Our Adoption Learning Curve: Introduction

So, we have been thinking long and hard about writing a “series” that includes posts containing what Trace and I have been learning as we prepare to parent our adoptive child from Ethiopia.  I read or hear information repeatedly and think. “I wish I could share this with my family and/or or close friends to help them understand (fill in the blank) better.”  You see, there are MANY things we plan to do differently with our adoptive child than we would if we had a biological child: some obvious (we are going to be dealing with African hair people- I’m going to have to learn how it’s done!) to the not-so-obvious (alterative discipline styles).  While we are a bit terrified of "putting ourselves out there" because we still have much to learn, we also think this could be helpful to a few people and decided to humbly move forward.

I (Randee) am from a family that is deeply touched by adoption, and I have one birth sister and three adopted sisters (one via private adoption, and twin sisters via foster adoption.)  Although I do not plan to relate the stories of my adopted sisters on our blog, I will say that I know that children who have been adopted do have unique emotional needs (at the very least) and should be purposefully parented and nurtured in order to help them heal.  Families touched by adoption should not expect that a “one size fits all” approach will work for biological children and adopted children alike. This may sound pretty basic to many people, but I can assure you that it was not too long ago that social workers advised adoptive parents to “just love your adopted children and treat them like you do your biological children and they will be fine.”  Very, very sad.

In this series of posts we are going to attempt to communicate what we are learning, but please know, that we know, what we share here will NOT be exhaustive and not every person (adoptive parent or otherwise) will agree on all things we mention.  While it is not our intention to be controversial (rather we want to be informative and helpful) we do welcome discussion, questions and comments on anything we post.    We freely admit that we are at the beginning of a life-long journey of learning how to best parent the children that enter our family through adoption, and we sincerely seek out wisdom from those that have gone before us.

With all that said- we hope you enjoy this little series we are calling:

Our Adoption Learning Curve J

Me with my sisters Faith, Rebekah and Hope