Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption. Arleta James
on the trampoline in the back yard, riding bikes together, shooting hoops in the driveway, and so much more. Ample cuddles and kisses will be shared as well!
Yet the arrival of an adopted sibling can—unexpectedly—adversely alter the lives of these children already in the family as well as their parents’ lives. This is especially true if the adoptee enters the family with a history of trauma—abuse, neglect, abandonment, pre-natal drug and/or alcohol exposure, and so on—as have a large majority of waiting children, infants to adolescents, intercountry and domestic.
Trauma can have long-lasting deleterious effects that are inadequately represented by the phrase special needs, which is so commonly used to depict the children waiting for a place to call home. Complex trauma offers a more realistic portrait of the damaging imprints that traumatic experiences embed, in children, in their aftermath. Complex trauma better describes the potential for the newcomer, from orphanage or foster care, to arrive with issues that may not simply fade away with time and love.
Thus, Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption is put forth as a guide. It is designed to help siblings flourish in spite of challenges that may arrive with the newcomer. It is intended as a plan to facilitate the types of close, connected relationships that mothers and fathers want for themselves and all of their children.
Which families will benefit from this book?
Much of this book is about integrating traumatized children into families whose composition already includes typically developing children. However, families that adopt and then give birth, adopt for a second time, or blend step-children into the family will benefit from the advice as well.
I’ve also written this book to help professionals, extended family, family friends—anyone who desires to help brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, and adopted children pre- and post-placement—so they can find the information and tools to fulfill this aspiration.
The book concentrates on the growing-up years of children who are raised from infancy to the age of majority and who, whether by birth or adoption, are those children whose development is proceeding on track through predictable stages.
Socially, emotionally, cognitively, and physically, these children already in the family at the time of the adoption are thriving. They are able to learn, explore their environment, make and keep friends, express and accept affection, participate in extracurricular activities, and, overall, simply enjoy and happily absorb what life has to offer them. They are already residing in a family that adds a child who has complex trauma. Within the book, I refer to these children variously as “brothers and sisters,” “birth-” and/or “previously adopted children,” “resident children,” “typical children,” “age-appropriate children,” “healthy children,” “appropriately developing children,” or “children who are on track developmentally.” It is worth stressing that they may have been born to the family or they may have been adopted, as certainly there are many adoptees who enjoy appropriate development.
As there are many other excellent books written on understanding and meeting the needs of the adopted child, within this book I take as my primary focus the needs of appropriately developing children. However, the content also includes an introduction to the types of trauma that newcomers experience pre-arrival, and this book is full of parenting tips to better manage behavior, facilitate grief, talk with children about being adopted, and so on.
What does this book address?
Navigating relationships between sons and daughters who are growing well and those who are struggling is rewarding and yet presents various challenges. Frequently, parental time and family resources shift to caring for the “ailing” family member—the adoptee. The needs of the healthy brothers and sisters, as well as the parents, are often put on hold until the adoptee heals. Once in this pattern of focusing so much of the family’s resources on the child with a history of abuse, neglect, or abandonment, parents find it difficult to rectify the situation—to strike a balance and to meet the individual needs of all of their children.
Parents begin to question themselves, often asking:
“Did we make the right choice by adopting?”
“How is this affecting our typical children?”
“What can we do for our resident kids?”
“Will our adopted son or daughter heal?”
“Will our family ever be the same as it was before we adopted this child?”
The brothers and sisters might start saying things like:
“It’s annoying. When my new brother moved in, I didn’t think he was going to have any problems. When I figured out he did have problems, I just wished he had been born to my mom and dad. Then he would be okay. I don’t like it when we go somewhere and he starts acting bad and then Dad starts yelling.”
“Prior to the adoption, someone could have told me how attention-needing she was. Someone could have explained to me that having a little sister was not going to be all fun and games. The changes she brought to the family have affected me. I have had the loss of a peaceful household, the loss of parental time, and the loss of privacy. She, at age ten, knows much more about ‘bad words’ and what they mean on TV shows than I did at her age, or anyone at her age should.”
“I get really mad at my brother. I also feel like I can’t go anywhere without him right behind me breaking something of mine or making fun of me, copying me, or touching something of mine that he shouldn’t be touching.”
Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption responds to these questions and issues in an honest and forthright manner—and with a lot of optimism! The content, stories, and the writings of the resident children themselves feature within “Sibling Talk” boxes, sprinkled throughout the chapters, which highlight the “common challenges” that the adoption-built family faces as it works to weave the needs of a child with complex trauma into its fabric, accompanied by abundant solutions!
When helped, brothers and sisters do shift their perspective, as is exemplified by this young man who moved from “stuck in feelings” to “love and happiness” for his brother-by-adoption:
“Since we adopted my brother, seven years ago, my household has not had many peaceful moments. I’ve lost a lot of parental attention. This makes me jealous and angry. For a while, I had to share a room with my new brother and I lost a sense of privacy and space in the process. I was angry that I couldn’t have my own room. I also had to lock a lot more things up after my brother started stealing from me. I lost a lot of material possessions. I didn’t get as much as I used to and the things that I did have were often broken by my sibling. This angered me once again because some of the things had sentimental value to me. I definitely lost a peaceful household and fun activities.
“Eventually, my parents and I started to talk a lot about the situation. I learned to ignore the things that my sibling was doing. I do have to admit that sometimes I still do explode and my parents have to remind me that my sibling does things to push me away because he is scared of being loved.
“To tell the truth, in the beginning, I was mad, sad, jealous, and embarrassed. I learned (and am still learning) that feeling and being ‘stuck’ in those feelings doesn’t do any good for you. And now my feelings have now changed to love and happiness toward my brother. I don’t know what I would do if he wasn’t in my life.”
The more education this young man received, the better able he was to cope and to navigate positive relationships with his sibling. It is so unfortunate that this took seven years! Certainly, an intended goal of this book is to reduce the amount of time family members spend engaged in an unhealthy emotional climate.
How is the book structured?
The book is organized from pre- to post-placement. Chapter 1 describes the types of expectations that brothers and sisters develop when they learn their family is adopting; Chapter 2 offers an overview of complex trauma; Chapter 3 suggests ways for mothers and fathers to conduct pre-placement preparation with their sons and daughters. Chapter 4 is for moms and dads. There are parental