Christian Adoption, Faith Based Adoption Blog - Acknowledge Your Adopted Child's Grief and Loss

01/13/08

Acknowledge Your Adopted Child's Grief and Loss

Posted by : Julia Fuller in Christian Adoption Blog at 05:47 pm , 409 words, 341 views
Categories: Emotions

Sometimes, it is difficult for us, as adoptive parents, to remember that the reason we have children is because they suffered a great loss. In our happiness of being parents, we forget our children first belonged to another family. In order for them to become our children, they had to be separated from their first family. Separation from your family is a painful process. I believe the grief of loss is similar to the grief experienced when a loved one dies. Just as you never forget a deceased loved one, a child can never forget a first family. Periodically, memories of a deceased love come to mind and sometimes those memories are overwhelming. I believe that children separated from their first family experience similar emotions.

As adoptive parents, we sometimes try to deny that another bond exists for our children. I believe this stems from an internal insecurity of parenthood. We want our children to love us and bond with us and we may feel jealous of the relationship that exists between the child and the first family. When new lovers meet, and fall in love, they try to deny that any previous relationships existed. Yet, those relationships helped to form the person they have fallen in love with.

Legally, we are the parents of the adopted children. They cannot choose to leave us and return to the first parents, at least not until they become adults. The children look to us to meet their everyday needs and to comfort them. Given time, the children will fall in love with the adoptive parents, unless extraordinary circumstances prevent it.

They do not need to fall out of love with the first parents in order to love the adoptive parents. Just as parents, love all of their children, their spouse, and extended family members, so children can love two sets of parents. Their love for the first parents doesn’t change, reduce, or minimize their love for the adoptive parents.

As adoptive parents we need to let our children grieve when they need to and love them through it. By recognizing their loss and love for their first family, we can deepen their bond and love for our family.

2 Corinthians 1:3b-4 (NIV)…the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

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4 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: John [Member]

Yes, there is grief for the kids in having to change families, worse yet if there was abuse or neglect. Only the adoptive parent can be the director of the plan to help the kids through this.

Let me flog a dead horse. First to a child means best, and second means much less good. They do not by into order of appearance, that is a Hollywood concept. If the adoptive parents are calling the original family and parents 'first', they are sending the powerful message that the original family was best and that the adoptive family knows that they are clearly inferior. What is wrong with using birth parent, or birth family, or just 'your mom', or 'your dad'? I suspect the kids who bail and go to their original family at 18 are the ones that heard the PC 'first family', why wouldn't they return to the family that even their adoptive parents agree is better? John

Permalink 01/15/08 @ 00:21

Comment from: Julia Fuller [Member]

· http://special-needs.adoptionblogs.com/

John, my first daughter whom we adopted at 15 returned to her mother for a few months. She left when the request for money came too often. We had never used the term first family because I wasn't aware of the term until I began blogging here a year ago. In the case of our children, it seems even more appropriate to say first because they lived with them first for many years. As far as the conotations associated with numbers John, I am curious, was your first wife the best? Usually when we number something it implies more than one or a replacement.

Permalink 01/15/08 @ 18:36

Comment from: John [Member]

Adults have figured out that first does not have to be best. Your example of first wife is right on. The problem is that kids don't have that background of living that allows us to know that first is not automatically best. Yes, as adults we know that if someting is numbered, and that isn't the normal way of doing things, beware. Kids will get there eventually. John

Permalink 01/15/08 @ 21:16

Comment from: gail [Member]

Julia......gosh I pray that somehow,
someway, the adoptive mother of my niece
finds her way to this site and reads what
you and others have written about trying
to keep adopted children from their
birth families. Myself, I feel that children
can never had too much love. My sisters
daughter died leaving 2 minor children, a
girl 3, and boy 5. After her death, they
remained with their father until DSHS
removed them from the home because of
drug abuse. My sister was granted
custody of them but because she was
over 60, she thought the children would
do better in a family with a Mom and Dad.
She has always been very close to all of
her grandchildren and this was a very
hard choice for her to make but because
she was involved in the "choosing"
process, she thought all would be well.
The girl is now 9 and the boy is 11. The
adoption of the boy has gone well. My
sister continues to have as much time
with him as she wants. The other
adoptive mother all of a sudden decided that
the little girl needed to bond with her
new family and has cut all ties with my
sister and the rest of our famly. My
sister tried to protest what was
happening but because the adoption ball
was already rolling and my sister was
just a Gramma, she had no rights to her
granddaughter and the adoption proceeded.
I don't understand how this Mother cannot
understand that the loss of her birthfamily is
is just one more loss for this little
girl. I can't imagine that she truly
feels that she is doing the right thing
for her. I know that someday, what she
has done is going to backfire on her if
it hasn't already. The adoptive Mom just
cannot take 9 years of her life away and
pretend it never was no matter how badly she
wants her to bond with her family. Someday
she will come searching for us and will
look back and wonder why she was kept from
us for so many years. I know that she
won't forget her family and she especially
will not forget her Gramma who is struggling
with the guilt of letting her go after
promising her she would always be there
for her. Until that day, we will just
keep praying.

Permalink 03/13/08 @ 16:35

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