“I want to go bye-bye!” my four-year-old sobs. This has become her standard response to being reprimanded.
I usually tell her she can go to her room. Then I make sure to add, “We’ll be here when you’re ready.”
There is nothing particularly unusual about this, of course. It would be wrong to assume adoption is the primary cause of every emotion my daughters have. However, many adoptive parents and adoption professionals report that adopted children often experience insecurity and fear of abandonment. The last few times my daughter has wanted to go bye-bye, I tell her, “I would come and get you, because I will always be your mommy!”
My daughters were adopted as older infants, eight and eleven months old when they came to us from their loving foster mothers. They were old enough to have stranger anxiety and grieve the transition, but not old enough to have conscious memories of living with anyone but us. But they are now at an age to understand more about adoption. They’ve always known about their adoption, and have pictures of themselves as babies with their foster families. But I wonder if they are starting to realize more deeply that they had had two other mothers (birth and foster) who are no longer in their lives.
We do, of course, use the words “Forever Family”, and the kids often hear my bedtime prayer “and thank you God for making me Patrick and Meg and Regina’s mommy forever and ever.” But psychologists are advising adoptive parents that young children don’t understand the concept of “forever” and recommending we be more specific–for example, telling a child we will be their parents when they are five (or whatever their next birthday is), when they are old enough to go to school, when they are old enough to drive a car, and even when they are all grown up.
My daughter has started to talk a lot about the fact that when she is a real mommy I will be a grandma. I tell her she and her kids can come to my house for dinner and then the kids over three can spend the night. Hopefully she is getting the point that I’m not going anywhere.
Several books can reinforce this message. Some ideas:
The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown, is the one I thought of first. I remembered how the young bunny tells his mother he will run away. She says she will come after him. The bunny fantasizes his escape, “I will become a flower, a fish, and a high mountain.” The mother responds that she will become a gardener, a fisherman, and a mountain climber. “I will always come and find you, because you are my little bunny.” I bought this for Regina last week and she loved it.
Will You Take Care of Me? By Margaret Park Bridges is similar in that a young kangaroo asks if his mother would care for him if he turned into various things and she describes how she would do so. The illustrations have many imaginative details. He finally asks, “Even when I’m all grown up?” “I’d still give you a hug whenever you needed one.” “But what if I turned back into a baby? Would you take care of me all over again?” “Of course! I’ll always be there to love you and help you grow.”
Love You Forever,by Robert Munsch, tells how a mother sings to her baby. “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” When the child is a toddler, he drives his mother crazy, but at night when he’s asleep, she creeps into his room, picks him up and sings to him. The same thing happens when the boy is nine, sixteen, and twenty. Finally when he is a father himself, he sings the song to both his mother and his daughter.
Mama, Do You Love Me? By Barbara Joose,is about a little Inuit (Alaska Native) girl who asks her mother a series of “what-ifs”: Would you love me if I dropped the eggs? Put fish in your boots? Ran away? Became a bear and growled at you? “Darling, I would be [disappointed, angry, worried, sad, scared], but I would still love you. I will love you always and forever, because you are my Dear One.” This book also introduces items from the traditional Inuit way of life, with more information given in the back of the book for those who are curious. There is now a companion book, Papa, Do You Love Me? which is set in the Masai tribal culture of East Africa.
Please see these related blogs:
Insecurity in Adopted Children
Helping a Traumatized Child Build a Sense of Security and Safety