The Adoption Writers Voice

Finding Aster: International Adoption - Ethiopia

Finding Aster: How To Prepare for Parenting your Internationally-Adopted Child

By: Dina McQueen

Though I never seriously thought about having a baby as a single woman, when I married my husband in 2004, we sometimes fantasized about becoming parents together. Finances, overpopulation, and my ill health, however, contributed to our decision not to procreate. When I had a hysterectomy in 2007, and finally became healthy (I had endometriosis for nearly two decades) we realized that we did indeed want to parent a child. We pursued international adoption first with Haiti, and later, after learning that it would take nearly two years to complete the process, decided on Ethiopia.
 
After the surgical procedure that left me unable to bear children, my husband and I then decided to become parents. I found this incredibly ironic: only after it was impossible for me to give birth did I really pursue becoming a mother. I took the idea further in my mind and wanted to explore more deeply why only after I couldn’t give birth did I then want to have a child. The book developed as a result of the thoughts that wouldn’t leave me alone. I truly wanted to share with women the freedom I experienced in knowing that I was going to become a mommy without giving birth. I found this idea incredibly liberating.
 
Because the writing of the book was a three-and-a-half year process, I learned more than I ever could have imagined. The last third of the book consists of three appendices that present the research I conducted, along with some of my own opinions. Overpopulation and how it relates to adoption, the infertility business and how it affects the women and couples that go through it, and the history of foster care and adoption in the United States are some of the topics I discuss.

There are things I learned along the way that I wish I had known before going through the process, the main one being do your research. In my book, I offer an extensive Resource section providing websites and organizations I wish I had known about prior to traveling to Ethiopia. I also would highly recommend for first time parents to read parenting books, and even enroll in a parenting class. Most social workers do not council prospective adoptive parents who have never before parented in a way that I feel could be most useful. Studying developmental psychology is very important.

It would have been reassuring for somebody in the know to have sat down with me for a heart-to-heart and shared this truth: Becoming a parent of any child, but perhaps especially an adopted child, will force you to grow as a human being in more ways than you think you might need. Please step off your high horse and put your feet on the ground. What you are embarking on is a very challenging endeavor, wrought with joys, certainly, but filled also with dilemmas, puzzling and maddening situations, and feelings of helplessness. Realize now that you will, at times, be on your knees praying for guidance. Do not allow yourself elaborate fantasies about motherhood. Whatever images you hold, add space for experiences you cannot fathom. They will arise, and you must be willing to meet the challenges with creativity, patience, humility, and gratitude.

Becoming the kind of parent that I aspire to be requires daily attention. I believe that having some kind of spiritual practice is important to keep one’s heart open, and mind calm. Raising any child is tough, but raising a child who has experienced trauma in the first months or years of life makes it vital that you realize how taxing the job is going to be. Be prepared: Have your “village” on call. Ask for and receive the help you need, even it this means finding a good therapist who is familiar with adoption-related issues.

Perhaps most important along these lines: If you do not feel capable of staying present with the challenges that accompany the experience of adoptive parenthood, trust yourself. Allow yourself the possibility that parenthood may not be right for you, and stop the process. Honor your limitations, so that you can honor the child that needs available, healthy parents.

If you make the decision to go for it, which my husband and I did and cannot now imagine life without Aster, I strongly urge that you find your adoption agency only through recommendations. Seek out adoptive parents who were pleased with whom they chose. Because full transparency is not a sure thing in international adoption, it is imperative that you find the most honest and trustworthy adoption agency possible.
 
I have learned so much so far, and our daughter has yet to turn four. One of the most astonishing discoveries I have made since bringing Aster home from Ethiopia is how special it is to raise a child that did not come from my womb. I deeply appreciate being able to watch my daughter develop traits that don’t resemble anybody I know. I wish that all women knew that becoming a mother without giving birth is not only a viable choice but also one that makes sense for the planet.

 Finding Aster: Our Ethiopian Adoption Story
Author: Dina McQueen

Available at Tapestry Books

About the author: In 1998 Dina received her Master’s Degree in Biography/Autobiography from Vermont’s Goddard College. Prior to Dina’s graduate study research, she came upon her grandfather Robert J. Wolff ’s manuscript, The Man From Highbelow. Fascinated with his story of awakening as an artist, and the way that through discovering his life she better understood and accepted who she was, Dina decided to dedicate her life to facilitating the writing of memoir. Since then, she has helped dozens of writers discover the story they want to tell, and helped them write and publish their memoirs. Dina is the 2006 New Mexico Discovery Award winner in the category of Fiction. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband, Brian, and daughter, Aster. Authors site: HERE

Check out Book review on Adoption Today

 

Help I've Been Adopted

Author: Speak

By Brenda McCreight

I have been in the adoption world a long time. I entered this life as the young adoptive mom of a 14 month old boy with undetermined “special needs”. Those special needs were later diagnosed as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, but at the time, so little was known about it that we couldn’t even get a diagnosis, let alone find any resources. Fortunately, as a family therapist, I was able to access the scientific research. I read what little I could find, and then I began putting on workshops for other parents and professionals so that they could learn to recognize the symptoms and create ways to help their children who carried the diagnosis that would soon become so common in the adoption field. Over the next 30 years, I adopted more children (12 so far) and I kept on top of the newest research on neuroscience so that I could help my own family as well as provide effective counseling, parent coaching, and training to others.

Still, there is always more to learn about what children need from us and about two years ago I realized that a lot of the newly placed children I was seeing in my private practice were experiencing a kind of “culture shock” that was leaving them overwhelmed by all the changes that a new family demands. Often, the new adoptive parents were equally overwhelmed and were struggling to find out what was holding them all back from transforming into the new family they were trying to become. I also realized that even children who had been in their adoptive families for a long time sometimes harbored a deeply buried confusion about how to develop a sense of belonging and that we, the parents and the professionals, weren’t providing the answers or the direction that the children needed. Hence, my new book “Help – I’ve Been Adopted”.

This book is written for all older child adoptees, for their parents, and for the professionals who work with them. The purpose of the book is to address the issues that aren’t given the time or attention that many young adoptees need in order to fit the past into its rightful place and to grasp onto the present. Understanding the past and living in the present is a life long struggle for many adoptees who experience pre-natal exposure to drugs and alcohol and who survive early neglect and abuse - this book gives them a place to start their own journey to emotional health.

“Help – I’ve Been Adopted” covers such issues as:  

• helping the child or teen understand attachment and what it means in their lives;
  
• answering questions about why kids get adopted;
  
• how to form a family identity;
  
• and how the hopes and dreams that everyone, including the child and the parents, has about the adoption don’t always match the reality.
  

Each chapter contains stories about how other children or youth overcame these issues and suggests ways the child and parent can communicate about these concerns.

The book is easy to read, and can be used by the family, by therapists, and by social workers to help the beginning stages of an adoptive placement go more smoothly, or, it can be used years later to help the family talk with each other about adoption issues that they wish they had discussed early on. 

Brenda McCreight, Ph.D., is a therapist, author, and consultant specializing in services for adoptive and foster families dealing with challenges such as FASD, ADHD, conduct disorder, attachment disorder, developmental delays, and cognitive impairment. Brenda is the author of “Recognizing and Managing Children with Fetal Alcohol/Syndrome” published by the Child Welfare League of America, and of “Parenting Your Older Adopted Child” published by New Harbinger Publications and “Eden’s Secret Journal: The Story of an Older Child Adoption” published by Adoption Press. Brenda sees clients at her office in Nanaimo, British Columbia and she provides distance parent coaching by phone and by email. Most importantly, she is the mother of fourteen children (12 by adoption) and seven grandchildren.

PR release

Help I've Been Adopted is being published by Tapestry Books, and will be sold through Tapestry Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, major wholesalers  and retail bookstores. TBR 03/2010

If you have questions or opinions about this book, or any of my other books, or if you want to talk about having me do a presentation or workshop in your area, you can contact me through my web site http://www.theadoptioncounselor.com or my blog http://www.theadoptioncounselor.com/Blog.

A Foster-Adoption Story

 
A Rewarding Collaboration  -  By Christine Mitchell

A Foster-Adoption Story: Angela and Michael’s Journey: A Therapeutic Workbook

By Regina M. Kupecky, LSW and Christine Mitchell

Books are a great way to open a dialogue with children about adoption, but there are very few books that reflect older child and foster care adoption. It was this gap in children’s adoption literature that inspired me to write my first two books, Welcome Home, Forever Child and Family Day. Each project represented the type of books I wish I could have found for my daughter (adopted her at age four from foster care). My latest book, co-written with Regina M. Kupecky, is no different.

The inspiration for A Foster-Adoption Story: Angela and Michael’s Journey came from conversations I had with my daughter, in which I would often say “You know, a lot of children who have been through _________ (fill in the blank) feel scared (or worried/sad/ angry). Is that how you are feeling?” I realized that it was reassuring to her to know that other kids had experienced the same things she had. So the idea for the book was to help normalize foster care adoption, as well as creating a tool to help children talk about difficult feelings.

I approached Regina M. Kupecky, LSW about collaborating on the book, because I admire her tremendously, and am a big fan of her books Adopting the Hurt Child and Parenting the Hurt Child, co-authored with Gregory C. Keck, PhD. As a nationally recognized expert in older child adoption (with thirty years of experience working with traumatized children), her viewpoint as a therapist complemented my perspective as an adoptive parent. Although the project took more than two years to complete, as Regina and I would get side-tracked with other things, we are thrilled with the end result of our collaboration.

The book follows a brother and sister who navigate the world of foster care, from removal from their birth family through their eventual adoption. Originally written as a standard story book, it eventually evolved into a workbook. This format helps children look at their own lives and how their feelings affect their behavior, as they observe Angela and Michael struggle with difficult circumstances and emotions.

A Foster Adoption Story touches on themes such as loyalty issues, visitation, loss of foster parents, separation of siblings, birth parents, reasons for being in care and connections to people from children’s past. Their adoptive family promotes and permits connections, helping the children to heal. Each page has questions (and blank lines) to help children express their feelings concerning these issues, allowing the children to make the book their own. The questions will help the adult working with the child discuss the child’s history and feelings. The illustrations are in coloring book format so that the children can color as they like.

Whether used as a part of a life book, in therapy, with parents, or in support groups, this book provides a way to discuss sensitive subjects as we go along with Angela and Michael on their journey to permanence. It is a journey filled with many people and many feelings.

More is information available at www.christine-mitchell.com 

email: Christine@christine-mitchell.com

 

Attachment and Adoption - Heather T. Forbes, LCSW, B. Bryan Post, PhD, LCSW

Understanding the Child with Special Needs

Before understanding the extent of these specific issues, it is important to acknowledge that adoptive parenting of a child with special needs is different from parenting a child without special needs. Although adoptive parents may face many of the same childrearing issues as biological parents, adoptive parents of children with special needs face numerous issues related directly to traumatic experiences of the child. Adoptive parents often find that this significantly alters the balance of the family system, resulting in overt stress and disequilibrium, sometimes to the extent that the child is returned to foster care or to the adoption agency.

 

The demands and stress that result from the adoption of children with special needs result in approximately one-fifth to one-fourth of the adoptions being reported as unsatisfactory and contributes to the approximately ten percent or more of these adoptions that disrupt. Conversely, research shows that less than 1 percent of infant adoptions disrupt, demonstrating that the issues facing these infant adoptive parents are significantly less.

 

John Bowlby’s writings on attachment suggest that early separations, discontinuity of loving care, and unresponsive or abusive care have a lasting impact on a child’s attachment framework. From this perspective, many adopted children have less than optimal beginnings. As parents transition into parenting these children, they are often faced head-on with the repercussions of these beginnings. Internal states of fear resulting from the early care are most commonly communicated through the child’s negative and rejecting behaviors.

 

These behaviors are a by-product of the break in the attachment relationship, which has left the affected child without the ability to calm them and in a state of constant stress, unable to control feelings of anger and frustration. As a result, many adopted children with trauma histories are often characterized as aggressive, defiant, controlling, and lacking empathy.

 

Stress from the Disconnect

These problematic behaviors between the child and the parent can then quickly lead to problematic relationships and a cascade of the issues identified earlier, such as financial stress, marital stress, extended family stress, and physical symptoms. As the child works to attain safety through avoidance of the very relationship that the parents are working to develop, tension, fear, and discontent can quickly create stress in all aspects of the parents’ lives.

 

The child’s internal blueprint for relationship says that love equals pain, rejection, and abandonment. When parenting a child with such a definition of love, adoptive parents soon find that conventional parenting techniques are profoundly ineffective. Too often, parents find themselves in a state of helplessness and at a complete loss as to how to handle the behaviors. These negative attachment behaviors can then leave the parents feeling emotionally depleted and depressed. Homes become chaotic. Friends disappear. Parents become isolated. Job-related stressors become more difficult to handle. Stress related physical symptoms become evident. Changes in self-image shift from confident and complete to insecure and empty. Even for experienced parents, who have raised biological children in the past and believe that they are fully prepared for the children’s lack of responsiveness can find them overwhelmed and feeling as if their lives are out of control. The entire household can switch from a state of light to a state of utter darkness. Early childhood experiences of fear, void of a responsive caregiver, have created this dynamic. It is the lack of ability to self-regulate internal emotional states that is at the helm of this powerful and stressful force, restricting the child’s ability to engage in positive social interactions with the adoptive parents.

 

Relational Focus Required

Children with trauma histories typically project their fear, anger, resentment, and sadness onto the mother; the mother becomes the main target. Attachment theory explains this reaction in its definition of the mother’s job: to keep the child safe. For children with trauma histories, their mothers were unable to fulfill this role. Thus, the trauma occurred within the construct of the relationship.

 

In helping families of children with severe acting-out behaviors, the focus of the intervention needs to be the relationship, not the behaviors. Emphasis should be placed on creating a secure base for the child within the relationship with the parent. Research has demonstrated a direct correlation in the quality of the relationship between the adopted child and the parent to the adoption outcome.

 

From Love to Fear to Love Again

When traditional parenting techniques prove ineffective, and as parents work to implement strategies to connect with their children to no avail, the feelings of rejection and helplessness can be devastating. As stress builds in the home when parenting a child who does not respond positively and who does not seek his parents for comfort, parents find themselves disconnecting in an attempt to maintain their own level of existence. Before long, the entire family can find themselves living in survival mode and parents often demonstrate difficulties in responding to their children in nurturing ways. Parents find themselves asking how they went from a state of love, in wanting so badly to adopt a child, to a state of fear—wanting to so badly to get away from the child.

 

The shift from an initial emotional state of love to this resultant emotional state of chaos and helplessness is simply the outcome of living with a child whose internal stress level is in a state of perpetual overdrive. This level of stress energy within a family system is a powerful force. The adoptive parents often find themselves yelling, screaming, and verging on the edge of abusiveness. This can be so severe at times that parents feel as if they could physically hurt or injure their child. This type of reactionary behavior is simply an internal safety mechanism used to avoid uncomfortable feelings and memories of their own past. In the study by me and Dziegielewski mentioned previously, the findings showed that of the adoptive mothers of children with special needs interviewed, 77 percent either strongly agreed or agreed that since adopting their child, they had experienced more rage and anger than ever before in their lives.

 

There is, however, hope for these families. Neuroscience tells us that the brain is ever changing, and neuro-plasticity tells us that the brain has the ability to continually formulate new connections. We were previously told that once we were hard-wired one way, we simply had to accept what we were given. However, brain scan imaging shows us that we are actually creating new connections all the time. When the parents can reduce their stress and return to a state of calm, their interactions with the child have the ability to create new healthy and functioning connections in the child’s neuro-patterning.

 

It takes reducing the stress created from the issues affecting the adoptive family, related to both the trauma history of the child and the effect of that on the parents. It takes the willingness to be honest with oneself in order to face the pain, frustration, and feelings of helplessness to then create experiences with the child that are characterized by sensitivity, understanding, patience, and attunement. Parenting a child with special needs requires living at a higher level of consciousness in order to stay attuned to one’s own emotional state. Attachment, bonding, and healing cannot occur when the parent is stressed and disconnected at the emotional level. It takes the intensity of positive emotional experiences to heal a child whose early messages, whether direct or indirect, were “You’re not wanted” or “You’re not lovable.” 

 

Such interventions extend beyond that of behavioral management or cognitive thought. It takes addressing and releasing the core fear, which has become the child’s reality, through changing the environment and either reducing or eliminating the stressors for the adoptive parent. Children inherently want to please their parents. It simply takes identifying the stressors and being willing to address the fear in order to allow the emotional space for this intrinsic drive and for the biological need for the relationship to be activated. Thus, the child labeled earlier as a “special needs” child is in reality a misnomer. Instead, a child with a trauma history and a history of an attachment break should simply be seen as a “Child with A Special Need.” And that special need is a well attuned, loving, and emotionally safe parent. It is in this dyadic relationship that the child (and his parents) finds his way back to love and healing.

 

Heather Forbes, LCSW, is the co-founder of the Beyond Consequences Institute, LLC.  Ms. Forbes has been training in the field of trauma and attachment with nationally recognized, first-generation attachment therapists since 1999.  She has been active in the field of adoption with experience ranging from pre-adoption to post-adoption clinical work. 

B. Bryan Post, PhD, LCSW is the founder of the Post Institute for Family-Centered Therapy and co-founder of the Beyond Consequences Institute.  He is an internationally recognized specialist in the treatment of emotional and behavioral disturbances in children and families. Dr. Post specializes in a holistic family-based treatment approach that addresses the underlying interactive dynamics of the entire family, a neurophysiologic process he refers to as, “The secret life of the family.” 

 

Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control (Volume 1, 5th edition)

Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control - (Volume 2)