Helping adoptive families adjust to stages of a child's life

Adoptive parents may need help at different stages of their parenting life and family life:

• Getting help before they start adopting
• Understanding their adoptive child’s needs and how a chronological age is different than the child’s emotional age
• Getting help as their adopted child or children enters the teen years
• Helping relatives understand the needs of a traumatized child
  

I believe the goal for families who adopt traumatized kids is maintaining a relationship and developing a realistic view of success. I decided to write out ways we needed help through our adoption journey that started in 1989.

My wife and I have adopted our four children out of the foster care system in Los Angeles County; we were guardians to two teen-age boys (one for six years and the other for 1 ½ years); and we have one granddaughter (I am a very young grandfather – I still find myself making that disclaimer).

We tutored several children when we first got married and took them to church. My wife is a nurse practitioner and we decided to become foster parents. Our attitude was if the child needed a permanent home then we would adopt if they were not going to go home to their birth families. In our case, it wasn’t even a remote possibility that any of our children could go home to their birth families.

Some of those who helped us:

A family psychologist

A social worker who listened carefully and treated us with respect

Writings of Richard Delaney, PhD

Adoptive help for pre-school and kindergarten years

Extreme hyperactivity marked the early years in our household. One of the kids could not focus on a task for more than 30 seconds.

Well-meaning friends who were either single or newly married without kids told us we should enforce more disciplinary measures – or teach our one son to be more “tough” since he fell apart fairly easily when spoken to with a stern voice. Bad advice. Their input didn’t take in to account the effects of early childhood trauma (too graphic and personal to discuss in detail here).

We were involved in a support group and learned that though a child may be five or six years old, emotionally the child may only be an infant. We learned to help a couple of our children relive their infancy even though they were already in elementary school. Rocking them and playing baby became normal for a period of time.

Adoptive help for pre-teen years

Counseling and psychological help became one of our main needs. We had two to three appointments per week for years. A psychologist in our church became our sounding board to help us manage the behaviors of our children. Providing wise counseling for children who have faced traumatic first years of life is one of the best ways a church can help adoptive parents who face a crisis or who welcome traumatized children in to their families.

Typical disciplinary measures espoused by Christian parenting experts such as James Dobson are often useful, but they’re not of much value to parents who have children with lives marked by traumatic abuse who did not learn to trust at an early age.

One of our strategies was using a form of holding therapy when tantrums struck in the home – which happened frequently – and lasted for two to three hours at a time. We did it with the input of our family psychologist, got ideas from our support group, and from books related on the topic.

Adoptive help for teen years

The teen years were marked by outwardly defiant behaviors, running away regularly, and strong cases of “18-year-old-itis.”

We had to adjust our views that a relationship was more important than school work and grades. Now, we did have one who went by his own choice to a Christian high school and ended up with scholarships to a local university.

We made use of an out-of-home placement for one child. In other words, we escorted the child to a boarding school for a year she could not leave.

We did find by this time that the support group we were involved in did not meet our needs as parents of teens who were constantly in trouble.

My wife did a lot of journaling at the time. Our oldest daughter did have a mentor through church even though at the time it seemed as though there was no impact.

This is a quick overview of some of the help we received as adoptive parents. Thinking back through our 21-year history has led me to start a website Adoptive Parent Partners that can glean from different parenting approaches. Parents who have troubled children need to learn to adapt their methods and techniques.

What’s the result today? We have positive relationships with our kids – even the ones with whom we’ve had the most trauma and difficulties. As they enter their early and mid-20s, we’re beginning to see them show they want to handle money, finish high school in some cases, and parent responsibly. They may never make much money or live in a nice house. But they respect others and they care about our family. That to us, is success and we’re glad for the help we had over the years as adoptive parents.