Adoption. It’s beautiful, life giving, and will forever change your life! Adoption isn’t always an easy road – there sometimes can be bumps along the way.
In this post - we are exploring what it looks like to parent children who have come through trauma. We are hearing from a momma who is walking this road with two of their children who joined their family through adoption. Adoption in “normal” circumstances can have challenges of its own – so adding in the dynamic of trauma isn’t always easy. This momma has some practical advice from their journey and what they’ve done to overcome trauma in their adoption story. Trauma in relation to adoption can come in different forms – it could be that your child has experienced losing a family member, an adoption at an older age or internationally with an entire change of culture. Walking through trauma with your family is hard! We know it is, because we are right here walking with you! There is hope, and there are tools available to you. You can thrive!
Hello! I am excited to be sharing some of the things that our family has implemented to help deal with difficult life experiences in our two newest family members. We have a large family – 6 kids! We are LOVING having a big family and adore being parents. We live in Alberta and first joined the Small Miracles Adoption family in 2018. Three of our amazing children joined our family through adoption. We have walked through two different domestic Alberta adoptions to get where we are! The first was with our youngest son who joined us straight from the hospital. Our second adoption was not through such happy circumstances. Two of our children had to walk through tremendous loss to join our family, losing their other Momma. We’ve learned a lot about trauma and what it means to work through it as a family. I’d love to share the top 5 things that we’ve learned on our journey to wholeness.
1. ROUTINE!!!
This is so important for both kids who have walked through trauma and for children who haven’t. It’s not about being crazy about a schedule or being super organized - heaven knows I am not the most organized women alive – though I did manage to stick to keeping a day timer… this month. Ha! Routine is about creating a day to day life that our children can rely on. It’s about consistency, and taking away fear of the unknown to some level. We don’t do the same thing every day, but we do have a set skelton of what our days generally look like. We try to eat our meals at relatively the same time every day, have planned quiet time, play time and free time. We have especially noticed our kids thrive when having the same bed time routine. Each night we have a fun song that we play to let the kids know it’s time to get jammies on and get ready for bed! They usually go wild dancing until the song is over – which we love. Our kids then brush their teeth, have story time and climb into bed. They are allowed one book in bed, we sing a song, say our prayers and put on an audio story for them to listen to as
they drift off. We do the same thing every night! Not always the same time… but the same routine.
I cannot express the safety and comfort that this has brought to our children. They are not anxious about what’s coming or what’s going to happen – they know what to expect.
2. MOVE YOUR BODY!!!!
We are naturally a very active family – but for us – this is key. We’ve noticed unbelievable changes in our kids since we’ve made it a priority to be active with them. This idea is not just in our heads – there’s actual scientific studies that prove exercise lowers anxiety, depression and stress. I’m not saying you have to run a marathon with them or even a mile - but you do need to get moving!
We have tons of fun exercises that we do together as a family. Pintrest has great ideas and youtube has super fun kids zumba videos you can do! I will put some links at the bottom for a few of our favorites… and yes.. there is baby shark zumba! Because we have a huge family we play a lot of sports together. We almost have enough for our own baseball team! Our family is so close in age – all 6 kiddos are within 5.5 years of each other – I always joke if we homeschooled we could beat the local schools basketball team because our kids are quite athletic even at a young age! If you’re having trouble getting your kids started on being active…. Bribe them with ice cream! Come on – we all do it!
Here are a few of our favorite kids zumba videos!
3. BE THE SAFE PLACE. AFFIRM YOUR CHILD…. AGAIN… AND AGAIN.
When your child has experienced trauma – no matter how well things are going there are always times of struggle. Some temper tantrums – some times of just unexplained tears. It is our job and our duty as parents to be the safe place for these amazing kids. Sometimes it is hard! There are times when one of my children will freak out for “no reason” and it’s easier to raise my voice and tell them to STOP IT OR ELSE YOU'RE GROUNDED UNTIL NEXT FEBRUARY – but that’s not what is needed. My child needs me to be bigger, to be stronger and to love harder. My kids have walked through significant loss at a young age and their brain can’t always wrap around what it means. All I know is – being firm in those moments is not what helps… showing unwavering love does. Your child NEEDS to know there is nothing that they can do to lose your love – and they also need to know there is nothing they can do to gain it. They need to know we just love them. Period. It’s not earned, it’s not taken away – it’s just there forever. I tell my kids this almost daily. Sometimes when we are experiencing an “episode” I just sit quietly at the other end of the bed waiting for calmness to come. Waiting for my child to come to me, to find comfort. To find safety. You know something – they’ve come to me every single time.
4. PROTECT YOUR CHILDS STORY. FIERCLY.
Your childs story is just that – it’s theirs. It’s not ours. It’s not their siblings, their extended families or friends. It’s very private. Obviously in our case part of the story had to be shared with a significant loss – but let me tell you something – that’s all that people know. It is deeply important to us that our children NEVER learn something about themselves or their history from anyone but us. A part of our childs identity is being re-shaped through adoption – it’s important that their story is their story. Children who come through adoption don’t always have happy stories. Sometimes there are parts of a childs story that are difficult – maybe even dark. You don’t want people to judge your children based on their history or who has been involved in their lives previously. Give them the gift of a fresh start. Give them the gift of privacy.
5. BE OPEN!!!!
This one is HUGE! I read a quote this week from another adoptive mom and it fits here.
“I don’t believe in a family tree. I believe in a family quilt. My family is woven together from different places, people, stories, histories, cultures, languages, and nationalities. Like a quilt, we’re of different fabrics, textures, colors, origins, and patterns. We come together, as family, yet we stand unique—one of a kind—in who we are as individuals. We embrace each other’s uniqueness. After all, a quilt requires these individual pieces of fabric in order to transform itself into something of timeless beauty.”
It’s so important for us to embrace our children and empower them to be who they are! If you’re pursuing adoption to “replace” having a biological child or to have it be “no different” than, in my opinion – adoption may not be right for you. I think it can be more damaging to our children who were adopted to not talk about adoption! Adoption is an EVENT.. it’s not an identifier – but is part of our story as a family – and its something to CELEBRATE! Being open about it with our kids is important. It shows that its not a secret or something to hide. We’ve found that not talking about adoption makes it this weird thing – so we went the opposite direction. We talk about it, we celebrate it! We celebrate “gotcha days” bigger than birthdays! So far – it’s never caused hurt. In fact – it’s brought healing.
Also along these lines – ALWAYS speak with the highest regard and kindness when speaking about your adoptive childrens biological parents. This is extremely important. There is always something kind that can be said.
In our case – with our second adoption, I had a close relationship with their other mother. When they are sad about missing her – I don’t tell them it’s going to be okay. I tell them I miss her too. I tell them I loved her. We have photos of her in our home and we openly talk about adoption and biological parents. It can’t be about me, it is about them and their healing journey.
I hope that this has been helpful! It’s so hard to give advise summarized into five points. Maybe they will work for you in your situation, and maybe they wont – but these are the These things have been instrumental in our family bonding!
With love
The C family.
What did you think of the C Families advice on raising children walking through trauma? Comment below, we'd love to hear from you!