The other side of the story

In a recent post, I wanted to discourage the fear some have of adopting older children. In this post, I want to encourage anyone considering adoption to do all they can to prepare for issues that may arise after an adoption. It is my personal opinion that there are certain potential problems that can be averted if you understand where a child is coming from. These thoughts have been prompted by a discussion on a yahoo group that I am part of. They have been discussing the issue of whether or not hosting a child before adoption will help prevent problems such as were recently presented on the television program, 20/20. That particular program exposed some very serious issues with some children that had been adopted from Russia. Sometimes these issues can be serious enough that people "disrupt" the adoption, a way of saying families voluntarily give up their rights to their adopted child and seek placement elsewhere.

Because the issues that our boys have are relatively mild, I cannot speak to why parents disrupt adoption. I can speak to the issue of hosting, however, and I know enough through our experience and speaking with friends who have adopted to encourage adopting parents to BE PREPARED. I think that I can honestly say that if anyone starts the adoption process needing a guarantee that their child will not have any psychological issues, they need to rethink adoption. It is virtually a guarantee that they will have issues of some sort. Some issues may be apparent during hosting; others will not. It is very important to read, read, read everything you can on post-institutionalized children, not so that you can weed out the undesirables, but so that you, as the parent, can appropriately respond to whatever happens along the way. In a previous post, I relayed the sunny side of adoption via Eli’s story; you can be assured, however, that my children are insecure (who wouldn’t be in their shoes?), fearful of failure and abandonment, afraid to love, hypervigilant, and a host of other things.

There is much about the personalities and behaviors of our children that bear this out. For example, our oldest is especially prone to saying exactly what he does not mean. “I want to go back to Ukraine” means “I am scared you are going to send me back to Ukraine.” One poster on the yahoo group commented that she has told her adopted daughter that she would take her back to the orphanage and let them find her another family. I know that my boys have that fear and are going to test me to see if they are correct in their fear that I would abandon them. Our oldest will go through a list of things, asking “If I do this, will you send me back to Ukraine?” He always shows astonishment that NO MATTER WHAT I will not send him back to Ukraine. Yes, he often begs to go back, but that is just so he can hurt me before I am able to hurt him by sending him back.

There are also habits ingrained in an older child that will take time to break. These are often sinful habits. One of our boys has the habit of lying. All the time. About everything. What is helping more than anything with this bad habit is simply recognizing it for what it is and addressing it directly. "Honey, thats a lie. I know for many years you felt like you had to lie and it has become a bad habit. You have to start practicing telling the truth so that truth-telling can become a habit. So let's try that again." And we will rehearse the truth. In certain situations, he still gets offended by this exchange but most of the time he goes along with the "re-programming". This same child also balks at obedience. I attribute his resistance to authority to his never having had reliable authority figures in his life that he could trust were putting his best interests first. In other words, he is fearful of obedience. But at least he is learning that obedience to parents is the foundation of successful family life and he is willing to put forth the effort toward improvement.


Our other child’s issues are less challenging but still require understanding. He is unable to do much at all without direct instructions. Even when told to do something like “plug in the Christmas tree lights”, he will ask a dozen times “Can I plug in the Christmas tree lights, Mom?” before he actually does it. He apologizes constantly, for what I don’t know. He is a very smart, thoughtful child, but often becomes so engrossed in thought that we can all get up from a table at a restaurant, walk to the door, and leaving him sitting there not aware that we have left. He is unable to "play" on his own. He often chatters about nothing continuously. He told me once that he does that so that I will not forget that he is here. Minor stuff, but there are psychological issues at the root. Might any of these issues manifest themselves in more serious ways as they get older? Yes, they might. Would I love them any less? No way. But the point I want to make is that if you are not prepared for even these minor issues, they can easily escalate into more volatile ones.

There is so much patience and understanding required. My kids want to be underfoot at all times. They are constantly accusing me of loving the other more. They bicker over everything. They fight for my attention. It is not an easy task by any means and I wanted to make sure that my previous post did not come across that way. Even Eli has difficult moments. But with the right attitude, the proper preparation, and by the grace of God, we can grant these precious children the gift of family that they so need and deserve.

I, personally, could never have considered adoption had God not been a part of the equation. He called my husband and me to this task and He equips us to handle the realities of it. I would never, in my own strength, be able to handle the challenges of adoption, even with children whose issues are comparatively mild. It is only by grace that we were able to begin this process and it is only by grace that we are able to persevere daily. Adoption is not for the weak, the prideful, or the idealistic. But neither is parenthood of any sort. All of life is a gamble on our side. That is why I, personally, find faith indispensable. If we can see everyone, our children and especially ourselves, as sinners in need of grace and mercy, we can forgive, we can overlook, we can perservere, we can love sacrificially. But even as Christians we should not take the call to adopt lightly and refuse to be prepared for the challenges. There will, without a doubt, be challenges and to think otherwise is to ignore reality.