How to Start the Adoption Out Right from the Beginning 

Congratulations! You’re bringing your new youngster home from abroad to join your family ~~ how very exciting (and maybe a bit frightening?). There’s so much to do to get ready, so much to learn about your new Little One, and so many new emotions swirling around inside of you right now. Do take some time to breathe, and remember that becoming a parent, even if it isn’t for the first time, brings with it all kinds of new stressors. And yes, even GOOD stressors are stressors.

The wonderful people at the Lutheran Adoption Network have asked me to put together a few things that it will be most important for you to keep in mind as the blessed event happens. You might even want to clip this out and pin it up someplace where you can be reminded to read the list – and relax – when things get rough. So here are suggestions of ways to keep yourself on an even keel, so you can be the very best parent you very much want to be, even on those days or nights when you just don’t feel that you can do it:

• Parents need support. There it is, no denying it, and it’s what your child needs, too. So, no matter how independent you like to think you are, or pride yourself in being, now is the time to put your ego aside, and accept that you need some help here. However, the kind of help that you really need may be a little different from what you expect.
• Attunement to your child is critical. Remember that you, as a parent, are introducing one major change into your life – clearly one of the most important in your life, but basically one. Your new child, however, is changing everything about his or her life – new language, new sounds, sights and smells (foods especially!), new home, new parents, new routine. You need to be your new child’s whole life for a little while, so he or she can learn the safety of this new and totally different existence. This puts quite a bit of pressure on you.
• Which leads to a thought about expectations: Expect adjustment “bumps in the road.” One rule of thumb is that you should expect that your child will engage in what we call a “honeymoon” period, when all is loving and sweet, and then he will try out his “true self,” which may look and feel quite different. This is normal, to a point. If “testing” behaviors last too long, seek good professional help, which means going to someone who has expertise in international adoptions, attachment and bonding, or both.
• Allow your child to be her own emotional age. Regardless of your child’s intellectual capacity, emotional age is something quite different. It is dependent on life experiences, and your child has already had some traumas, such as losing her birth family, and perhaps living in an institution, which can make for some unfortunate delays in development. Do not expect your child to act, think, or be as mature emotionally as she is chronologically. Be ready to treat your new child as several years younger than her age, until she can get a firm footing in her new life and begin to catch up to her own age. This will help you be realistic in your expectations, and make your life much easier in the beginning, when you new family is getting to know and love each other.
• When friends and family offer to help, let them! But their help should be things such as bringing meals so you don’t have to cook, cleaning your home while you and your youngster take a nap together, running to the drug store, grocery, cleaners or bank for you. You need to be there for your attachment experience with your new child, and it needs to be a stress-free as possible.
• Take care of yourself. You need enough sleep, enough alone time, enough time with your spouse and other children, enough proper nutrition (including lots of water), and definitely enough exercise that you feel physically well. This may involve some serious organization and planning. But it’s critically important for you and your child.
• Engage one person to give you respite. Before your child even comes to you, designate one person who can be “on call” to help you when you need a break. Your child needs the consistency of you, so you are number one, primo, primary, and most important in this child’s life. However, involve a steady, reliable, and non-competing back-up from the beginning. By non-competing, it’s important for this person to understand that he or she is there to support you and your child, not to become another attachment figure in the child’s life – at least not yet. You and your child need to become firmly attached first.
• Keep thing simple. It is NOT important for you child to have “play dates,” see Disneyworld, start piano lessons or enjoy gourmet cuisine during the first several months of coming to a new life and a new – your – family. What IS important is that you can be as relaxed as possible so you can tune into your child’s needs, wants, fears, and growth. Spend many months with a bare-minimum schedule, so you and your child can truly get to know, and love, each other in a trusting, relaxed atmosphere.
• When you need to separate from your child, make sure reunions are special. Whether it’s for a day of meetings, doctor’s appointment, or much needed overnight with your spouse, you being away from your child is frightening to him. The best way to help reunite is to come home ready to apologize for frightening your child (even if he doesn’t show that he was scared), and then spend some time in intimate, relaxed and fun play, ready to ride-out any anger that he may display toward you. It’s difficult for many children who have been in institutions to understand that now they are allowed to be angry at caregivers and not fear punishment for showing their emotions. Even more important, it’s difficult for many children to believe they really should and can expect that their new parents are willing to truly listen to their feelings.
• In fact, your new child may not understand “parent” yet so don’t be upset if it takes a while….she may be used to rotating “staff” and not have any idea of what a true, emotionally intimate, trusting relationship feels, looks, or acts like. Give yourself and your child time.
• Above all, give yourself a break. Parenting is hard work, even in the most ideal of circumstances. Bringing home a child who may be cautious about a new life in new circumstances with new parents, maybe for the first time, can require lots of patience and support. Allow yourself to receive the support, and make sure you take care of yourself physically. Deep breaths help. Support groups sometimes help (make sure their informational and supportive, not “gripe” sessions that can bring you down, rather than life your mood). Loving hugs from understanding friends and family help.

Most of all, I wish you the luxury of keeping your expectations reasonable, your
schedule slow and easy, your support system strong, and your acceptance of your own limitations very realistic. Remember your main goal: you and your new child want to fall in love with each other. Make it a love that lasts a lifetime by giving yourself what you need to get started in just the right way. Attachment from the beginning: it’s what makes the ultimate difference.

Best wishes for days, weeks and years of love with your new child. Thank you, LAN, for letting me share this special time with your new parents in some small, and hopefully meaningful way.

Lark Eshleman, Ph.D.
Author, Becoming a Family: Promoting Healthy Attachments
with Your Adopted Child
www.instituteforchildren.org 

Lutheran Adoption Website www.lanadopt.org