In my previous post, I mentioned things a family can do while waiting to adopt. Becoming trauma-informed and understanding more about how the brain works during times of trauma are number one. These ideas and tips can help you become prepared for the challenges of being an adoptive parent.
LANGUAGE: The words you say can help a child through their difficult moments or they can exacerbate an issue. Learn appropriate language and teach the child this language. For example, replace ‘real mom’ with biological mother or whatever seems comfortable for you both. We have had deep discussions with our children about what our role in their life is, versus the role of their previous mother(s). Keep in mind that they will have a certain level of attachments to each mother, foster mother, previous adoptive mother or otherwise even if the previous parents do not deserve it. For example, a drug addicted biological mother might get more respect than you.
HOLIDAYS: Acknowledge to your child on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day that they might be thinking a great deal of their biological parents. It would be quite natural to struggle in this area. Do not take it as a personal insult, but a natural step for them to work through. Most every problem we have run into being adoptive parents, we have been able to turn into a teaching moment of some sort. They need help processing the array of feelings – hatred, love, anger, resentment, bitterness, etc. A counselor or therapist might be a good idea if you feel you cannot handle these types of conversations. Holidays of all sorts can be difficult. Our daughters struggled during the Christmas season. What should have been a joyous season, was just another reminder of their neglect and abuse with their biological parents. One daughter always remembered getting a beautiful stereo for Christmas, only to sold for drugs a month later. It broke her heart at a very young age.
SUPPORT: Now is the time to recognize and identify who is supportive of your decision to adopt – keep in mind, this may change. This will be an ongoing challenge for you and it’s important to have a realistic perspective of the people who surround you regularly. Friends may come and go as you find yourself absorbed in different challenges and frustrations.
HAIR CARE: If you know that your child will be a different ethnicity than you are, it is important to the child that you are educated in this area. Before you get nervous and stressed out that you will have to do hair extensions and fancy braids, it may just mean that you have salons or friends that you can call on for these services and for advice on hair care products.
FIND PROFESSIONALS: This seems obvious. You will need a pediatrician or family doctor and a dentist, but you may also need or want a psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor, therapist, or neuropsychologist. You will probably want local professionals but I have traveled through several states to get to an adoption expert and specialist. It can be worth the travel, to find someone educated and experienced in child trauma and adoption.
MONEY:Prepare your finances the best that you can. Save rather than spend. Say no to the extras like Fast Food and impulse buying. If there is a choice of insurance benefits that you can carry, choose the one that includes psychiatric, counseling, and therapy. It’s better to have it than to need it and not have it available to you. Children cost money to raise, that’s no secret, but a child with trauma can stress your finances.
INTRODUCTIONS: Everything will be brand new for the adopted child. Many experts, including Dr. Ronald S Federici urge adoptive parents to stay at home with no visitors for a short time – a week or perhaps even a month. Let the child get to know you, his new surroundings, rules and expectations. Bonding with just you, enables them to view you as the parent and get to know you in that role. Slowly introduce to family members – perhaps even have them wear name tags when relatives are visiting. Do not allow family members to hug or kiss the child at first, but to shake hands or just talk to them and get to know them. It can be overwhelming for strange people to be hugging a child.
RESEARCH ADOPTION AGENCIES: Ask friends who have adopted, join adoption groups in your area either via Meetup, Facebook, through a local church (even if you are not religious this group may not be religious) or the old fashioned, word of mouth.
How easily it is to talk to the social workers, case workers, and supervisors they work with – availability, supportive, personable, ethical, turnover of workers, typical time it takes to get a child placed, matching process of child,…
What countries do they handle adoptions with?
What is their process?
How much will it cost – is there a breakdown of the fees?
RELEVANT CLASSES: Is there a class you can take to prepare you for adopting? Besides the mandatory class you may have to take required by your agency and/or state, are there any other classes you can take to help you prepare for the demands of traumatized children? Keep in mind, that even adoption is a trauma – there had to be loss, sometimes several, before the child came to you. i.e. loss of their biological parent, loss of their biological relatives, etc. even if newborn at placement because they may mourn the loss of the voice of their mother, the one of whom they listened to for nine months in the womb.
EVERYTHING WILL BE NEW: Everything is new! It’s a new culture, environment, home, family, relatives, school, commute to school, teachers, expectations, rules, chores, bed, …. Give them time to learn, adapt and accept it all. Easy on the punishments or discipline even when you feel they should know better or they will be quick to rebel, resist and resent you.
Path through the woods. Beatiful summer forest background
Waiting to finish the steps to adopt or waiting for a match can be excruciatingly painful. The desire to be a parent is a strong one, but there are some things you can do to not only kill time, but be better prepared as an adoptive parent. Here is a partial list.
READ, READ, READ: Don’t be afraid to read the ‘tough’ books – you know, the books that say what you don’t want to know – the books that address difficult behaviors, bonding, trauma, and Nature vs Nurture controversy. Reactive Attachment Disorder is prevalent in the adoption community and is well worth your research.
BUILD YOUR LIBRARY: Build a library of adoption books – children’s books, self-help and parenting books will help to have on hand when necessary. I will be offering an Adoption Journey Book as a ‘Baby Book’ for older adoptive children who are already out of the baby stage.
ENJOY LIFE: As you can imagine, children change your life tremendously. Take advantage of the opportunity to be free from such responsibilities and do things to keep yourself busy – organize your home, travel, visit far away relatives, take a college course, develop your business, read, or do something that will not only pass the time away, but will relieve the stress of the ‘waiting’ process. If I had to do it again, I would have researched treatments for children with trauma such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy), EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) otherwise known as Tapping Therapy, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and Neurofeedback Therapy and taken courses to be certified or better informed. This would have helped me not only handle my children’s trauma appropriately, but help give them an avenue for healing.
LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH:Work on your relationship with your spouse or significant other. It is imperative that you parent together, in unity, with respect for one another. In other words, you need to be on the same page. I encourage couples to make a verbal and/or written pact that no matter what the children do or say, you will not be torn apart, but only drawn together closer. I will offer a free download on my website, as this is vital to a healthy relationship. Be aware that some children have learned to triangulate and manipulate those around them. For example, they will give the primary caretaker a difficult time and treat the other parent with the utmost respect and love. If the latter parent does not believe and support the primary caretaker (often the mother), it can create disagreements and a great deal of hostility. Mothers also tend to be the target because an adoptive child might see you as replacing his/her ‘real’ mother. Help the child work through this confusing time and acknowledge the biological parents in your conversations when it seems appropriate, especially on days that remind them of their biological parents, such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
READY OR NOT?:Getting out of high school was liberating. We all remember that feeling of ‘finally being able to do what we want.’ Of course, then real life hits us like a brick and we realize why our parents never felt such freedom. Freedom is subjective. Many of our classmates chose not to have children because they wanted to experience that freedom – the ability to go where they want, do what they want, travel, save, build a career. They didn’t want children to weigh them down.
From my experience, children are not always the blessing people say they are and nor are they a weight to consider a burden. They are somewhere in the middle. They are a weighty blessing. They are a responsibility that we must not take lightly whether we choose to have biological children, or we choose to adopt.
Adoption is not the same as having your own. Let’s face it, you do not have to fill out scrolls of papers, hire an attorney and have a home study done in order to get pregnant and give birth to a baby. Adoption is something that you seek out and strive for. At times, the red tape and politics of it all can seem daunting. For example, there are thousands of children freed for adoption, but it seems to take forever to find a child. My husband and I had no preference on gender, age, race, ethnicity, emotional stability or number of siblings and yet, it took a year and a half to find two boys freed for adoption. I’d say that there needs more of a collaborative system to get these children out from behind the curtain, but there have been many attempts and organizations that have taken on that challenge especially with the use of new technologies such as the internet.
It is a system that needs revamping nonetheless, but if you are willing to ride the rapids, these children need forever families. This brings me to the point, are you ready to adopt? Things that can hold you back are numerous and not worth listing. The reasons are usually personal in nature or simply fear based. The unknown always carries fear with it, even in exciting ventures such as adoption.
Adoptive children do not want to be the Second Choice. They want to know that they were and are, wanted. Knowing this, you still may have a difficult time helping them feel wanted and worthy of your love, as they may have been rejected more times in their lives than you can count on one hand. That being said, if there are any issues that remain undealt with, it will come to the surface, and the child will either feed on them in order to manipulate you or will use them as a reason to feel unloved. For example, if there are infertility issues, healing is important for many reasons. And another example, if your little boy died, there needs to be healing, because this child will never be able to fit into the shoes of your little boy the way you want him to. Additionally, if you are adopting a child to be a playmate to your child, be prepared for the children to not get along and not have the same bond you might have wanted or expected. In other words, be careful of your expectations. These children are coming from loss, rejection, abusive and/or neglectful situations or death of parents, numerous placements, and many other difficult situations. These children are going to need your support, understanding and consistent discipline, not your pain and unrealistic expectations.
These children are going to need your support, understanding and consistent discipline, not your pain and unrealistic expectations.
The decision to adopt is a personal one. No one can make that decision for you. In my case, adoption was my first choice. I never wanted a biological child and considered it only for a fleeting moment when my doctor told me that it was ‘now or never’ as I was getting older. We all have our journeys that bring us to the thoughts of adoption. Interestingly, if you begin telling others of your decision to adopt, you will get many conflicting opinions on whether or not you are ready or whether or not you should adopt, but it is a personal choice, to be made by yourself and/or your significant other or spouse. As much as I was certain I wanted to adopt and it became our life’s choice, people still felt the need to tell me that I have enough children and should not consider adopting again. I am not sure why people felt like it was their place, as I never asked for any help or sought out government aid or anything else that may have made them feel as if it was their business, but everyone has an opinion and many choose to share it. Much like an author weeding through feedback, weigh the unsolicited advice and either consider it or throw it out, based on its weightiness.
Below is a letter to Christian Workers and Pastors. Please use as you feel suitable. Mail or email this to your own church or a church you know struggles in this area. Christians want to be welcoming. Jesus was. But sometimes they fall short. Many people do. They’re no different.
Dear Fellow Christian Workers and Pastors:
Where is your mission field? Have you ever encountered an adoptive family or an adult adoptee? Perhaps not. Many adoptive families have stopped going to church; not because of their lack of belief or anger at God, but because they find they aren’t understood and that can jeopardize the success of the adoptive child. We need to surround ourselves with people who understand us and if we cannot find those people, we do life alone, and speaking from experience, that’s not fun. I now specialize in helping these families be understood.
My husband and I have adopted thirteen children. We adopted from the foster care system, adoption disruptions, internationally and privately. Our youngest child transitioning into our family was newborn and our oldest was sixteen years old. Each of our children, whether from a sibling group or coming by themselves, have their own story. Their story consists of their background, why and how we chose them, their life with us and their life now as adults (in some cases) as well as their perception of it all. When our children walked into our home, we had big dreams for each of them, just like any good parent has for their children, but these dreams were clouded with unimaginable difficulties, and in my opinion, preventable difficulties.
I wrote and published PHOENIX BOUND: An Adoptive Mom Shares Her Struggle Raising 13 Traumatized Children to share with everyone willing to listen to the struggles associated with adopting children burdened with rejection, fears, insecurities, RAD (now renamed DTD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, attention disorders, attachment issues and mental health issues. My greatest dream is that my book be part of a curriculum or used as a reference tool for students at the being educated for helping professions such as yours that find themselves working with the adoptive family dynamic. “Why?” you ask; because it can be the difference between an adoption surviving and an adoption disrupting.
These precious children have been brought into a chaotic world of abuses, neglect and trauma and have learned to manipulate and lie as a survival technique. Often, by the time the adoptive parent realizes they need help, their child is in crisis mode and the adoptive parent feels lost and confused. The lonely adoptive parent desperately seeks help, often looking as crazy as the child feels. They are desperate because of the deep love and concern for their hurting child, their frustration with the process of seeking appropriate help, the responses they often get from professionals, and the fear they have for their child. Yes, sometimes they fear the child due to their child’s uncontrollable anger and trauma that has reached a level of Fight or Flight mode, but more so, the parent is afraid FOR their child. When children get to this point, they are capable and willing to destroy everything they have ever loved and worked for. This is when most professionals enter the picture. It looks like a mess, but the real mess is deep inside the child’s heart. Compassion, understanding at a deeper level and a supportive approach would be invaluable to the child as well as the adoptive parent. PHOENIX BOUND shows the reader that support and help for these hurting children has not improved through the years, despite our growing knowledge and understanding as a nation of adoption issues and struggles.
If you care about the future of these hurting children, take a look at my book, PHOENIX BOUND. It is a must read for anyone currently working in, or going into, the helping professions. It is an investment in the lives of children that should be healthy enough to give back to their world but often too crippled by their perceptions, challenges and lack of educated trauma-informed support to offer the world much of anything except a continuation of their chaotic world.
My children WANT to be understood.
Adoptive parents and professionals need to come together as one to aid in the healing process for these precious children. They didn’t ask for this pain.
Check out these videos, and more, that I created to help others understand.
Halloween and the Adopted Child The pros and cons of celebrating Halloween
Many children, as well as adults, love Halloween. They love the one day a year that allows them to bring out their evil side or be someone or something they are not. The decorations, parties, costumes, and the spooky events are exciting. For others, it is just fun to pretend they are a superhero, a worker in their favorite profession, an object, or an Indian with a papoose. Halloween can be a lot of fun, but not for everyone. We ask ourselves, ‘Should I celebrate Halloween with my adopted child?’ Here are some things to consider when approaching Halloween with your adopted child.
Respect Beliefs: If your child is not adopted yet, it is respectful to be considerate of the child’s biological parents’ belief system. It may also be against the child’s belief system, and in that case, it should definitely be respected.
It is real: For some children, especially those adopted from other countries, evil is very real to them. The boogie man has snatched children in the night to kill, enslave, or force them to be child soldiers. They also may believe the ocean has a boogie man under water waiting to snap necks. Evil and the fear behind it may have been a large part of their belief system.
It is creepy: The decorations may seem harmless and funny to you, but to a young child or a child from a difficult culture or family situation, it may be traumatizing. Our children have seen dead people on the side of the road in their home country. They were also aware of the Boogie Man who truly existed in their country. When walking into a department store after Halloween decorations had gone up, they screamed and ran to me crying, completely terrorized. We stopped going to the store together in the months leading up to Halloween. It was too much for them. I found ways to shop by myself.
Evil Exists: Whether you believe in evil or not, many of these children have lived such evil. Many of these children are from some very hard places. They may have been physically abused, sexually abused, or seen things that children should never see in their young lives. One of our children watched the family dog being killed on the kitchen table. Another one of our children was pushed out a second story window.
Begging: Adopted children often come into your home with a sense of entitlement and Halloween can bring this out to a greater level. Others have used begging tactics for survival in their home country or family situation.
Stealing: Adopted children typically struggle with stealing. It is a compulsion they have stemming from their survival mentality deep within them. Candy wrappers, in our home, have been found in heating ducts, tub drains, shirt pockets, behind furniture, and on the ground outside, despite our attempts to get them to throw away the wrappers. Locking the Halloween candy up in a ‘dessert cabinet’ can help, but it is not always enough to curb the issues.
Sugar: Many children are affected negatively from sugar and dyes, and Halloween candy is full of them. Pay attention to your child’s behavior before and after sugar. Be knowledgeable of the affects of sugar on the human body and particularly in children. Some people have chosen to continue in the events of Halloween, but then allow their children to pick out ten pieces of candy, donating the rest to an organization near them.
Poor Behavior: Whatever the reason, whether it is stated above or not, Halloween may bring out the worst in your child’s behavior. It may not be worth the effort when you begin to experience unmanageable behaviors.
Me:This university has criminology. (Our son is interested in Exercise Science). You could be top of your class in criminology since you have lived with so many criminals.
Son: Hmmm. (His typical reply to anything I say). (He is a man of few words. However, I have determined what each Hmm sounds like and their meaning.)
Husband/Father: Yeah, and he can bring Josh (our 21-year-old son who has chosen a life of crime) in for Show and Tell.
Me: (Busting out in laughter)
Son: Smirking, trying not to smile.
Husband/Father: He (son) does not even know what Show and Tell is. It is a joke for older people.
Me: (Still busting out in laughter! Cannot stop now.)
Husband/Father: Either laugh or cry.
Anyone who has lived this life (raising children with trauma) would probably enjoy this dialogue. We have all learned that this stress can and will destroy you from the inside out. Having the ability and desire to see the humor in everything is vital to our survival.
God gave us emotions, but some emotion is not what God wants us to dwell in. It is simply not healthy. After raising thirteen children, for example, I can look back on many situations where I could have done better, but I refuse to look back with regret, guilt, shame or unforgiveness for myself. Too many of us dwell in these emotions as if soaking in a bath of guilt. I refuse to. I will not allow these emotions to seep into my being. I am human. I do the best I can, with what I have, at that moment in time. I am grateful for my experiences, both good and bad.
Comedians are funniest when their jokes are relatable. They target their jokes to the audience they are addressing. They turn our greatest frustrations, fears, and even sources of anger into a laughable situation.
Laughter is known to be the best medicine. Laughter is known to create endorphins, ease stress and anxiety, boost the immune system, and protect the heart, along with many other benefits.
Our lives get so messy and our brains struggle to make sense of it all. Our children have had a great deal of trauma. They often smile at you when you are seething with anger. They cannot make sense of their emotions or actions. They do not know why they do the things they do. We certainly cannot make sense out of it. A good friend of mine always said, “Do not try to make sense out of nonsense.” This is where I have used my faith in Jesus. I have given Him the burdens I cannot carry, leaving me more time and space to laugh and recognize His beauty.
What helps you? Is it a healthy alternative? Are you able to find the humor in most situations?
The Barenaked Ladies sing a line in their song, One Week, that says “I’m the kind of guy who laughs at funerals.” I can relate. I have laughed at funerals, several of them, but not as a disrespect or lack of love for the deceased for I have loved them dearly. I simply found a ‘peace’ of humor that transported me from a place of anger and sadness to a place of laughter.
Find humor in your day today. Find humor in your day tomorrow. Make it a habit. Make it a decision.
Renaming an adopted child should be thought through carefully.
For expecting parents, names can hold a deep meaning and an exciting new endeavor. They often pour over family names, the meaning of names, and new, creative names. It can also be stressful and frustrating.
As adoptive parents, our children come to us already named and often older than the typical age that you would consider naming a child. So, what do you do? Should you rename your child?
Here are some things to consider:
A Mother’s Gift: Your child’s name is the only thing their birth mother could give them. This is something that I keep in mind, but it does not always dictate my decision. My heart goes out to the parents who have given birth to these babies, desiring to love them, but simply not having the resources or wherewithal to follow through.
A Pulchritudinous Name: Is it a name the child can pronounce? It may be a beautiful name, but every time the child struggles to say their own name or spell their own name, it comes out wrong. I am not necessarily talking about a three-year-old learning to read and write. Many children coming from impoverished homes may struggle with speech delays, cognitive delays, or learning disabilities that can create a permanent barrier for them to pronounce their own name. These issues may not be as fixable as simply maturing or learning.
Shia Ting: Is it appropriate for your culture? No matter how you try to say this Chinese name in our English culture, it comes out as “Shi-tting.” Do I need to say more?
Dolion or Anwir: Is the name appropriate for the child? Dolion means Liar in Greek. Anwir means Liar in English. It does not seem appropriate to name a child a Liar even if they do struggle with lying. It does not give them much of a chance for change or much of a chance at life.
Camouflage: Do you plan to give the child a new name to cover up something? We have known several adoptive parents who have chosen to rename their older child to symbolize a ‘new beginning’ for the child. There are three things to seriously consider before you do:
The child’s brain is not set up like a chalkboard. The trauma, memories, experiences, and difficulties are not going to go away with a new name.
The child’s personality and struggles are not going to go away with a new name. Camouflaging who they really are with a new name does not change who they are on the inside.
It may simply be too much newness for the child to get a new family, a new dog, a new house, new relatives, new surroundings, new siblings, AND a new name.
An Ex: Do you really hate your child’s current name? Maybe there was an abusive boyfriend or a bully in school or even someone who molested you as a child, with the same name as your adopted child. Of course, in some cases, there is no reason for not liking a name, except that you just do not like the name. You have four choices: Learn to love them beyond their name, learn to love the name, give them a meaningful nickname, or give them a new name.
Just Like Auntie: Is renaming important to you because you would like your child to emulate a family member? Although that is nice, it may be too much pressure for the adopted child to be ‘just like auntie.’ It is something to consider.
Middle Name: I feel like middle names can be changed more readily than first names, with little to no thought. Some children come with no middle name and it is simple to add a middle name at the time of adoption. For our children, we wanted to keep their African heritage by putting their African last name as their new middle name with our last name. The above considerations can be used for deciding whether to keep their given middle name or choose a different middle name, but since a child does not identify with the middle name, it is an easier decision. We have left it the same, changed it to a family name, used their last name, and changed it completely.
Child’s Opinion: If the child is old enough to have a valid opinion, it should be considered. Listen to their reasoning and thoughts. For example, if the child is the one pushing for a name change, maybe the reason for it, just does not make sense or is not a good reason to change their name.
Safety concerns: A child can come from an abusive situation where the parent threatens to find them. If the child has an extremely unique name or a yuneak spelling of that name, it may be a good idea to change it. For more common names, keep in mind that the child will be changing their last name to yours as well their social security number, address, and birth certificate. They will keep their birthdates. Reading this, you may be more insistent on changing the child’s name. It may be wise in your child’s situation.
He/She: Naming a child a unisex name because you wish the child were of the opposite sex, does not change who they were born to be. If you wanted a boy, but adopted a girl, there is a more important issue – your heart and mind. You need to deal appropriately with the fact that you do not have the boy you always wanted. You cannot expect the girl to act like or talk like or be like the boy you always wanted. It is imperative that you work this out within yourself or it will reflect largely in the confidence and self-image of your child. Whether spoken or unspoken, children know when they are not appreciated for who they are. Children know when they are not wanted.
These are all things to consider. I am no expert in names, but this is a list compiled from our experiences as well as our friends’ experiences. I hope this helps in deciding whether to change a name or keep a given name.
When we adopted a baby, we picked him up at the hospital with the biological mother’s approval. The intention was for us to adopt him, but even in these cases, the biological mother is told to choose a name. She had already agreed that the name we chose was perfect, but when told to choose a name, she named him after the biological father. Although I felt that it was odd and maybe even an omen that she would then decide to take him back, there was nothing I could do about the name she chose. When the adoption finalized six months later, we changed his name back to the one we had originally chosen for him. I tell you this because, at that time, I did not know that biological mothers always choose their own name for the child, even if their intention is an adoptive family to adopt. The list above does not pertain to this type of adoption nearly as much as the adoption of an older child, ages two to eighteen.
Adoption is a time of joy, but it is also a time of loss for the child. To be adopted, the child must lose someone and/or something. Let us not add his name to this list unless you have considered the above. They are not reasons to NOT RENAME, but they are considerations to ponder and talk over.
Angie K Elliston and her husband have been married over 20 years. Together they have adopted from the foster care system, adoption disruption, internationally and privately. Their oldest child at adoption placement was 16 and their youngest was a newborn. They are committed to one another and the challenges of adopting children from an array of backgrounds and trauma.
