I am a firm believer that most children thrive in an environment where one parent is home typically the mother. I feel all children do well when they have a parent at home, and are able to spend the bulk of their lives in their home with their parents. School and other activities are wonderful, but when these things are not happening there is no place like home.
An adopted child especially benefits when one parent can be a full time stay at home parent. At least during the first year to three years, I feel it is especially important time to form a foundation, provide a source of new memories, and get to know each other as well as possible. This is especially true the older a child is when they are placed.
My husband and I adopted siblings, who were actually not very old when placed at one and five years of age. We have found that each child has different needs, and attachment difficulties show up in different ways between the children. Our son has less sever issues being placed at the age of one, he also had a wonderful life in foster care nearly from birth. Our daughter on the other hand lived with her birthmother until she was four years old, then two different foster homes before our home. There were memories and feelings and issues she faced that made creating positive interactions more important.
To be completely honest we didn’t expect the kinds of issues we faced with our little girl. We felt that a five-year-old was pretty young, and that she would eventually forget most of her life before us. Which is actually true, however forgetting is much different then unlearning or never having felt something in the first place. It’s true that eventually our children become a part of our family, but the journey getting there can be very interesting when you become the parent of a child who had a life before she met you.
The next Blog will discuss specific ways to Initiate Positive Interactions and build new memories.
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For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.