Good Ideas
...for Adoptive Parents:
Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in the Counselor’s
Office... (and I was the counselor!)
By
Janie Cravens, MSW-ACP
As I look back over the last 20-odd years of working with those touched by
adoption, I am awed and humbled by how little I knew about how to help people
during these dramatic times until they themselves taught me.
In this article, I would like to share some “gems” I have learned
from the folks who had to actually LIVE the process that I watched and, sometimes,
facilitated.
For Adoptive Parents
- Seek out and listen to someone who has had a rougher time than you. You’ll
get perspective on your present situation, and maybe make some new friends.
- Keep a journal of your years of fertility treatment and waiting for the
placement. It will be such a gift for your child, and it will help you to
write what you feel.
- Do something fun at least once a week with your spouse that isn’t
related to conceiving, birthing, parenting, or adopting. Also, get a hobby
that will require your creative focus and keep at it (even during the pre-placement
weeks).
- Think up some funny answers (or at least some stock phrases) for the questions
you always get asked. It helps if you consume a bottle of during this exercise.
- Write a letter of thanks to the birth family and others who cared for,
and about, your child on the days before your placement, and every birthday
after that.
- Celebrate the day you received your child and the day you finalized.
- Make a real commitment to keep contact with a circle of friends who have
children through adoption. In ten years it will be very important to your
children.
- Make a storybook with photos about your child’s life – birthparents,
previous caretakers, your life before placement, anything you can think of
that preserves connections for the child.
- Janie Cravens is owner of Adoption Development Resources and a Board
Member of AKA