OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH

I like predictability. I can re-watch a movie or shop for the same foods over and over. When I find a comfortable pair of shoes, I immediately buy a second pair. However, I can also be very accommodating and flexible, and this has served me well as I navigated the adoption process and parenting.

While you decide which adoption opportunities to pursue, how much contact to have with a birthparent and how to help your child, extended family and community understand adoption, you also need to listen to the guidance of you adoption team. Your attorney, the adoption agency, the social worker and the doctor reviewing birth history and pre-natal records are all working for you. Getting their feedback, as well as the feedback of others who have gone through the process, will assist you in the decisions you make and they will support you throughout the journey. It is critical that you remain flexible and accommodate to new possibilities or uncertainties along the way. As you learn more and interact with birthparents, you may change your views on the amount of openness or the type of child you feel ready to parent. You might identify areas in which you need more education or support and learn of resources from your professional team.

Every child has their own personality, ways of processing information and doing things. Initially, your schedules and routines will change to accommodate the new family member. You are learning how to be a parent. As they grow you need to remain flexible, with wonders and surprises coming with each developmental stage. As an adoptive parent, you will be sharing with your child how they joined the family, adding more details as they get older and are able to understand more. Some of you, will include discussions about or contacts with the birth family. As you help your child process information and understand relationships, you will teach your child the difference between privacy and secrecy, what words to use to describe people and situations - that being adopted is nothing to be ashamed of. You will help them learn which words to use when talking about adoption by modeling conversations and answering questions and that they only need to share any details about their adoption or history that they choose.

As a parent, you will also make decisions about what to share about your own adoption process and child’s history with those whom you come into contact. You may change your mind over time and reconsider your options over the years. Some things will become easier to share. Some you will decide not to continue revealing. As your child grows, it is they who should be making these disclosure decisions. You should be having periodic conversations to make sure you know how your child is feeling and if they need help with when and what to say or to withhold. Also, they may change their minds and you need to be accepting of their new choices.

Deciding to adopt might have been the first of your decisions in how to start or enlarge your family. You learned a new process and language, and chose how to proceed. Through the homestudy, you learned more about adoptive parenting. Your adoption agency or attorney advised you on state regulations and other aspects of the adoption process. As you moved forward, you became more adept and comfortable talking to birthparents. When they day came to welcome your child into your home, you were ecstatic and nervous, embarking on a new adventure. The following years, were filled with a mix of activities in which adoption ebbed and flowed. You navigated the bumps in the road and came out victorious with a child who was comfortable in their identity and place in your family.

We all need to learn when and how to stand firm and when to let go. When to be more flexible and when to make accommodations. When to try something familiar and when to try something new. The adoption process and adoptive parenting are such times and opportunities. 

For more information on the adoption process and parenting, come to the annual ADOPTIVE PARENTS COMMITTEE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE 11/19-11/21, 2021 Attend live or pay for the full conference and see recorded sessions after the weekend. 

Kathy Ann Brodsky, LCSW is a New York and New Jersey licensed social worker, adoptive mom and advocate for ethical adoption practice. Through her private practice and agency affiliations, she has prepared  thousands of adoption  homestudies, counseled  expectant, birth, pre/post adoptive parents and  adopted  persons, as  well  as trained  professionals  to  work  with  adoptive  families. She  was Director of the  Ametz  Adoption  Program of  JCCA and a member of the Advisory Board for POV’s Adoption  Series and the  Adoption  Advisory  Board  of  Path2Parenthood, She is currently on the Adoption   Professional   Advisory  Council  of  HelpUSAdopt , a member of the Advisory Board of the Family Equality Council and  active  in  the  Adoptive Parents Committee in  New  York.  Her  blogs  and  written contributions can be seen throughout the Internet, including  her  BLOG  and  as  Head  Writer  for  ADOPTION.NET   She  was  named  an  “Angel in Adoption” by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption in 2001. You can reach her directly.