Dear Dr. Debbie,
My husband and I have been the proud parents of a lively two-year-old since she was three-days-old. The adoption was privately arranged through friends of friends. We paid for prenatal care for the birth mother and for her to have a place to stay until the baby was born. People have been asking me when we’ll tell our daughter that she’s adopted. Isn’t it way too soon? Some of the facts about her birth mother aren’t exactly role model material and we know nothing about the biological father.
The Real Parents
Dear TRP,
Children come into their families by different means. Adoption is positive arrangement for everyone.
Vocabulary
It would be important to start using vocabulary now that will make more sense to your daughter as she gets older. You can act out pregnancy, child birth and adoption with stuffed animals or baby dolls as part of play time. One family added some lines about “now we’ll change the baby’s name” since that’s what happened for their baby. In a family with a foreign adoption, there were two trips overseas, first to meet the toddler at the orphanage (and start the paperwork), then a second more lengthy visit for “play dates” and more interviews and paperwork. Make your reenactments personal. Act out your hope to become parents. What did you think when you first met her? What did her grandparents say about her? Sprinkle your play with such words as “birth mother,” “hard decision,” “adopt,” and anything else that is part of the story of how she came into your family. But, please, just the rosy parts.
Hard Truths
Put as positive a spin as you can to what you know about the birth mother. Sometimes a woman finds herself in difficult circumstances when a baby is on the way. She’s young; there’s not enough family support; she’s not ready to earn enough money to buy the things a baby needs, let alone herself. She needs time to figure out how to take good care of herself before she is ready to help a child grow up. If a woman is not able to take good care of a baby, adoption is a wonderful choice she can make.
Find and use historic figures to shine a light on how difficult circumstances for one family led to better circumstances for a child with the adoptive family. Moses was adopted by the pharaoh’s daughter which was a far better life for the child than being enslaved. “Satchmo” Louis Armstrong launched a musical career with the support of his adoptive family after his early years were spent bouncing between the unstable care of his mother and grandmother. Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles was adopted out of foster care by her grandparents, when she was six-years-old.
Adoption is Forever
Any major disruption in the nurturing relationship has the potential to give a child doubts about the permanence of parents. So spread on the “I love you’s” and “We’re here for you’s” for extra reassurance. Steady, but loving, discipline is important, too, because you are committed to help her to become the best person she possibly can.
Debates about “spoiling” can confuse parents about the role of discipline versus nurturing. It’s helpful to take a brain science approach to the positive lasting effects of responding in a nurturing manner to a baby’s needs, and maintaining a warm and nurturing relationship throughout childhood. Likewise if your daughter is to be an only child, it will be important to guide her in being respectful other others’ needs and feelings.
As she gets older and more able to understand multiple perspectives, your daughter will be better able to grasp why she couldn’t stay with her birth parents. But along the way to this understanding (which some adopted children only fully appreciate when they reach parenthood themselves) your daughter will benefit from steady reassurance that her adoptive family couldn’t imagine a life without her.
Everyone Needs Friends
Very soon your daughter will have regular playmates with whom she can gain important social skills and learn about herself. Mostly, friendships happen out of convenience – at childcare or preschool, on the block, through frequent get togethers with parents’ friends and extended family members. Friends are important for every child.
You can look for groups for adoptive families, with children similar in age to yours, as a way to make adoption more “common” as a family structure. Adopted children make up just 2% of the children in the United States, so an intentional search will yield far better results than just hoping to stumble upon a playmate who also happens to be adopted. Families Adopting Children Everywhere (FACE) is based in Baltimore, Maryland. See if there’s a playgroup in your area, or use contacts through this nonprofit to start one.
I imagine that your joy in parenting is easily observed by your friends and family. They can see and support you in your good fortune to have this little one in your life.
Be sure to tell your daughter how much she means to the people who love her and are overjoyed to have her in their lives. This leaves open the doors to conversation for when she’s old enough to know more about her adoption.
Dr. Debbie
Deborah Wood, Ph.D. is a child development specialist www.drdebbiewood.com and founding director of Chesapeake Children’s Museum www.theccm.org.
The museum is open daily from 10 am to 4 pm during the school year. Online reservations are available https://www.theccm.org/event-details/purchase-tickets-in-advance or call: 410-990-1993. Each Thursday there is a guided nature walk at 10:30 am. Art and Story Times with Mrs. Spears and Puppy the Puppet are on Monday mornings at 10:30 am.
Read more of Dr. Wood’s Good Parenting columns by clicking here.
