Most of us carry on the things we learned as children, like how we view our roles in the family and the family patterns of behavior. We tend to discipline our children much the same way we ourselves were disciplined. It is our natural inclination to think our own way is the right way to parent our children. The problem is our parents’ child rearing skills and techniques may not be the best for children who come into our home as an adopted child.
When we start this process called adoption it is easy to see this child we want through a screen of hopes, needs and fantasy. A common joke many parents of all kinds make is that there does not appear to be an owner manual with our children. Nothing can prepare anyone for the day to day realities of what parenting actually means.
Adoptive parents have more issues to consider while raising a child. No matter what age the child is when placed, newborn or 12 years old, the fact is our child will always be adopted. As parents our ability to analyze our own childhoods and consider some of the things we felt as a child while being disciplined is important to do.
We have to recognize the fact that using our parents methods might not be felt the same by an adopted child. We don’t know how it feels to be an adopted person. We don’t know what we might have thought had we been raised in the same situation as an adopted child.
Many of us were spanked and do not feel we were abused by any means. We may even feel that spanking is a positive form of discipline, after all it worked well for us as children. But, for an adopted child there may be a different feeling and they may see spanking as something we do because we didn’t give them birth. An adopted child may decide if I were with my birth family “they” would have never spanked me.
Spanking may be an extreme example to use, because often it could be the little ways we disciple that may lead to thoughts and resentments. Often, parents use the phrase, “When I was a kid, my father would have grounded me for a month for doing what you just did.”
Most kids hate to hear these words, but an adopted child may add to their negative feelings. They may think to themselves, “too bad for you when you were a kid and thank goodness we are not blood related because what your father did to you has nothing to do with me.”
Discipline is going to be a major part of any parents life. It is, in fact one of the most important job descriptions. Reviewing our own childhood experiences and brainstorming together as parents to find ways of discipline that nurture, may help an adopted child avoid attaching discipline to the issues they may have about their adoption story.
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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.