact our child's beliefs and behavior when he gets home. These include the degree of love he got, if he was abused or neglected, how much he ate, if he's been ill, the quality of parenting/caregiving he got, and more. The result of these things can include behavioral issues, emotional disorders, and a huge sense of grief and loss.
Adoption is a traumatic, scary, disconcerting event for any age child, whether they're newborn, or 10 years old. They're being removed from all of their routines and familiar surrounding. Even babies will feel grief and sadness at an event like this. In order to help our child feel safe and learn that we are his new parents, we are creating the type of environment that he requires during this stressful time.
Below we've listed a few things to help you understand how our child will feel when he first gets home.
Even children that have lived in dysfunctional homes with abusing and neglectful parents, are traumatized to leave their homes.
Even when they are moving to a family with more food, toys, and love, they will still be grief-filled.
Even if their past is filled with many traumatic and negative things, it wasn't ALL bad. They may have fond and happy memories of certain people, foods, smells, activities, or places.
He will be overwhelmed with EVERYTHING. New people, new rules, new foods, and more.
When our child gets home, at the recommendation of experienced adoption professionals, we need to implement specific parenting approaches to help our child become a strong, attached, emotionally healthy family member. The child we're adopting needs to learn that we're his parents. And, he needs to feel nurtured and safe. Older adopted children are generally coming from multiple placements in foster care, or from an orphanage. In either instance, our child is not used to having parents to love and care for him.
These are some things we'll be doing for our child, based on research and experience with other adopted children.
We'll be living a very quiet life with limited trips out and few visitors in. Social workers and psychologists tell us that when children are first adopted, they are overwhelmed, scared, and nervous. By keeping his life very boring at first, we'll be helping our child to feel safe.
We know you'll all want to hug, kiss, and help "baby" our new child, but pleas understand that you'll have to wait for awhile. According to adoption specialists, older adopted children, whether from foster care or an orphanage, need special parenting during their first few months home so they can strongly attach to us. Some children don't even know the difference between a parent and other adults. Until we feel our child has attached and clearly knows we're his parents, we will feed, change, and take care of him.
Our child will get all of his hugs, kisses, and cuddling from us, until he's attached and bonded to us.
Many older adopted children act very outgoing and affectionate with strangers. For safety's sake, we need to keep him close to us until he stops exhibiting what's called "indiscriminate affection, a common behavior of older adopted children."
We appreciate your time and understanding in reading this. We've given you this letter so that you'll understand how dedicated and committed we are to helping our new child adjust and adapt during this very traumatic time in his life.
******************************************************************************
I read the letter above on the adoption forums and thought I would post it as you all can understand the adoption process better and how the children react or feel. Something a lot of us might not understand otherwise or even think of if not brought to our attention. Even the youngest babies will feel grief and a loss of the only place or people they have known. Kinda sad when you think about it. I did mention some of this in my post with my opinions but this letter is written well.
Our agency is telling us to get our documents in so they can get them to Valdimir to translate and Fed ex the orginials for our court petition. That is very good news!!! Marching on......
posted by Scott and Kim Mench at 6:50 PM
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