The unique approach of adoption parenting

We have no news to report on a court date, but we are hopeful that it’s coming soon. Since it is actually starting to feel like Evelyn may actually come home I want to start to describe what establishing a family through adoption looks like from the perspective on parenting and attachment. This may be one of the more boring posts to read, but is probably one of the most helpful for our friends and supportive community to know and be prepared for.

Our goal when Evelyn joins our family physically will be to establish attachment. Attachment is the term used for the element of trust that provides a secure base for a child to explore the world. An infant develops trust and attachment to their caregivers by expressing a need, usually crying, and then a caregiver meets that need. Over and over and over as their needs are met and they learn to trust they build resiliency, sensitivity to their own needs and others’ needs. 

Evelyn will come to us having had a variety of caregivers and very little one-to-one interaction. We will teach her by our care and actions what it means to have parents and how parents are different than caregivers. Although Evelyn may be nearing 1 ½ or 2 years old when she joins our family, we will turn back the clock and walk through infant-like caregiving to build trust and attachment with us as her parents.

Some of our parenting might look like this:

• We will keep Evelyn’s world small for some time. (Often called cocooning.) Some of you may be eager to meet her, but remember that once she comes home she will have the memory that the last time strangers showed up (us), she left every familiar sound, face, taste, and smell she knew. Kids from hard places like institutional care don’t necessarily know it’s a hard place. They only know that it’s familiar and comforting in that regard. We may be offering better (a family), but initially it will just be different and therefore not comforting. David and I sometimes remember when Kira first came home and there were days where we said “today is a nothing-new day.” No new food or new toy or new outing, because when Kira was presented with something new in those first days she would cover her face and collapse to the floor. It was just too much.
• We will keep to a very regular, predictable schedule, especially for food. Variety and change may build resiliency in an attached child, but in an unattached those things create fear responses and dysregulated behavior. Children from hard places usually have high levels of the stress hormone cortisol and research shows that being fed every two hours significantly reduces this stress hormone.
• Only David and I will feed, change, or console Evelyn. The offering of these things over and over and over again by her parents will help her to learn that we are consistent, trustworthy, will take care of her needs, and care when she is sad or hurt. Normally a two-year-old is exploring their independence, while we will be reigning our two-year-old back to rely on us in order to build trust. For as long as she lets us we may spoon feed her. As we hand-feed her Cheerios we may try little tricks like raising the snack to our eyes so that our eyes may start to meet. Establishing eye contact is a big part of attachment and trust. A child from an institutional setting may already be learning even at this age that adults are unreliable (there’s just too many kids for caregivers to take care of every need), so when she’s hurt and likely doesn’t cry or respond to the pain we may be dramatic. To not cry when hurt in these circumstances isn’t a display of toughness - it’s a display of a belief that nobody helps when I cry anyway, or a display of decreased pain sensitivity due to the increased cortisol levels. We will apply band-aids liberally and offer all the hugs and kisses she’ll accept as we teach her it’s ok to be hurt and express hurt and that we care when she is hurt. 

How can you help?

• Understand when we can’t make it to something. The more trust we can establish on the front end the more we’ll be able to be flexible in the future. We may be strict with our time and interactions for a while, but it won’t last forever, and doing what Evelyn needs on the front end will help us avoid having to pull back again in the future. If you’ve seen Kira’s flexibility and security that compares with just about any other five-year-old, we really believe this is because we pressed into these practices at the beginning.
• If you see Evelyn get hurt or she comes to you for some need to be met, direct her to us. Kids from hard places or traumatic early life experiences (separation from a birth mother being one of them), may display indiscriminate friendliness. It may seem like just a friendly, outgoing child, but until the child has a secure attachment this can be a dangerous practice to look to anyone at all for their needs to be met.
• If you have anything you’d like to give to Evelyn, pass it to me or David first. The giving of gifts and treats is a means of establishing attachment, which we want her to continue to build with us first. 

Every one of these points has a whole chapter or seminar behind it, so this is purely the Spark Notes to to clue you in to the idea that Evelyn’s needs will be different than a typically-raised two-year-old and that our parenting will reflect those unique needs. 

A lot of these principles or parenting come from the research and practice of Karyn Purvis and TBRI. This video  and the associated videos help describe what a child from a hard place has experienced and how these practices help a child to heal. If you are curious at all, these videos are so informative and helpful!