GIFT Giving 2020: What Do Adoption Attuned Parents Choose?

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November features National Adoption Awareness Month (#NAAM).

One thing 2020 has taught us: truly valuable things in life have no price tag. The things that genuinely matter are priceless: family, friends, health, companionship, security. As we observe the holidays, we do well to remember it is not the gifts we purchase but what is in our hearts that matters most.

This holiday season will be unlike any we have known in our lifetimes. 2020 has proven to be a game-changer in innumerable ways and our holidays will certainly be shaped by the pandemic realities. Our connections and celebrations may be mostly digital instead of in-person. Many of us have lost loved ones to the pandemic and their absence will be keenly felt. Still, the core message of the holidays remains unaltered by circumstance, distance, or travail: live by the Golden Rule; seek peace; practice generosity, respect, goodwill, and compassion for others; and be a good neighbor.

As High AQ adoptive parents, we choose to parent with Intention so we commit to an additional tenet: Adoption Attunement. This relationship system honors the complex puzzle of adoption gains and losses. It moves beyond the proverbial “happily ever after story” and advances a more inclusive perspective; adoption creates not a completely benign solution, but one which includes real loss and challenges as well. Parents who embrace Adoption Attunement and commit to developing a high “AQ,” (Adoption Attunement quotient) know that by acknowledging the hard stuff with their kids, they can then become the safe harbor to which their children can turn for support, affirmation, security, and love. This attunement is an invaluable gift.

In the tumult of the holiday frenzy, we intentionally find ways to connect with our children. We know their expectations and emotions run high and deep and we actively engage in ways that support and reassure them.

We share important conversations that address adoption reality— no matter how awkward, uncomfortable, or difficult for us because our children need to know we are the strong shoulders on which they can lean and the source of strength on which they can draw. Such conversations cannot be forced or imposed. Our children simply must be confident that we genuinely welcome these discussions.

Although most adoptions are “open” this is not a binary experience; it is a spectrum of openness, contact, and emotional welcome. Openness is both a way of interacting and it is also a frame of mind as well as a setting of the heart. Such openness cannot be “faked.” It arises from an unconditional love for our kids that recognizes and supports their needs. Our children need to know that we are “all in”, that openness is not a burden or an obligation but an expression of our love and our awareness that openness benefits our children.

Whether their adoption is open or closed, adopted children will surely have thoughts and complex feelings about their first parents. Some children will ruminate more intently and more frequently, others perhaps less so. Parents can respond with open minds and hearts and listen to them without refutation or an effort to minimize or dismiss their words and feelings. Resist any temptation to speak ill of their birth parents. Instead, respond to the emotions our children express— sadness, regret, yearning, anger, etc. Affirm and validate their experience and remember, just like we can have strong emotions about family life that we share with friends, we don’t want our friends to speak ill of our family members. We want them to support us through the challenge of the moment. This is also what our children seek from us. Ultimately, we want to build healthy, inclusive, honest relationships and not to stockpile ammunition for shooting one another down.

Conversations like this don’t “just happen.” We must build a reality-based sense that we want to listen to them, that we are strong enough to hear hard truths, that we love our children enough to support their need for the presence of their first families in their thoughts, hearts, and conversations. We bless our children when we free them of the false belief they must choose between loving and needing us and loving and needing their first families. Meeting our children’s needs in this way builds trust, deepens connection, and nurtures attachment.

This is joy. This is grace. This is unconditional love. This is Adoption Attunement.