Recipe for a Happy Family

As the yeasty scent of homemade bread baking in my oven filled my kitchen the other day, I had a thought. Wouldn’t it be great if success at parenting were as simple as following a recipe, of carefully assembling ingredients, and precise measuring? Attention to the details would ensure consistent, excellent results every time, just add love and bake. Easy peasy. Nothing left to chance. Crises and heartaches consistently avoided.

Of course, that wishful thinking is far from reality, Family life is grounded in unexpected forces, imprecision and challenges, and, most significantly, with fallible, imperfect human beings. And, each one contributes their own ideas, emotions, goals, motivations, and complications.

So if family life isn’t as clear cut as a recipe, perhaps a different metaphor might serve, one that resonates with our concept of Adoption Attunement. Let’s focus on the “tune” in Attunement. Our families share some commonalities with great symphonies. Consider the various instruments in an orchestra. Each contributes its unique sound. Each one matters.

Similarly, every family member has their own voice to contribute. Sometimes one voice has center stage and all attention is on that one. The others alternatively support, respond, dominate, conflict, and harmonize. A family, like a symphony, is a joint effort. Unlike a symphony, however, the family doesn’t follow a predetermined score. Regardless of how hard we might wish for that clarity, control, and predictability. Families are all about improvisation, responding in the moment, attuning to each other, and trusting that in the end, it will all work out.

Let’s circle back to the concept of Adoption Attunement. The intent of this approach is to put adoptees at the hub. Adoption Attunement lifts up adoptees, not the institution of adoption. It also reminds us parents that we must do our own work and handle our own emotional baggage so that it does not spill over to burden our children. After all, their plates are quite full handling the complex realities of being adopted.

All human beings have a need for attunement, to feel that they are seen and heard as their genuine selves not merely as fulfillments of others’ expectations of them. Internationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Steven Porges believes that attunement builds a context of safety that frees people to “love without fear.” Dr. Daniel Siegel asserts that interpersonal attunement is “crucial for people in relationships to feel vibrant and alive, to feel understood, and to feel at peace.”[1]

This aligns with our aspiration to coach adoptive families on how to build families in which their members love without fear, without restraint, without judgment.

Adoption Attunement acknowledges that adoptive families need an enhanced level of attunement, one that acknowledges the multi-faceted relationship challenges. These challenges complicate the effort to weave together the adoptive family. This is where intentionality and preparation serve adoptive parents. Adoption Attunement reflects a mindset that includes adoption competence and also transcends it.

To explore Adoption Attunement even more, read these other blogs from our archives:

Intentional Parenting, Adoption Attunement and Taking a Stand,

What Matters for Adoptive Families: the Tuning in Part of Adoption Attunement