Advice About Adopting Older Children

Another adoptive family recommended this blog page to me: Adopting Older Children – What I Wish I Had Known.

I found it to be a terrific read, chock full of vivid descriptions and pertinent advice. Hopefully we can benefit from this mother’s 20/20 hindsight. I would encourage any of our immediate family and any adoptive family adopting school age children to take the 5 to 10 minutes to read the entire page.

It is written by a mother who adopted a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy from Ethiopia. I'm not going to cut & paste the entire thing here, but I am going to share a few of the topics that struck a chord with me.

Their initial behavior is not a reflection of your parenting. This one may seem obvious to others because of course if you have only met the child the day before for the first time, their behavior has nothing to do with you or your parenting skills. But, at the time, I felt like I must be the worst parent in the world. When we would go out in public and they would tantrum, I would feel like people were judging me. When we were alone in the hotel room and they were having tantrums, I was judging me! In retrospect, they were two scared little kids who did not speak the same language as me and were going through a traumatic time. I was a complete stranger and their behavior or sadness had nothing to do with my parenting skills or lack thereof. I wish I had been able to relax and not take it so personally.

Let it go! I had this foolish notion that while we were in Ethiopia, we should have rules for them and consequences so that they could begin to adjust to our house rules (our family isn’t overly strict, but we do have some basic rules). I was convinced that if we were pushovers in Ethiopia, they would walk all over us once we got home. When I think about that now, about how I gave them time-outs (they were probably completely bewildered because they couldn’t even understand most of what I was saying), my heart just breaks for them. I wish I could go back and just hold them more, play with them more, and let everything else go. Who would it have killed if Sedaya had worn Elijah’s flip flops instead of her shoes every day or if they had not brushed their teeth for those two weeks (they ended up having over $4,000 of dental work that needed to be done, so I’m sure that an extra 2 weeks of not brushing after years of not brushing wouldn’t have made a difference!)? My advice to others would be just to relax and get used to each other slowly during the trip. The rules can be introduced once you are home. Then they will just think it’s a Canadian or American rule!

You cannot do it alone. The first weeks home are much harder than anyone can prepare you for. Even if your child is in a honeymoon phase or just an easy child, it is a huge transition for the whole family. You will have jetlag and even possibly be ill. If you have other children at home, they will need extra time and attention when you get back, not only to reassure them that they have not been replaced, but they will have missed you while you were away. Many mothers experience postadoption depression from mild to severe. The language barrier alone is exhausting. The extra laundry, extra cooking, extra thinking, extra emotion, extra stress, and the extra appointments as you sort through parasites, fungus, and perhaps even therapy for your child create a life much busier than the one you had before. ASK FOR HELP! Better yet, set it up before you leave, while you are still able to think straight enough, while you have time to make the phone calls. Arrange for people to bring meals, do laundry, clean your house, or take your other kids out for outings.

Attachment and bonding are possible. With our previous adoptions, we had gotten our kids as newborns or babies, so I did not expect that I would be able to attach as much to older children. I knew that over time, they would feel like my kids, but I thought that it would take a long time. Secretly, I worried that maybe I would never be able to love them with the fierceness and passion that I love my other kids. I wish I had known then what I know now…that sometimes just thinking about or talking about Elijah or Sedaya can bring me to tears, that the first time I went away without them, I missed them with a hollowness that is difficult to describe, that they are a part of me. I wish I had known that even with kids who were 7 and 4 the first time I held their hands in mine, I would be forever changed by their love.