Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption. Arleta James
with such organizations pre-adoption. As you receive information about a potential adoptee, don’t shy away from what I call “alphabet soup”—acronyms that describe mental health diagnoses, medical conditions, special education services, and so on—ADHD, PTSD, IEP, ARND, RAD, and more. Use Google to guide you to the meaning of these acronyms and to the community resources you’ll need post-placement.
• Share any materials provided by your adoption agency with your birth and/or previously adopted children. Ask if your adolescent can attend pre-adoptive education classes. Arrange for your social worker to meet with your age-appropriate children. He or she can share information and provide examples to you and your sons and daughters. Brainstorm a list of topics and resources with your social worker. While you wait for your new arrival, work your way through the list.
Conferences are a great way to acquire a lot of information! They are also a way to meet veteran adoptive parents and the top professionals in the field of adoption. If you’re based in the US, consider planning a family vacation around the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) conference or the Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children (ATTACh) conference—you’ll be glad you did! If you live outside the US, most other countries will have equivalent organizations and events, so check out what is happening in your locality. You can use these opportunities to enjoy a fabulous city and to learn more than you can believe about adoption, attachment, trauma, speech development, children’s mental health, parenting tools, special education services, Sensory Integration Dysfunction, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and more! Conference workshops are often recorded and available for purchase. Pop them in the car CD player. The family that rides together learns about adoption together!
• Dovetailing with the above, your local hospital, community mental health center, child welfare agency, and/or public school offer continuing education seminars. Call today and ask for their current schedule. Make sure you add your family to their mailing list. Keep in mind that older kids make great companions at workshops! Events close to home help identify professionals and agencies that may offer needed services post-adoption.
• Plan a field trip to a neighborhood that offers a culture different to that of your family’s. Let brothers, sisters, and yourselves experience new foods, a language unlike your own, the feeling of being among people that look different, and so on! We live in a society that remains plagued by prejudices, discrimination, and the stereotyping of various groups of people based on their race, religion, sexual preference, citizenship, and socioeconomic status. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that adopting transculturally adds another complex layer to the experience of adoption. Preparation for the arrival of a family member that forever alters the cultural composition of the family begins prior to the adoption.
• Kids will need coping skills post-adoption. Before the new brother or sister arrives is a wonderful time to bolster ways of solving problems and generating solutions. Workbooks and websites abound with ideas to enhance such abilities. Sons and daughters also benefit from strengthened capacities in the areas of stress management, expressing feelings, and communication.
• Offer to babysit for friends who have children similar in age to the child you plan to adopt. Or volunteer to help out in the church nursery. Typically developing children who have not had the experience of sharing their parents with a young child are often blind-sided by the parental time consumed by a little one. Parents can offer some preparation for the changes about to occur because of the addition of a baby or toddler. As you care for this youngster, point out the tasks it involves. “Oh my, it’s time to the change the baby again” or “The baby needs another bottle.” Of course, caring for a young child who has resided in a healthy family environment will be different to caring for the institutionalized infant. Yet your resident children will at least gain an understanding that their new brother or sister will require sharing Mom and Dad’s time—perhaps much time!
• Search your Yellow Pages or ask your social worker for a list of agencies/organizations that specialize in adoption-trauma competent services, adoption medical care, speech therapy, occupational therapy for Sensory Integration Disorder, and so on. Schedule a visit for the whole family. Understanding what the service offers, meeting your future post-adoption guides, learning why a brother or sister may need different therapies or medical interventions, the travel time involved, co-pays or out-of-pocket expenses, and so on all lend to a more successful post-adoption experience.
Remember to organize information as you gather it. Post-adoption you’ll have a wealth of material at your fingertips. When a problem arises, an article, book, website, blog, support group, or professional can be quickly located. Right away you’ll have guidance to keep your family on course!
“Family Talk” about potential behaviors the new arrival may present
“Your new brother, Eric, may act very different from you. Remember, he didn’t have a mom and dad who were there to teach him all the right things.
“We learned from his social worker that he has temper tantrums. Sometimes when he is mad, he uses bad words. Sometimes he throws things.
“He wets the bed—do you know what that means? Sometimes, he hides the wet clothes in the closet. This may make his room smell and even the hallway. We will be checking his room and helping him remove any wet clothes or sheets. This will help with the odor.
“In the other homes he lived in, he blamed other children for the mistakes he made. We are expecting this to happen here too. We know you and how you act. We will be able to decide who is telling the truth.
“We also want you to know that all the rules are staying the same. We expect that you will follow the rules even when he doesn’t. We know that doesn’t seem fair. We will certainly be working to change the way he acts. In the meantime, you still need to act correctly.
“What do you think about these things? Keep asking us questions as you think of them. We’ll be talking more about this before he moves in and after he moves in.”
Sharing information: Anticipate questions
Shannon and Ed adopted Taylor as an infant. The family felt it time to pursue a second adoption when Taylor was about a year away from entering kindergarten. They believed that their second child would arrive just as Taylor started school. Shannon would have days free to care for the baby. Guatemala was their sending country.
Baby Amelia arrived pretty much on schedule. During the year wait, Taylor kept asking, “Why can’t we just go get her?” “Why is this taking so long?” “Who is taking care of her?” “What if I never get a sister?”
Additionally, thinking about the pending adoption caused Taylor to begin to ponder his own adoption. He asked, “Why don’t some moms keep their babies?” “Where is my birth mom?” “Why didn’t she keep me?” “What would happen to me if something happened to you two?” “Where would I live?”
Shannon and Ed did their best to console Taylor regarding his questions and confusion about the arrival of the new baby. They had not expected so many adoption-related questions at age five!
Whether you are parenting a birth child or an adopted child, anticipate questions! Entering the adoption process sets off a host of thoughts! Expect basic questions such as “Where is he going to sleep?” “Are we getting a boy or a girl?” “Will she speak English?” Count on tougher questions like Taylor’s above. The array of queries is likely to be endless!
“Family Talk” about the sibling-to-be, school, and learning
“Dad and I want to talk to you about your new sister. She may not be able to learn as well as you. She will have to learn a new language when she moves here and she may have learning disabilities. These are problems that make it hard for her to understand what the teacher is saying.
“She may get very frustrated. Sometimes we will have to put her homework away and work on it another day, even though our rule for you will be