Written by Linny

If you keep an eye on adoption sites that feature children available for re-adoption, it would seem there are more and more children (adopted as older children), who’s adoptions are being dissolved. (By older child adoption, I’m referring to children 3 years old and up).

Having lived, and parented children with reactive attachment disorder (RAD), children who‘s adoptions all failed in some way over time, I can fully understand a family’s plight. Living with children who must be watched 24/7 for fear of harming/killing other children is beyond exhaustive. Over time, it can change a parents’ mindset of ‘what’s normal and what’s not’. It can also make a parent doubt any and all decisions they make. Further, it’s not uncommon for parents of children with RAD to end up divorced; or at least suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

There is seldom any respite for a family raising a difficult child from the foster care system. Very often, there’re a lot of suggestions to help; but no real solid help for the families. The family then lives an isolated and lonely life where even ‘normal’ siblings suffer from the isolation at having a sister or brother who steals everything in sight, lies in the face of reality, or can’t be trusted to be around young children for fear of sexual inappropriateness.

However, some of our adoption forum members have had great experiences with older child adoptions. I’m not making light of the difficulty they’ve had in raising these children to become great kids, and certainly, there’s a huge difference in those children vs other children who’s adoptions are being dissolved or disrupted.

If you considering older child adoption, take heed. There are miracles and there are disasters. Education is key; but there’s more to it as well. I don’t think it’s ‘the gamble that just turned out well’, but more, the successful parents knew or sensed something ‘successful’ when they sought out and found their older children. Call it an internal sixth sense if you will, but something made the parents see a child as being able to bond and grow up successfully, and they did.

When we first saw/met our first-older child for adoption, IMMEDIATELY I felt something was very wrong. I really did. I couldn’t put my finger on it; he was such a funny and cute kid; but I didn’t feel good about fully adopting him; and my husband nd I talked often about ‘whether we should or shouldn’t’. I felt like I loved him; I wanted to love him more, but there was something that just wasn’t ‘right’ here, a type of distance in our relationship I’d never felt or seen before.

That doesn’t speak well for my character, does it, but it’s true. I’d be lying if I didn’t say we were very torn as to whether we should proceed with adoption or not. Yet, we and some other family members thought we should, and I agreed, having moments where I thought, “This is going to be just fine; this is great.”.

He turned out to have severe RAD and eventually, wasn‘t able to stay in a traditional home environment. The state foster/adopt department literally lied to us about his past. (We found/have the paperwork to prove incredible fraud.) This type of thing is common, meaning, state foster to adopt departments are often NOT honest about disclosing full information with their ‘more difficult children to place’. It would seem, as some believe, the state adoption departments are more than anxious to put the burden of raising these children on someone else’s shoulders.

Even for the most experienced parent, there are many illnesses than require a lot of outside support. Sadly, most states are reluctant or refuse to give any support other than tell the parents they need to put monitors in place and ‘live with it’. (Very disturbing news for those who live with the threat of sexual abuse or assault.)
(Oddly enough, the state departments would quickly remove any biological child from a family who created the threat of harm, sexual assault or death to any family members. But, when the child is ‘one of theirs’ however, it seems the mindset changes?)

I personally feel no one should adopt our of birth order; and, I would caution anyone who wants to adopt from the system when they’ve already adopted infants, and plan to adopt *more* infants in the future. It should be a serious consideration, because when you adopt an older child from the system, it may also mean you’ll never be able to adopt again if the child’s behaviors are so bad that bringing in a baby would be a dangerous action to do.

Please be careful when wanting to adopt older children. Educate yourself beyond the general classes each state provides for foster to adopt certification. Those classes are usually quite mild, definitely biased, and don’t present a full scope of what living with an older adopted child with moderate to severe issues can be like. Usually, the parent takes the role of a caretaker and counselor more than the role of ‘just being able to enjoy parenting an older child’.

Is this true for every older child adoption?

Certainly not.

But it would be wise to carefully consider each older child on a case by case basis and not rush into any adoption finalization until the child has lived within your home for a very extended amount time.

Adoption disruption statistics
Individual studies throughout the United States are consistent in reporting disruption rates that range from about 10 to 25 percent.

Related posts

• 15 Questions To Ask Before Adopting Older Children (9)
• Things To Think About Before Adopting A Sibling Group (2)
• Families Change: A Book for Children Experiencing Termination of Parental Rights (1)
• Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Awards $7.75 Million in 2009 Grants (1)
• Wendy’s Raised Over $1 Million for Adoption (2)

What makes that difference between good and horrible?

With my kids (half bio. siblings), the difference was what age they were removed from their abuser, how many foster homes they were in and how they were treated by their foster families. My kids would make a perfect case study because you can actually document how each of those factors play a role in their lives. J was removed from their abusive home at 9 months, in her four years in foster care was only in two homes (one for 1 year, the other for 3 years) and both of those families loved and nurtured her as if she was their own. J is now an emotionally healthy, loving 11 year old who is smart, compassionate and thoughtful. S was removed from her abuser on her 4th birthday, in her four years in foster care was only in two homes (one for 1 year, the other for 3 years) but the first family that she lived with treated her like an outsider. C was removed from his abuser at 6 and spent his first year in foster care in four foster homes because he was so angry nobody wanted him. He was never given the opportunity to bond with anyone and that permanently damaged him.

What advice could you offer to me as I assess these children & situations?

Read 15 Questions For An Older Child Adoption on the Forever Parents blog. Linny wrote it a while ago and it’s a very helpful tool in assessing a situation.
Read some of the posts in the Older Child category on the Forever Parents blog. Look in the left sidebar for the category listings.
Read Adopting The Hurt Child by Gergory Keck. You can follow the link and buy it through our adoption shop. In my opinion, this is the most honest book about older child adoption out there and is still on my book shelf. The companion book is Parenting The Hurt Child and is a book I refer to often, even after six years.

What can I know now that will help me better understand the children true abilities/challenges/struggles?

Every child is different. C is still struggling with a lot of the same issues that we dealt with the first year. Nothing I do seems to make a difference, and that is so incredibly frustrating. I have come to the realization that I’ve done all I can and the rest is up to him. S healed from so many of her issues and then BAM…out of no where some of them started to crop back up. I know that kids who have been through abuse and trauma revisit a lot of issues later on, but it’s so hard when I’ve already seen the light at the end of her tunnel with her. Are you prepared for the possibility that they may never 100% heal and that you will become the target of their hurt and anger?

What about you? I’d love to hear from some of our readers. How would you answer her questions, based on your own experiences?

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The summer before Becca turned six, we moved to a new neighborhood, so that she could have a yard, a playroom, and (eventually) a puppy. A “plus” was that the neighborhood was majority Asian, with the largest proportion of the Asians being Chinese. While Becca had a few close friends and many acquaintances who were adopted from China, like her, she previously had relatively little contact with Chinese children who were living with their biological families.

We quickly discovered that most of the Chinese families knew little about adoption, although the Washington, DC metro area has a very large number of families formed by adoption and, particularly, international adoption. We had to do quite a lot of educating to do!

Some of the families, who harbored negative feelings about the current government in China, did not realize that the U.S. and China had worked wonderfully well together, since about 1992, on adoption matters, and that China had managed to develop one of the best organized and cleanest adoption programs in the world.

Some of these families thought that Becca was from Taiwan, since it was assumed that the U.S. government was friendly to that country and hostile to China. Some of the assumptions about Taiwan, of course, were also made because Becca’s birth city of Xiamen is right across the straits from Taiwan, and many Taiwanese look like, and have relatives from, Xiamen and the surrounding areas of Fujian province. Becca definitely could have been mistaken for Taiwanese, based on appearance alone.

And, of course, some of the families thought that I had smuggled Becca out of China and into the U.S. illegally. Human trafficking is not unknown in China, and many Chinese people can probably tell you about trafficking in young females for slavery or prostitution, as well as about illegal immigration of Chinese adults and children into the U.S. for more positive reasons. Our neighbors were really quite startled when I explained that both China and the U.S. agreed to my adoption, and that it was in full compliance with both U.S. and Chinese adoption laws.

Some of the Chinese families were a bit surprised that a Caucasian person would consider adopting a child of another race and ethnicity. In China, as in many countries, the “blood tie” is considered very important, and some people simply can’t imagine parenting a child who is not biologically related to them.

I also got asked if I was going to tell Becca that she was adopted, which was funny, given that we are of different races, and given that I told her a mini-version of her adoption story on the first night I met her and every night thereafter for the first few years of her life. It was part of our bedtime ritual, and ended with how I “flew all day and all night” to come get her, because “she needed a Mommy and I needed a little girl.”

And, of course, in our new neighborhood, Chinese people didn’t ask, “DOES your child go to Chinese school?” They asked, “WHERE does your child go to Chinese school?” In many Chinese families, preservation of one’s ancestral language and culture is extremely important. The children of even some very assimilated families go to one of several good Chinese schools in the area on either Saturday or Sunday. In a sense, if you are a child, you won’t be considered Chinese if you don’t go to Chinese school.

At that time, I wasn’t sending Becca to Chinese school, because she was already in an immersion Hebrew class; modern Israeli Hebrew, along with Biblical and liturgical Hebrew, was taught for almost 50% of each school day. I felt that her private school was extremely challenging, and that she was already spending more hours on academics than most children. As a result, since she also did not have a strong desire to go to Chinese school until she was in about fifth grade, we chose not to spend our weekends there.

Of course, there was also the woman who offered to help me find a nice Chinese husband, so that my daughter would have a Chinese Daddy! The assumption was that every Chinese child should also have at least one Chinese parent, so that he/she is properly raised.

While I am a single woman (long divorced), and have no objection to remarrying if the right person comes along, I am in no hurry to find someone, of any ancestry. My life was (and still is) very full and happy, with my daughter, my career, and so on. I was also in my 50s when I adopted, and pretty set in my ways, so I figured that it would take a pretty special person to make me willing to negotiate the compromises necessary for a good marriage. I also happen to be Jewish, and would want a marriage partner to share my commitment to having a Jewish home; there just aren’t a lot of Chinese Jews around, though, of course, my daughter is one, by conversion.

Becca quickly became used to the fact that I talked about adoption openly and often, both professionally and personally. I was the head of a well known adoption advocacy organization at the time. She heard me use positive adoption language, and also heard me deal with questions about things like China’s one-child policy and the abandonment of children as a way of making an adoption plan; we often talked about what she heard, after she came to a meeting or Chinese playgroup with me.

So it didn’t really surprise me, one day, when we were taking a walk and a Chinese girl of about Becca’s age yelled across the street to her, “YOU LOOK CHINESE!” Becca calmly yelled back, “WELL, I AM CHINESE!” The child yelled again, “BUT YOUR MOM’S NOT CHINESE!”

At this point, I decided to cross the street with Becca, so that we could continue the conversation with the girl in more normal tones of voice. We explained that I had adopted Becca. The American-born daughter of Chinese parents was horrified, and asked Becca, “But don’t you want to go back to China and live with your Chinese Mommy?” Obviously, she had a Chinese Mommy whom she adored, and thought that EVERYONE should have a Chinese Mommy.

At that point, Becca grabbed me and hugged me, proclaiming, “THIS is my Mommy.” I was so thrilled that she had made this response, that I nearly cried. Becca was a very social child, to the point where I sometimes worried about attachment issued. But there was clearly no need to worry. She knew who her Mommy was, and was very glad to have me, no matter what color I was.

Becca was young then – maybe about six or seven. As someone pointed out in an earlier post, adopted children change their perceptions about adoption, often multiple times, as they grow up.

At seven, Becca would have told you that I was her “real” Mommy. She knew about babies in tummies, used the word “birthmother”, and so on, but she wasn’t able to develop an emotional construct that included feelings about her birthparents. Her birthmother was just a Chinese woman who physically brought her into the world. What mattered was the woman (me) who raised her, read with her, sent her to school, bought her nice clothes, arranged her playdates, gave interesting birthday parties, and more.

A few years later, however, Becca began to see the situation differently. As she said to me, “My birthmother also took care of me for about 9 months after I was born. You didn’t have me in your tummy, but you adopted me and have taken care of me since you met me. So you are a real mother, too.”

Initially, I was a bit shocked and saddened by what Becca said. I felt, somehow, diminished, by being one of two mothers. Yet when I thought about it, I realized that Becca was absolutely right. Her birthmother AND birthfather cannot and should not be treated as unimportant. They conceived a child, whether or not they planned to do so. They gave the child the genetic profile that affects not just his/her appearance, but also his/her personality, health status, and so on – all the things that make him/her unique and special to me.

In Becca’s case, it appears that her birthparents also gave her a lot of love for about 9 months after her birth – she is a very loving and empathic child – and that they probably would not have abandoned her if some very serious situation had not made them unable to continue parenting. I don’t know what that situation was, but my gut feeling is that they grieve and feel guilty, to this day.

Of course, as Becca learned more about human sexuality and headed into the teen years, the pendulum swung back, just a bit. She asked me, “Why didn’t my birthparents just use birth control, if they knew about the one child policy and that they might have to pay huge penalties for having a baby?” Even though she was glad to be alive and in an adoptive family, she admitted that she felt very angry at her birthparents for bringing a child into the world, only to abandon her. She said that every child has the right to be born into a family that wants him/her.

Teens are often very dogmatic people. It’s easy for Becca to say, “Use birth control or have an abortion.” It’s not so easy for her to understand that, in China, some people want a baby so badly that they will try to hide the pregnancy and the newborn from official eyes, and abandon the baby only when it becomes impossible to do otherwise. It’s not so easy for her to understand that condoms can fail – she’s not yet sexually active, thank goodness. It’s not so easy for her to understand that some people oppose abortion because they feel that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception.

It’s not so easy for her to understand, as well, that “stuff happens”. A parent loses a job and can’t support his/her family. A parent has a serious accident that leaves him/her paralyzed and unable to pursue his/her previous occupation or care for a child. An activist parent is incarcerated for his/her political views. A spouse walks out of a marriage, leaving the other parent to raise the children AND pay the bills. A child becomes ill or is born with a medical issue, and the parents cannot afford or obtain the care he/she needs.

But I respect Becca for realizing that the decision to have sex, as well as the decision to have a baby, should not be made lightly or in the heat of passion. I also respect her for realizing that these decisions should be made with a focus on the child that could be created. She is right. Every child SHOULD be born into a family that wants him/her and can care for him/her. The problem is that we are human; we sometimes make bad decisions or mistakes. And adoption is a way of rectifying one type of situation, so that a child – even if not born into a family that wants and can take care of him/her – can be raised in a loving family.

Sharon

Related posts

• Families Change: A Book for Children Experiencing Termination of Parental Rights (1)
• Adoption Stories: Infant And Older Child Adoption (0)
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• The Dissolution Or Disruption Of An Adoption (2)

Update #2: A list of email addresses has been added at the bottom of this post.

One of our adoption forum members brought this to our attention (thanks Debbie!) and I am passing it along to anyone who may be interested. I’m also adding my personal thoughts, which I shared on our adoption forum, at the end of this post.

There is a horror slasher film being released July 24 (Orphan) about a family who adopts an older girl who “is not what she appears to be. Warnings about her go unheeded until it is too late…for everyone”. The film is being promoted now (http://orphan-movie.warnerbros.com) and the adoption message being sent is extremely negative. There is actually a line in the trailer that says “it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own”.
Without having seen the movie or read the script, it is hard to know if the entire movie is sending a ghastly adoption message, but the trailer certainly leads us to believe it is. This feeds the notion that older adoptees are very troubled and you should beware…. that’s not an image any of us want the general public to have of our kids. It plays into people’s deepest fears.

There is a growing group pursuing a boycott of the film, sending out emails and posting on online bulletin boards. I urge you to forward this email to others personally involved in adoption, help disseminate the boycott message and write to the producers and distributors expressing your displeasure with the message being sent.
The backers of this movie have deep pockets. It is being released by Dark Castle Entertainment with Warner Bros. set to distribute. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, which developed the material, is also producing.

Here are my personal thoughts;

I just watched the trailer. Looks like the type of movie I would love…..dark and creepy. That line about it being hard to love an adopted child as much as your own is actually said by the adopted girl herself, who is obviously psychotic.

I have two thoughts about this movie……

If people take this movie as a serious portrayal of what older child adoption could be, it might actually be a good thing. There are seriously damaged older kids being adopted into families that have no idea what their in for and once the papers are signed, these families are on their own. I adopted three older kids and luckily, my two younger ones are fine, but my son is one fucked up kid. I hide my butcher knives and scissors in my bedroom because I don’t trust him. I am seeing a lot of sociopathic behaviors in him as he gets older. Maybe after this movie comes out, the concerns of those of us who have adopted troubled kids will be taken more seriously. I actually had a counselor at the facility my son is at, tell me to examine my parenting as a cause of my son’s behavior. After all this time of going through the system’s red tape trying to get help for him and telling anyone who will listen that something is wrong with him (much like the line from the movie; ‘There’s something wrong with Ester’), this man who never met me wants me to carry some of the blame. Needless to say, I hung up on him, (which I’m sure they’ll write up as me being a ‘hostile parent who has anger issues’) but there’s many more who think like him. If there’s one thing that comes out of this movie, I hope it’s that we (those of us who adopt older troubled kids) adopt these kids with all good intentions and then we get very little support and back up from teachers/therapists/cops/judges, etc.

That girl reminded me a lot of my son Very charming and polite in the beginning, able to keep that facade up when needed. Then something happens that she doesn’t like and rage kicks in. That rage in the toilet stall scene is what we live with when he doesn’t get his way.

Is all older child adoption like this?…of course not. I have two kids that prove it doesn’t. My daughters were adopted at the ages of 5 and 8 and are nothing like this movie.

My other thought is….it’s a horror movie made for entertainment and should be treated as such. If I got all bent out of shape every time someone portrayed “me” in a movie, I would be boycotting Goodfellas and The Soprano’s for how they show Italian-Americans.

I want to also add that the people boycotting have every right to do that and I back them 100%. I’m all for people speaking out when there is something they don’t agree with. Unlike channels like CNN and MSNBC who belittled people like myself who attended the recent tax day tea parties, I believe in the right to protest….even if I do not agree with their message.

My last thought is that this movie is nothing compared to the type of movie I would make about older child adoption. I plan on writing a book about my experience and if this movie is causing controversy and it’s not even real, they can’t handle my truth.

Update: Here is a sample letter to send to Warner Bros.

May {XX}, 2009

Barry M. Meyer
Warner Bros. Movies
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91522

Dear Mr. Meyer and Producers of the movie Orphan:

“It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own.”

Writing as a parent of an adopted child, I strongly urge you to remove this line from your film, “Orphan” and, especially, from all of your trailers. This line implies that an adopted child is not the parents’ child and, for anyone in an adoptive family, is very hurtful. Additionally, anyone seeing the film- or the trailer containing this line of dialogue- could promulgate such a hurtful expression and spread it like a virus, creating emotional distress for adoptive families everywhere.

In this day and age, when movie trailers are “sanitized” so that they can be shown before any movie, regardless of the MPAA rating, your trailer is likely to be seen and heard by young children and their families. For adoptive families, and especially for young children who joined their families through adoption, this line has the potential to cause serious trauma.

So, I will also ask you to look inside your heart and then look, again, at your film and see if there are other scenes that can create a negative stigma for adoptive families and please make changes to eliminate or, at the very least, reduce the damage. If you have any question about what might be considered hurtful, please contact Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute as I know they would be happy to help you.

I understand your film has already been completed and asking you to make wholesale changes at this point, just a couple of months before it is released, is probably unrealistic. That is why I am pleading with you to simply show some sensitivity and limit the damage your film will do to anyone who has an adopted child in their family and at least make these changes to the trailer.

I believe you would prefer not having adoptive families around the world virally warning each other of the damaging depictions contained in your movie and encouraging all their friends and family members not to patronize “Orphan.” No filmmaker would like the headline “Movie Called Harmful to Adoptive Families” associated with their film- least of all Mr. DiCaprio who, until now, has maintained a very positive public image.

Please reply and let me know what you have decided to do with your “Orphan.”

Along with adoptive families around the world, I look forward to hearing of your decision. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
{Name}

email addresses:
Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer
alan.horn@warnerbros.com
Barry Meyer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
barry.meyer@warnerbros.com
Susan Fleishman, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Communications and Public Affairs
susan.fleishman@warnerbros.com
Jeff Robonov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group
jeff.robonov@warnerbros.com
Dan Fellman, President, Domestic Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures
dan.fellman@warnerbros.com

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by Cynthia Teeters

You may think that the first thing to do to start an international adoption is to get a list of agencies and begin contacting them for information. Actually, you start by realizing that thousands of parents have passed successfully through this process before you and that by tapping into their vast storehouse of knowledge you, too, can be just as successful. To the question, “How do I start?”, the answer is, “Read, then read, and then read some more.” Then find and join some adoptive parent support groups.

My favorite beginner’s adoption book, being one the best overall discussions of the options available to adopting parents, is The Adoption Resource Book by Lois Gilman. Another good book is The Essential Adoption Handbook by Colleen Alexander-Roberts. If you can, get both.

Also be prepared to read some adoption parenting books so that you become aware of adoption issues. Look for Raising Adopted Children by Lois Melina, Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss by Claudia Jewett, Real Parents, Real Children by Holly Van Gulden and Lisa Bartels-Rabb and Being Adopted, The Lifelong Search For Self by David Brodzinsky, et al. They will all greatly broaden your perspectives about adoption. If you have struggled with infertility, read Adopting After Infertility by Patricia Johnston and if you are considering an older child, Adopting the Hurt Child by Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky is a necessity.

The International Concerns For Children (ICC, 911 Cypress Dr., Boulder, CO 80303-2821, 303-494-8333) annually publishes the Report on Intercountry Adoption for $25 US including monthly updates. It provides invaluable information about adopting internationally and will act as your primary source for agency information. The report begins with a number of articles written by some of the best-known experts in the field of adoption. The articles offer information about such issues as other resources, parent preparation, travel tips, medical concerns for international adoptees, and cultural and racial issues.

Agency listings comprise the second half of the report having each country placing children for intercountry adoption listed along with the agencies that have programs in that country. The agency descriptions can include a number of items such as estimated waiting time, age ranges and description of children available and program requirements for prospective parents.

Very likely the Report on Intercountry Adoption will become your adoption bible. Do not forget to refer back to the informative articles as you go through the process as you will gain new insight each time you do.

Once you have collected a small library and have taken some time looking over your materials, the next step is to find and join adoptive parent support groups. If you have already started your reading and have become somewhat versed in the adoption process you will be able to make the best use of the information and educational resources these groups can provide. At this point, you should already belong to AFA and may use them in helping to find local support groups you might wish to join. Attending the meetings of your local support group will offer you an opportunity to socialize with other adoptive families as well as gain from the collective wisdom of the group.

If you have chosen a country or region from which you wish to adopt, you may also wish to seek out and join support groups that are specific to these countries. For example, there are excellent support groups for families adopting from Latin America, China, Romania, and Russia. Do not, though, automatically take a preference for a country-specific support group over those that have a broader range of membership. Both groups may offer benefits to you while you are a prospective adoptive parent seeking emotional assurance and information on the process. Later, after you have become an adoptive parent and are seeking emotional assurance and information about raising children, they will again serve as invaluable resources.

After having done your homework; joining and participating in one or more support groups; and giving some thought about what type of child would best fit into your family; then it is time to begin contacting agencies that appear to meet the selection criteria you have defined. At this point seek out informational resources that will educate you into becoming a knowledgeable consumer. Create a list of questions that cover the information you need in making an informed decision and be aware that you must attempt to control your emotions and the desire to have the process move quickly. Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

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By Diane Loomans, author of 100 Ways to Build Self-Esteem and Teach Values.

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Go With the Flow… Even If It’s ‘Wrong’

Sometimes we think we’re doing our kids a favor when we tell them the “right” way to do something. No, dear… Do it this way.” We think we’re just saving them the hassle of reinventing the wheel, or reiventing something from being “wasted,” or saving time. But our corrections also send unintended, unspoken messages, like…

* The end result is more important than the process.
* Efficiency is more important than joy.
* There is no value in making mistakes.
* Better to go with a “sure thing” than to take risks.

In other words, frequently correcting children undermines their (and our) creativity!

So next time you see your child doing something the “wrong” way, ask yourself if it’s really so bad that
you can’t go along with it. See if you can relax and enjoy witnessing his or her process of discovery.
Children who are allowed to find their own way learn that they *can* find their own way.

The Daily Groove
Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

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“The single most important child rearing practice to be adopted for the development of emotional and social healthy infants and children is to carry the newborn/infant on the body of the mother/caretaker all day long…” – James Prescott, Ph.D.

Every mother who has ever had a baby shower has probably heard someone say, “I wish they had made something like that when I had my babies.” For some reason, it always annoyed me to hear that and I vowed I would never say that to any expectant mother about any new baby gadget. I kept my vow until my first grandchild was born. By then I had done so much research on the importance of carrying babies and the benefits of keeping them in close physical contact, I knew we had to have a sling to carry this baby. I wanted my grandchild to have the holding my own children didn’t get enough of, because I was taught to believe it would spoil them.

I ordered “The New Native” baby carrier from an ad in Mothering. Since we all lived together, I had lots of opportunities to see my daughter “wearing” my granddaughter, and I had lots of opportunity to wear her myself. I was able to learn first-hand what I had read about “babywearing”. She nursed in her sling, and she napped in her sling. She was totally content and I still had both hands free to do whatever I needed to do.

What a win-win: happy baby, happy caregiver. Unless she was hungry and only nursing could meet her need, carrying her in the sling would always make her happy, whether it was Mom or Dad or Grandma doing the carrying. Wearing your baby in a sling completely transforms the experience of parenting an infant.

Now slings could hardly be called “new baby gadgets,” since they have been used in many other cultures around the world for millions for years. However, in North America, they are something new. Whenever one of us was wearing my granddaughter in a public place, people would always stop to ask us about the sling and marvel at this great “new” way of carrying babies. Babies want and need to be “in arms” and they let us know that. A baby crying in a stroller usually becomes content as soon as he or she is picked up and held. I often see parents carrying a baby in one arm and struggling to push an empty stroller with the other!

Contrary to what we have been taught to believe, research shows that babies who are held and carried all the time and get their need for touch well-met in their first year do not become clingy and overly dependent. They cry much less and they grow to become happier, more intelligent, more independent, more loving and more social than babies who spend much of their infancy in infant seats, swings, cribs, and all the other plastic baby-holding gadgets that don’t provide babies with human contact. We had all those baby-holders for my granddaughter and she spent a little time in all of them, but she spent most of her infancy in her sling because she was happiest there, and we loved carrying her and being close to her.

Many new parents buy a sling or receive one as a gift and end up not using it because they can’t figure out how to get themselves and the baby comfortable. I’ve heard parents say they tried a sling once, but the baby didn’t like it so they just never used it again. In other cultures, parents naturally know how to use slings, because as children they grew up seeing slings used, and wearing their siblings in slings. Since slings are new to our culture, anyone just being introduced to using a sling will usually need someone to show them how to get themselves and the baby comfortable. Since I am passionate about the use of baby slings – based on both my research and my personal experience – I often demonstrate the use of slings in my parenting classes. Parents are thrilled when they learn how comfortable and convenient it can be to meet their baby’s needs and still do all the other things they need to do.

Slings are different than front carriers. A sling is like a hammock. From newborn to the sitting-up stage, babies’ spines are best supported in slings because their weight is distributed along the length of the spine. Front carriers that hold the infant upright with their legs hanging down, can stress the spine because they put all the baby’s weight at the base of the spine.

There are many styles and brands of slings. While “The New Native Baby Carrier” is my personal favorite, the best sling is the one you are most comfortable wearing. It is helpful to try several and have someone who is comfortable using each one show you how to use it. If you aren’t comfortable, your baby won’t be either. The two most important things I tell parents about using a sling are: 1) if the baby’s bottom is below your belly button, the sling is too low and your back will hurt; 2) each time you put the baby in the sling, you will need to walk around until the baby settles in. Babies like and need movement.

When we wear/carry a baby, we are providing more than the comfort of the sound of our heartbeat and voice and the touch and warmth of our body. According to research by James Prescott, a developmental neuropsychologist and cross cultural psychologist, “vestibular-cerebellar stimulation (which happens when we carry our babies) is the most important sensory system for the development of “basic trust” in the affectional bonding between mother and infant. It establishes the biological and psychological foundations for all other human relationships.” We have learned that carrying infants is a vital part of nature’s biological plan for mother-infant bonding, and that it is critical to the development of trust, empathy, compassion and conscience. Carrying or wearing an infant in a sling, keeping the infant in constant human contact, and breast feeding on demand are the biological design for optimal physical, intellectual and emotional human development. Research confirms that carrying human infants develops their intelligence and their capacity for trust, affection, intimacy, and love and happiness. Anthropologist Ashley Montagu refers to this carrying stage, or “in arms” period, as the “external gestation period” the infant needs to complete his/her development. There is even a brand of sling called “Womb with A View.”

Recently when I was demonstrating the use of a sling in a parenting workshop, one of the fathers shared the following story. On one of his trips to the island of Haiti, a very distraught father came to the hospital carrying a newborn whose mother had died in childbirth. The father’s biggest concern was “who will carry this baby”. It is unlikely that this baby’s father had read the scientific research on the importance of carrying babies. Yet he knew it was what his baby needed most. The father in my workshop told of his amazement at seeing many children there who had barely enough to eat, few clothes, no shoes, no toys, and yet were some of the happiest children he had ever seen. As babies these children were carried all day long as part of the natural and loving parenting practiced in their culture.

For decades, we have been taught to believe that holding babies too much “spoils” them, even though in much of the rest of the world, babies are and always have been carried or worn in a sling all day until they could walk. In cross-cultural studies of child rearing practices, James Prescott found that the countries that are the least violent are the countries where babies are constantly carried or worn on the body of the mother/caregiver. The United States has the highest rate of crime and violence in the world and it has the lowest number of constantly carried babies in the world. Is there a connection here?

Meeting our infant’s biological need for human contact is not about following a particular parenting philosophy. It is about honoring and adhering to nature’s biological plan for optimum human development. Keeping our infants in almost constant human contact for nine to twelve months may sound like an impossible goal in modern society. Sleeping with our infants provides that contact at night. Holding them or wearing them in a sling will give them more of the human contact they need. Now that research has shown that holding babies does not “spoil” them, but is, in fact, what they need most, we would be wise to listen to our hearts and “hold that baby all the time.”

Pam Leo is a Parent Educator in Gorham, Maine. She has been a student and teacher of human development for more than 25 years. She is a mother, a grandmother, a parent educator, childbirth educator, a doula, a feature writer for Parent & Family, a motivational speaker on parenting and birth, and a sponsor of community education events. Her life work is to “help create a society in which all parents have the information, resources and support to raise children who can realize the promise of their potential.” For more information on attending her workshops or scheduling a workshop for your place of business, contact her at (207) 839-6478.
Pam Leo
Connection Parenting
Optimal Child Development

*** You can purchase baby slings through our adoption shop. ***

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Mother Nature doesn’t aim for mediocre. She imbues every child with HUGE creative potential.

Children are born *knowing* they’re supposed to be BIG — innately powerful, free, and continuously expanding to new horizons.

Today, no matter how physically small your child may be, notice and appreciate his or her BIGness in spirit. That spirit is easy to see when your child
is expressing pure Love and Joy. But it’s no less present when s/he’s “misbehaving.”

In those trying times, remember…
Our children are always doing the best they can to stay connected to their BIGness — in a world that expects them to be small.

http://dailygroove.net/big-spirit

THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove
Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

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1) Father To Son:

• Help him take responsibility for his own behavior. Don’t encourage a “boys will be boys” attitude that excuses selfishness, impulsiveness, and domination.
• Allow him the full range of emotions. Help him learn that real men can be afraid, can hurt, and can cry. Boys need to find safe places to cry where they will not be ridiculed.
•It is important for fathers to model appropriate expressions of anger that do not threaten, control, or hurt anyone else. Anger is a necessary emotion that needs to be expressed with care and consideration of others.
• Encourage him to respect girls and women as equals, rather than objects to be controlled, dominated, or manipulated. Discourage condescending jokes and put-downs. If your son makes a negative comment about women, step in and correct him.
• Help him learn how to be an active ally to females. Role play situations that are most likely to come up and model being a good ally.
• Encourage him to learn negotiating skills. Teach him that compromise is a necessary part of human relationships and is not a sign of weakness or a lack of “backbone.”
• Teach and model that it’s all right for a man to ask for help, support, and healthy affection. Let him know how much you value your friendships and partnerships.
• Teach and model that masculinity is about having moral principles and being a man of character.
• Talk with him about the violence he sees in the world. Help him to understand why people are violent. Discuss ways to respond to the violence we see on TV shows, movies, video games…
• Help him to find friends who are supportive. Let him know that boys who are sarcastic, shaming, and harassing are behaving out of their own weakness.
• Discuss healthy sexuality with him and the importance of being responsible.

2) Father To Daughter:

• Tell her that she is capable and can achieve her goals.
• Listen to her. Encourage her to tell you about her interests, goals, and dreams. •The father who has worked on being a sensitive listener will be the natural person for his daughter to go to when she has questions about boys/men.
• She needs to hear your opinions and feelings about relationships.
• Model positive masculinity; make your family a high priority, keep your promises, and show concern for others.
• Model healthy and respectful behavior toward women.
• Take her shopping and do your best to identify her unique tastes.
• Tell her that she is beautiful inwardly. Point out some specific examples.
• Let your daughter know that you accept and love her for who she is.
• Ask her what she enjoys doing with you and then set up time to do that activity.
• Show your daughter approval and affection. If you don’t she may think that you don’t care or that something is wrong with her.

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