Yes, there are some instructions

I found this letter created by another adopting family. So below are not my own words, but the words of another mother who is preparing her family for this new experience that will affect her family and friends. I agree with all that she has outlined in this letter to her family and wanted to share it with mine. I have changed the names so that our names are now in place. I believe all of the information is important. Until we meet our son and know his personality, I would say that we will be following many of the guidelines this mother outlines. As far as adoption language, that we are still learning too, we will learn together but please take note in reviewing this as we bring more friends into our circle who have also adopted a child.


To Our Family:

We are very excited to have you all share our journey into parenthood! We realize our particular journey is very different from most people and there may be some things that we will do that seem strange. This letter is meant to outline some of the things we will be doing for our family and some of the guidelines and understandings we ask our families to follow. We want you to play an important role in our support system for our child and we hope that you will have a deep, meaningful relationship with all of our children.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what words to use when talking about adoption or adoptive families. We have listed some respectful adoption language below. These should help you know what words to use when asking questions, responding to questions from others and in general conversation.

“own child” – (example: “Why don’t you want your OWN child?’). Obviously this phrase is very hurtful and incorrect. This child IS our own child. He does not have to be our biological child to be our child. This is hurtful to both our child and us. If a question arises regarding genetic relationship, please use terms like “biological child” or “birth child”.
“real” – (example: “Where are his REAL parents?”). We are his real parents. Again this comment is hurtful and offensive. If someone asks you that question, please correct them by saying, “Kamille and Trenton are his real parents. “ When referring to his biological family, use terms like “birth mother” or “birth siblings”.
Introductions of our child using “adopted child” – (example: “This is Trenton and Kamille’s adopted child, Tamene.”) – Using adopted in that sentence implies adopted children are second rate. The correct introduction would simply be: “This is Trenton and Kamille’s child, Tamene.”
“Orphanage” – This term isn’t offensive, but it has negative connotations and people will make assumptions about the level of care received. Please use the term “care center” instead.
“Third World Country” – Please use the term “developing country” instead as this is the politically correct term for countries such as Ethiopia.
Inappropriate questions – “What happened to his real family?” “Why didn’t his real mother want him?” etc. Obviously these questions are horribly offensive. Please respond with something like: “His adoption plan and story are private and we are not comfortable sharing that information.” Never, EVER answer those questions regardless of who asks them and how nicely they do it.

Regarding our child’s history and adoption story: The facts surrounding how our child came to be our son are private and personal. We have chosen to share some of the information with you because you are our family and our child may have some memory of his birth family he will want to talk about. We ask that you do not talk about his history or speculate as to why certain events happened with other people. This is his story to tell, when and if he wants.

We want to set up some expectations for when our child first comes home. We will have been with him for about a week when we get back from Ethiopia. There is no way of knowing how he will be feeling about us at that time and how things will be going. We have read extensively on attachment in adoption and ways to promote bonding with our children. Some of the things our family chooses to do will seem strange from how one would parent a biological child. It is important to remember that we have gone through training and preparation and know what we are doing.

Ways we will be promoting attachment with our child:
Sleeping in our room/bed
Using the same lotion/soap to promote a family scent
“baby wearing” –hold or carry Our child as much as possible
Bath together
Use “funneling” techniques – this is where all needs of the child are met by the parent and the parent only. We are his only source to meet his needs. This will be a hard one for all of you to follow. This means none of you can feed him, hold him, comfort him if he is hurt, or bath or dress him. Don’t worry this isn’t forever, just during the initial attachment period.
Use “Theraplay” techniques – This is using specific play methods with Our child to facilitate bonding. Essentially the parent needs to be the most interesting “toy” in the room to play with.
Feeding him – we will feed him from our plates in the beginning. In Ethiopia it is a sign of family to feed someone from your plate. We will try to use our hands to feed him as much as possible versus silverware. Again – he will learn how to use silverware eventually, it is just not as important as attaching to us!
Re-parenting – this is where you regress the child back to a younger age to establish trust and attachment with him during the younger stages of his life. This will include giving him a bottle and rocking him, lots of holding and carrying and treating him younger than his chronological age.
Limiting outside exposure – as much as possible we will try to limit new experiences in the beginning that could over-stimulate him. Changing EVERYTHING he has ever known will be challenging enough. We need him to feel stable in his new home. This means no visits to other people’s homes. We know you are all excited to have him over and it will happen, just not right away. It will be better for him if you spend time with him at his home.
Limiting contact with visitors – this will depend on Our child’s personality. His reaction and attachment to us, will determine the timeline for meeting our family.
Requesting our family to use “re-directing” techniques. This will also be difficult for you to do, but it is important that Our child does not get confused about who his parents are. Re-directing involves a non-parent to redirect the child to their parent to meet their need. This means that if Our child comes up and tries to sit in your lap, you need to re-direct him to us. This will be very important to do in the beginning, as the roles are more established this will become less of an issue.
Creating high structure environments. From the outside this will look like we are very controlling parents. A high structure environment is necessary for the child to feel safe enough to allow attachment to take place. Our child needs to have a highly controlled environment so he does not have to worry about what will happen to him next.

These are some of the ways we are going to work on building our attachment with our son. We know you will all be supportive and we greatly appreciate that. We will need your support and help during our first weeks home, depending on how things are going we may request help with errands or other responsibilities we cannot focus on during that time.

Without going into this next issue too deeply, we wanted to touch on the cultural/racial component of our family. We are no longer a white family and we couldn’t be happier about that. We are now considered a “multi-cultural / multi-racial” family. We believe that God looks on families like ours and sees a true work of beauty. We know that not everyone will see our family that way and some people will treat us and our children badly. We know we cannot change the way that some people feel, but we will also not put up with ANY prejudicial or racist comments of ANY kind about ANY group of people. We hope that you will also not allow negative, hurtful, racist, or bigot-like statements to go unchallenged. Our family will have a zero tolerance policy to these kinds of comments. Regardless of who says them or where they are said, we will deal with them or very possibly leave the situation or event completely and deal with the person later. We want to be clear that this is not a “discussion” item. This is the rule if you want to be involved with our family.

In relation to that, we will be working very hard to keep Ethiopian culture alive for Our child. We hope that you will respect and encourage that as well as this culture is now part of our family’s culture. We will not tolerate any negative statements about Ethiopia, her people, culture or food.

We have no doubt that you all want what’s best for us and for our child. We also know that this is a totally new experience for all of us and there will be a learning curve for everyone involved. Naturally we have done a lot more education on adoption, transracial/transcultural adoption, and attachment than you have. We do not expect any of you to be experts on this or to never make mistakes. We will all make lots of mistakes. But we also know that you will genuinely have our child’s best interests at heart and so do we. Thank you very much for you support and encouragement in this process. It is such a wonderful feeling to know that your family will support you and the choices you have made.


Love,

Trenton & Kamille