I have just returned from a trip shared with my daughter and a good friend whom I’ve known for 48 years. We enjoyed many sights, experiences, and delicious meals. Yet, I think being together was what we all valued most because, after all, it is our relationships that make life meaningful. Relationships support us in turbulent times, amplify good times, and provide compassionate witness of the day-to-day journeys of our lives. It is a privilege and a pleasure to be able to carve out the time to be together, free of the distractions and responsibilities of our daily lives and simply enjoy each other’s company. What a blessing!
What has this got to do with adoption?
My daughter is mine through adoption and my friend’s spouse was an adoptee. We’ve all seen and felt—from different angles—how adoption presses and pulls, stresses and sometimes strengthens relationships. Adoption is an ever-present force that has settled in our hearts, minds, and bodies. Occasionally, we are completely aware of its impact while at other times, the effect is more subtle. Still, adoption is always present—very influential and very real to us. Yet the complicated impact of adoption is so often invisible to, or deemed irrelevant or non-existent by others. They not only don’t understand or see the grief and loss, they deny it.
Not our imagination
Those of us in the adoption constellation know that our experience of grief and loss is not something we invented to garner attention. It is not a rare, one-off experience. All members of the adoption constellation experience it profoundly. We know it is real. Very real. Some of us learn to deal with it. Some of us stuff the grief and pretend it does not matter. And some of us are crushed by it.
What helps us deal with adoption connected grief?
Education gives us the language and insight to define, delimit, and understand the adoption-connected feelings and struggles that we face. Education also reveals that we are not the only ones feeling these complex emotions. Other adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents do as well. It’s a logical response to the adoption experience. Most of us find that we need support. Ideally, we secure help from Adoption Attuned, adoption-competent professionals—therapists and coaches who help us navigate life as part of the adoption constellation.
Boundaries
It is necessary to be intentional about who, what and when we share our grief and other adoption-connected challenges. As Robert Frost wrote so eloquently in his famous poem, The Mending Wall, “Good fences make good neighbors.” In adoption-based relationships, good fences (boundaries) help to ensure healthy relationships. Fences define a perimeter. They determine who can enter and who cannot. Similarly, relationship boundaries establish a barrier that either invites or shuts out people, conversations, experiences, and relationships.
Relationship Gates
To avoid complete and permanent isolation, we make decisions about access to our inner selves—ones which we control. We create metaphorical gates that we operate and which we reassess on a moment-by-moment, event-by-event basis. Trust, respect, and safety are the keys which unlock the boundary gates, encourage interactions, and support healthy relationships. On the other hand, the absence of trust, respect, and safety tell us it is time to lock the gates tightly.
Growing Intentional Families Together encourages the TriSpective Approach, simultaneously holding each triad members’ perspective when dealing with adoption’s impacts. Coupled with Growing’s Tri-Relational Interconnectivity that acknowledges constellation members’ experiences of the impact of adoption both as individuals AND as an interconnected unit, is a powerful antidote to any adoption-related issues.
Adoption Attunement
Growing Intentional Families Together talks about this concept constantly. Adoption Attunement defines our approach to adoptive parenting, our approach to coaching the adoption constellation, as well as the methods we use to train adoption competent coaches. Adoption Attunement is based on 19 elements. (* See the list at the end of this blog.) Parents and coaches who master these elements develop a High AQ!
Each month in our vlog and podcast we spotlight a different element. Our AQ Element this month is #6: Acknowledge the grief and loss issues of all adoption constellation members.
Acknowledging reality
We began this blog by stipulating that all constellation members experience adoption-connected grief. It’s also beneficial to understand that we experience this grief as individuals AND as an interconnected unit. What impacts one of us, affects all of us. That’s the essence of Tri-Relational Interconnectivity!
A commitment to truth telling and truth seeking serves us well. We rightfully yearn for our own grief and loss to be affirmed. When we can also recognize and respect the grief and loss of our entire triad, we go a long way towards healing and achieving peace of mind and heart.
Questions to Consider
- How has awareness of adoption-connected grief created insight and avenues for self-understanding and healing?
- How has awareness of the grief of other triad members facilitated empathy and connection?
Elements of Adoption Attunement (AQ)
- Operate with an adoptee centric focus.
- Recognize the Seven Core Issues in Adoption.
- Understand the Attachment process
- Use respectful adoption language.
- Talk about all aspects of adoption
- Acknowledge the grief and loss issues of all adoption constellation members.
- Parents address their own issues
- Respect birth parents and first families.
- Follow ethical practices.
- Recognize adoption is a family experience
- Honor a child’s need to know and connect with their birth family.
- Integrate a child’s birth heritage.
- Remember a child’s story belongs to them.
- Model, teach, and hold healthy boundaries.
- Use Adoption Attuned discipline methods.
- Educate family, friends, teachers, and faith communities about adoption.
- Nurture and value a child’s innate talents and encourage them to be themselves.
- Encourage playfulness and good humor as a family value.
- Adoptive parenting differs from bio parenting and includes unique responsibilities and challenges.
- I have just returned from a trip shared with my daughter and a good friend whom I’ve known for 48 years. We enjoyed many sights, experiences, and delicious meals. Yet, I think being together was what we all valued most because, after all, it is our relationships that make life meaningful. Relationships support us in turbulent times, amplify good times, and provide compassionate witness of the day-to-day journeys of our lives. It is a privilege and a pleasure to be able to carve out the time to be together, free of the distractions and responsibilities of our daily lives and simply enjoy each other’s company. What a blessing!
What has this got to do with adoption?
My daughter is mine through adoption and my friend’s spouse was an adoptee. We’ve all seen and felt—from different angles—how adoption presses and pulls, stresses and sometimes strengthens relationships. Adoption is an ever-present force that has settled in our hearts, minds, and bodies. Occasionally, we are completely aware of its impact while at other times, the effect is more subtle. Still, adoption is always present—very influential and very real to us. Yet the complicated impact of adoption is so often invisible to, or deemed irrelevant or non-existent by others. They not only don’t understand or see the grief and loss, they deny it.
Not our imagination
Those of us in the adoption constellation know that our experience of grief and loss is not something we invented to garner attention. It is not a rare, one-off experience. All members of the adoption constellation experience it profoundly. We know it is real. Very real. Some of us learn to deal with it. Some of us stuff the grief and pretend it does not matter. And some of us are crushed by it.
What helps us deal with adoption connected grief?
Education gives us the language and insight to define, delimit, and understand the adoption-connected feelings and struggles that we face. Education also reveals that we are not the only ones feeling these complex emotions. Other adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents do as well. It’s a logical response to the adoption experience. Most of us find that we need support. Ideally, we secure help from Adoption Attuned, adoption-competent professionals—therapists and coaches who help us navigate life as part of the adoption constellation.
Boundaries
It is necessary to be intentional about who, what and when we share our grief and other adoption-connected challenges. As Robert Frost wrote so eloquently in his famous poem, The Mending Wall, “Good fences make good neighbors.” In adoption-based relationships, good fences (boundaries) help to ensure healthy relationships. Fences define a perimeter. They determine who can enter and who cannot. Similarly, relationship boundaries establish a barrier that either invites or shuts out people, conversations, experiences, and relationships.
Relationship Gates
To avoid complete and permanent isolation, we make decisions about access to our inner selves—ones which we control. We create metaphorical gates that we operate and which we reassess on a moment-by-moment, event-by-event basis. Trust, respect, and safety are the keys which unlock the boundary gates, encourage interactions, and support healthy relationships. On the other hand, the absence of trust, respect, and safety tell us it is time to lock the gates tightly.
Growing Intentional Families Together encourages the TriSpective Approach, simultaneously holding each triad members’ perspective when dealing with adoption’s impacts. Coupled with Growing’s Tri-Relational Interconnectivity that acknowledges constellation members’ experiences of the impact of adoption both as individuals AND as an interconnected unit, is a powerful antidote to any adoption-related issues.
Adoption Attunement
Growing Intentional Families Together talks about this concept constantly. Adoption Attunement defines our approach to adoptive parenting, our approach to coaching the adoption constellation, as well as the methods we use to train adoption competent coaches. Adoption Attunement is based on 19 elements. (* See the list at the end of this blog.) Parents and coaches who master these elements develop a High AQ!
Each month in our vlog and podcast we spotlight a different element. Our AQ Element this month is #6: Acknowledge the grief and loss issues of all adoption constellation members.
Acknowledging reality
We began this blog by stipulating that all constellation members experience adoption-connected grief. It’s also beneficial to understand that we experience this grief as individuals AND as an interconnected unit. What impacts one of us, affects all of us. That’s the essence of Tri-Relational Interconnectivity!
A commitment to truth telling and truth seeking serves us well. We rightfully yearn for our own grief and loss to be affirmed. When we can also recognize and respect the grief and loss of our entire triad, we go a long way towards healing and achieving peace of mind and heart.
Questions to Consider
- How has awareness of adoption-connected grief created insight and avenues for self-understanding and healing?
- How has awareness of the grief of other triad members facilitated empathy and connection?
Elements of Adoption Attunement (AQ)
- Operate with an adoptee centric focus.
- Recognize the Seven Core Issues in Adoption.
- Understand the Attachment process
- Use respectful adoption language.
- Talk about all aspects of adoption
- Acknowledge the grief and loss issues of all adoption constellation members.
- Parents address their own issues
- Respect birth parents and first families.
- Follow ethical practices.
- Recognize adoption is a family experience
- Honor a child’s need to know and connect with their birth family.
- Integrate a child’s birth heritage.
- Remember a child’s story belongs to them.
- Model, teach, and hold healthy boundaries.
- Use Adoption Attuned discipline methods.
- Educate family, friends, teachers, and faith communities about adoption.
- Nurture and value a child’s innate talents and encourage them to be themselves.
- Encourage playfulness and good humor as a family value.
- Adoptive parenting differs from bio parenting and includes unique responsibilities and challenges.
- _________________________________________Listen to our podcasts: Adoption Matters: Real People. Real Life. Real Talk and
Essentials of Adoption Attuned Parenting
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