November is National Adoption Month! So, let’s talk about adoption and what all comes along with it.
What comes to your mind when you first think of adoption? Is it the parents who waited forever and then brought home the sweet baby from the hospital? Is it the image of Wendy’s food chain restaurants and Dave Thomas Foundation? Is it all the beautiful children that were adopted by Angelina Jolie? There are so many varied images that come to mind when you start to think about what you know and understand about adoption. And, each family and child are different with different experiences. Both positive and negative experiences will accompany each family, adopted or not.
Let’s start with the positive. Adoption is a beautiful thing, and a wonderful opportunity for people to grow in their character, faith, and of course family. Adoption is what most children waiting want to happen for them, and they hope to have loving parents. For me, I think that the most positive experiences happen for the parents, as opposed to the child. While the most obvious is the joy that comes from just simply having a child and being entrusted with the responsibility over raising another human being, there are many more positive aspects to being the parent of an adopted child. One of them is a thing I talk about with clients often- grace. Parents of adopted children are going to experience, learn and be able to give grace like never before. Regardless of what causes it, the parent is going to make many mistakes along the way, which they will ultimately feel grace as they work through it. Raising adopted children often looks very different from the culture that the parent grew up in, and it can be very hard to be different as a parent, but learning to do so helps the parent learn grace as well. Adoptive parents also will be given so many chances to extend that grace to their adopted child as they respond to the true needs of the child versus the behaviors that are on display. When you adopt a child, you not only get a member of your family but lots of grace to go along with it. And, there are many other positives as well.
Not to be a glass half-empty kind of person, but there are also negatives that come along with adoption. I believe that most of these negatives can be turned into something positive in the long run, but while they are being experienced it is hard to see that. First of all, adoption in itself is a trauma. Sometimes we don’t realize that because of all the positives, but it is a great loss for that child. Even babies adopted right after birth are experiencing the loss of what they knew in utero. Studies have been conducted to also show the negative impact on babies that were being carried by mothers who were living in toxic stress, which is often the case of mothers who consider placing their babies up for adoption. For older children adoptions, there can be multiple other traumas that the child experiences- neglect, abuse, lack of food, shelter, security, and many other negative experiences. Adopting children “from hard places”, as the late Dr. Purvis would refer to adopted kids, often requires the parents to be a little more patient, flexible, and committed to the family relationship!
While not all families of adoption will need therapeutic services, many will. What often accompanies trauma is delays in learning, sensory processing needs and social/emotional difficulties. What can parents do when they realize their child needs more than just love and consistency in the home? Find mental health, speech and occupational therapists that have worked with adopted families, understand the impact of trauma, and will involve the parents in the child’s treatment. Make sure your mental health therapist is trained in trauma-informed models that are evidence-based. Find therapists trained in models like Child-parent Psychotherapy, Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Parent-child Interaction Therapy, Trust-based Relational Intervention and other models that involve parent and child.
Happy National Adoption Month!
If you are interested in finding out more about statistics or other information, please visit the following websites: