Post Adoption
Post Adoption
Post adoption is that time following the legal adoption of your child on into the future. One of the most crucial portions of this time begins when your child starts Kindergarten and is "out in the world", relating to many different people. This is the time your child discovers that not all families live the same way; and what is typical in his/her home may not be typical in his new friend's home. In our society today children are exposed to new people and ideas early and often! These experiences may prompt your child to have questions about many issues. It may well be the time when questions come about identity---who am I, where did I come from, why do I look different from my parents and/or from my siblings? It is a time when children begin to have questions and begin to incorporate new concepts and ideas.
Hopefully you have already begun to talk to your child about being adopted; you have read adoption stories; you may even have his/her own adoption story to share often.If your adoption was an open one you may have pictures of the birth parents and gifts from them to your child. You have already told your child her birth mother is the mother in whose tummy s/he grew before s/he came to grow in your heart. If other children in your child's school are asking "what does adopted mean" to your child, he/she may come to you for more explanation.
It is a time when you need to decide if you tell the school personnel about the adoption and how much information you give them. As your child progresses through grade school to middle school and then to high school, his/her awareness of the meaning of adoption becomes more sophisticated. If you as parents have kept an open atmosphere and invited your child to ask questions and had discussions about the questions, it will be safe for your child to continue to talk with you, no matter how difficult the questions are. For example, "why did my birth parents make an adoption plan? Didn't they want me?" Or "how do I know you really love me?" Or "you are my parents--do I have to meet my birth parents again?"
Your child will be depending on you to help him/her understand and grieve the loss of that other family. Your child will be counting on you to not let his/her questions make you believe your child doesn't love you or wants to live with the birth family(even if he/she threatens it in a time of disagreement!). It is not a time to doubt your child's love for you.Your child's questions are related to questions about identity and not about his/her attachment to you. Where did I come from means what do people in my birth family look like? Why do I like music and no one in my adoptive family is interested? Why is my sense of humor so different from my adopted parents? Why am I interested or not interested in sports, books, camping, etc and my adoptive family is not? Where do I get my curly hair, my nose, my freckles? Why am I so tall, so short? The questions are important and if you can help your child find the answers or, at least talk about why you do not have the answers, you will be helping your child have a more complete picture of his/her identity.
One of the most important factors for parents is to be open to their child's questions and answer them to the best of your ability. Help your child define what he/she is asking about and remember the answer needs to be appropriate to the child's ability to understand it. This is an exciting journey you will have with your child, from the time of placement until far into the future. Remember to savor each step and enjoy helping your child grow physically and emotionally.
The staff at Lutheran Family and Children’s Services is able to help discuss many of the issues you or your child have at various times in the child’s life. LFCS provides help by having adoption workers, birth parent workers and counselors available to help adoptive parents talk regarding whatever issues about which they have concerns. We have other resources to offer if you need additional questions in your area of concern. Adoptive families often believe they must be perfect parents or the agency staff will think less of them. Adoptive parents are like biological parents in that all parents, no matter how you came to be parents, have questions and concerns during the time you are raising children. We can help adoptive parents realize they are the parents who care for their children 24/7 and recognize the child will always regard them as their parents. Questions and thoughts about birth parents are normal when a child is forming an identity, even though those questions may make you feel like your child is moving away from you. It will be much healthier and more positive results will come about if you remain open to sharing information about your child’s birth family and willing to discuss your child’s questions.