Midwest Adoption Center

All Families Need A Little Extra Help From Time To Time

Article #1

Article #2

Sibling Rivalry

Article #1

All Families Need A Little Extra Help From Time To Time

Adoptive families may be somewhat reluctant to seek professional help and guidance concerning adoption related issues. This article describes typical situations that adoptive couples face before and after placement and ways in which a professional might be helpful. These vignettes were gathered from clinical work at the Center.

Vignette #1

Susan and Steve R. are in their late 30's, happily married for five years. Both of them are bright, engaging and quite articulate. Professionally, each is in a field that requires scientific investigation and analytic thinking. As a couple, it is clear that each deeply respects and values the other. They began trying to conceive three years ago, and now believe they are at end of their fertility work. They are left with little hope of conceiving a child and are confused about whether or not adoption is a good choice for them. When asked what they hoped to learn from the consultation, they stated that they wanted help in making a decision about adopting, "we want a third perspective".

While Susan describes her family as warm, nurturing, and "pretty normal", Steve remembers his as "the typical dysfunctional family". Steve's negative memories include serious problems concerning the family finances, retardation in a sibling, a father who was cold, harsh and unavailable, and the divorce of his parents. This is Steve's second marriage, the first ending when his wife had an affair and became pregnant with his best friend. Susan and Steve are financially secure and as Steve described , "we are living in the manner I had only dreamed for myself before". They enjoy similar activities and have created a friendship network in their community and workplaces.

Like many competent couples facing tough emotional issues, Susan and Steve felt frozen, unable to make a decision. They needed a professional's guidance to remind them of the decision-making skills they already possessed and to provide an organized way to look at the problem, identify the issues, and come to a decision that was right for them.

Although the Rs were usually able to honestly share their feelings, this issue was just too emotionally laden to allow for honest, open communication. Rather than risk the pain, each had unconsciously chosen to remain silent. Hence, no useful dialogue had taken place.

Using a worksheet developed at the Center, the couple began this difficult process. Steve identified fears of "parenting like my Dad", leftover feelings from his first marriage, and concerns about not being able to manage financially. Susan recognized her intense desire to "have a baby" and her fear that Steve did not and perhaps could not understand how important this was for her.

As with so many other things in life, understanding your fear, confronting it, and putting it into words can make it more manageable. A copy of the "Fears Worksheet" has been included in this article. Couples facing difficult issues such as talking to their child about adoption or sharing difficult birth information may find also this outline helpful.

Vignette #2

Bonnie called asking for help two weeks after placement. She and her husband, Don, had one biological daughter, Lindsey, but due to genetic complications discovered at her birth, a decision was made to adopt a second child. The newly placed infant, according to her mother, Laura, was beautiful and "perfect in every way". Bonnie was clear, "the problem is the Mom, me." "I'm too old to do this, this baby would probably be better off with her birth family," she continued. "What's more, I'm not going to have the patience I did with Lindsey, she (the baby) deserves more, a better Mom," Bonnie said.

Bonnie and Don had been happily married for seven years. This was the first marriage for Bonnie and the second for Don. A child from Don's previous marriage, Marsha, spent summers and vacations with the D. family. To further complicate the family dynamics, Marsha's mother was experiencing serious problems in her life and relied on her daughter, to be her friend and emotional support. Marsha's mother's feelings of jealousy concerning Don's second marriage influenced her behavior and she was unable to be supportive of Marsha's connection to her father and step-mother.

The Ds are delightful parents, enthusiastic and full of fun. Highly motivated, they are educated about adoption issues and became active in support group meetings offered by their agency. Prior to Lindsey's placement, they had been involved in eight failed adoptions. Bonnie had varying degrees of direct contact with all of the birth mothers prior to delivery. An empathic and caring woman, Bonnie came to care about each birth mother. For one reason or another, each chose to parent. While understanding and recognizing the birth mother's right to choose, as a couple they were "done" and before getting the call from the agency, had put away the crib and decided "it would never happen".

Although the Ds were clear about the degree of openness they were comfortable with, the plan changed when Laura's birth mother suddenly asked for direct monthly contact for one year after placement. The Ds agreed.

Our first meeting at the Center included Bonnie and the infant, Laura. Observing Bonnie, it was easy to see that she was not too old to parent again. In fact, her vitality shone through her depression loud and clear. The question, of course, was not, "Am I too old to do this?" but rather, "What feelings are getting in the way of me doing this and doing it well?"

Helping Bonnie and Don get back on track involved looking at what had come before; grieving the losses of those babies, feeling the pain of the birth mothers, and in the process, allowing Bonnie to feel entitled to love and care for Laura. All adoptive parents struggle with entitlement issues. Parents ask themselves if they have a "right" or a "claim" to the child. For the Ds, their entitlement issues were generalized to all of the children they imagined parenting and the knowledge of the birth mothers' pain around relinquishment. Thinking in those terms, its understandable that Bonnie would feel uneasy about what was expected of her.

The Ds began to process their losses, slowly emerging from the pain and moving towards recovery. Identifying the issues helped Bonnie to recognize her feelings as normal, given the circumstances. With this new point of view, her self-esteem, self-confidence, and energy began to grow.

The Ds anger, at themselves and the birth family concerning the plan for face-to-face monthly contact continued. Bonnie and Don confronted their anger and then developed a plan to help them "get through" what they had agreed to do. While recognizing their responsibility to live up to their word, visiting never got easier. With time and the support of friends and professionals they were able to understand the birth family's needs and eventually came to believe that what they were doing, while difficult, would be a unique part of their child's story.

Bonnie also got in touch with her special sensitivities around parenting a child for whom she did not give birth. As is the case for many women, Bonnie was already feeling as though she was parenting a child of another mother. Cast in the role of stepmother to Marsha, Bonnie felt watched and criticized by "the other mother". Again, recognizing the problem was the first step to understanding the intensity of feelings and the beginning path towards change.

While parenting an adopted child is, for the most part, the same as parenting any other child, adoptive parents do face some unique challenges. Steve and Susan, and Bonnie and Don are typical folks, struggling with special issues of adoptive families. What distinguishes them is that they recognized a problem and sought professional help. I encourage you to remember that from time to time each of us needs professional help, an outside perspective. Remember, children need parents who encourage them and model for them that the best way to live is to meet life head on, to be ready to manage what's real, rather than looking the other way, being secretive, or pretending something isn't or didn't really happen.

Nancy Golden, LCSW

Co-director, Midwest Adoption Center

All Families Need A Little Extra Help From Time To Time

article #2

Have you ever used an accountant to do your taxes? How about engaging an attorney to represent you in court? When you have a shooting pain in your back, have you sought relief from a chiropractor? What about a plumber to fix the leak under the kitchen sink or a clogged drain?

You might have been able to successfully struggle through your complicated tax returns without creating a pen-pal relationship with the IRS. If you devoted a great deal of time to educating yourself sufficiently, you might have been able to navigate the court system on your own. Maybe with enough begging and elaborate instructions such as "up a little" or "over to the right" and "not so hard," your spouse might have rubbed your back long enough so there was some temporary relief. There is even an outside chance that you could have muddled through the "how to fix-it" books available at your local library long enough to make the drip stop or the drain work. But instead, most likely, you decided to find a professional, a person with expertise, to help you figure out what was going on and to work with you to solve the problem.

At first glance, it seems natural for adoptive parents to use the expertise of an adoption therapist when they need help understanding what is going on in their family. But that is just not the case. Rather, families are struggling alone, often allowing a situation that began as something relatively minor, to escalate into a family problem of a greater magnitude.

Organizing my thoughts in preparation for this article, I naturally began to think about many of the adoptive parents and their children I have met and/or worked with over the last ten years. Couples struggling to adopt within the agency system and those involved in private adoptions or agency assisted private adoptions. Adoptive families who thought they "knew it all," at least until their child challenged them in a way that pushed that special button or touched a very, very sensitive nerve. Children searching to understand what it means to be adopted. Confused grandparents, angry birthparents, anxious adoptive parents, struggling adoptees---all trying to figure out what was going on, both in their heads and in their hearts.

In many ways, adoptive parents are certainly just like folks whose children come into their family through birth. But there are also some important differences. One of these differences is that adoptive parents are sort of "set up" to feel as though they have to be perfect parents and perfect partners. This set-up often begins during the home study process. Families may feel judged by the agency. Couples must demonstrate that they are stable, able, flexible, financially secure, open-minded, excellent communicators, in touch with their feelings, able to maintain good relationships with extended family, able to grieve, able to accept, able to forgive. The list goes on and on.

More and more, prospective adoptive couples also feel that they must stand and be judged by the birthparents. Will they pick me? Am I good enough? How should I act? What should I say? Will we be rejected? Should we really be chosen? This is tough emotional work. It's not difficult to recognize the unusual circumstances that perspective adoptive couples find themselves in.

After working so hard to prove they can do this, adoptive parents are often reluctant to ask for help along the way. Parents wonder whether or not they really are "good enough parents," or if it would be different if they were younger, or read more books or perhaps read fewer books. Maybe in the quiet of night you have wondered if this is really a good fit, or if the birth mother and her family might truly have done a better job.

Adoptive parents wonder what to do when their child doesn't look like anyone in their family. They are puzzled about how to handle a situation when physical appearances are strikingly similar, and ways to respond to remarks such as "You look just like your Dad with those freckles and that red hair". What is going on when your child says, "You are not my real parents"? How can you help him when peers ask, "why didn't your real parents keep you?"

Families have a variety of resources to turn to for help. Educating yourselves through reading and attending conferences are excellent ways to answer many of the questions adoptive families face. Joining adoptive family organizations such as CAFFA, AFT, Stars of David, or other local area groups is also useful. Being connected with others that are meeting the same challenges provides a natural forum for learning. The recognition that our problems are not so different is very, very comforting.

Other problems and family situations are best understood and resolved by working with a professional whose special expertise is in adoption related issues. Read more about how a professional might be able to help in the other article on this site.

Nancy Golden, LCSW

Co-director, Midwest Adoption Center

Sibling Rivalry

Part I

This is the first in a series of articles on sibling rivalry. While rivalry between sibs occurs in all families, I will give special consideration to issues of rivalry within adoptive families. Let’s beginning with the results of an interesting survey completed by families at parent.com and a working definition of sibling rivalry.

If your home sounds more like a battlefront than a park, you might be interested in the statistics cited by author Mary Ebejer, in her article,

“Is Sibling Rivalry Just Another Name for LOVE”. This author cites a recent poll taken at parent.com and includes the following statistics:

one-third of parents reported that the relationship between their children “shifts between truce and war”.
seven percent described their children as “the worst enemies”
twenty-five percent admitted that relationships “occasionally get mean-spirited”.
only one-third reported that their children were best friends.

Readers who are currently parenting more than one child will probably not be surprised by these numbers. Indeed, the literature is filled with research and anecdotal accounts of the dramatic changes that occur when a new baby joins the family. Each child brings his/her own unique set of likes and dislikes and rivalries are bound to develop based on the children’s individual temperaments and interests. Still, I think it would be fair to say that when adding a child/ren to the already existing family, adoptive families face challenges that those formed by birth do not. But you already knew that, right?

Sibling rivalry is certainly nothing new. In fact, sibling rivalry is one of humanity's oldest problems. One of the first stories in the Bible (the oldest book in Western civilization) deals with the rivalry between two brothers, Cain and Abel. The older brother, Cain, was irritated at constantly having to help take care of his younger brother, Abel, and kept asking his parents: "Am I my brother's keeper?" The story of these two brothers has a tragic ending; Cain becomes so angry that he kills Abel (and this, according to the Bible, was the first murder in history). And while I am not worried that one of your children will kill his sib, the impact of sibling rivalry, for both the victim, the victimizer, and those who play both roles, can influence personality development and reverberate throughout our lives.

By "sibling rivalry" I mean the antagonism or hostility between brothers and/or sisters that plays itself out in the common fights that are unfortunately all too familiar. The fighting may be verbal or physical or a combination of both. Children fight over things big and small. What we need to figure out is what is behind or driving the ongoing and/or intense fight for the biggest cookie or sitting in the front seat, or getting to choose the book to read before bed…the list goes on and on.

It isn't difficult to find the root cause of sibling rivalry. Nature offers us many similar examples. The problem is basically one of competition for limited or scarce resources. In nature, the competition is usually for food; whenever there are two individuals or species that consume the same type of food in the same area (or habitat) they will fight with each other until one of them manages to kill or drive the other out, leaving the winner with the exclusive use of the food resources available in that area.

In nature there are some extreme cases of sibling rivalry. Baby sharks develop within the mother shark's womb and the biggest baby shark devours his brothers and sisters, ensuring for himself all of the available food resources.

In another example, eagles make their nests at great heights, in mountains or trees. The first baby eaglet that is born kills all of his sibling eaglets by pushing them out from the nest as they come out of their eggs. That way all the food that the mother eagle brings will be only for him.

A similar competition exists between siblings in human families. However, here the scarce resources are of a different nature. Our children compete for the TIME, ATTENTION, LOVE and APPROVAL that the parents have to give. Next month’s article will focus on helping you get in touch with the feelings children experience in their rivalries with sibs. I will also offer an experiential activity to help you get in touch with how your child might be feelings.

CAFFA NEWSLETTER

Nancy Golden

Published in July/August 2002Newsletter

Sibling Rivalry

Part II

This is the second in a series of articles on sibling rivalry. The first article described the results of a poll taken at parent.com regarding the relationship between the siblings. Not surprisingly, one-third of the respondents reported that the relationship between their children “shifts between truce and war”. These statistics hint at the inherent struggles between children within a family. Children compete for their parents’ time attention, love and approval.

Looking at this situation in very simple terms, if the parents have only a certain limited amount of exclusive (one-on-one) time to give to ALL their children, it is easy to see that if there is only ONE child in that family, ALL of the parents' available time will be for that only child; if there are TWO children in the family, then each child can have HALF of the parents' time; if there are THREE children, then each child gets a THIRD; and so on. But of course, sibling rivalry is much more complex than a simple division of parental time.

A good place to begin is by identifying the feelings fueling these behaviors. The focus of this month’s article is helping you, the parent, better understand and get in touch with the feelings the sibs in your family may be experiencing. To that end, I encourage you to participate in a little exercise to help you get in touch with how your child might be feeling. I believe that good parenting requires the development of empathy. Empathic parenting requires you to strive to understand how your child might be feeling about something or someone. An excellent way to develop empathy is to imagine how you would feel in a similar situation. So let’s try it.

Imagine yourself at work; choose a past or present job you have held, preferably one in which your role and function was similar to that of many other workers.

If you haven’t held such a job, imagine yourself as a first-time secretary in a pool of secretaries. You have been working at this job for about 6 months and while you enjoy the work, you are unsure of your competency level. You have tried to establish a good rapport with your boss but sometimes you feel unsure about the viability of your future with this company. The economy is shaky and during the last six months business has not been good.

You arrive at work as usual on Monday morning, and to your amazement, there is a new worker sharing the workspace that was previously all yours. Of course you do remember your boss casually mentioning hiring additional staff, but somehow, until the person showed up for work, it wasn’t real.

Your boss asks you to show him/her around and “teach him the ropes”. Naturally your work suffers as much of your time is spent acclimating the new worker. Over lunch he tells you about his previous work experience and you realize that he is much more qualified than you! You begin to worry, big time, about what all of this means. After lunch, as you do your work, it’s apparent that he types faster and knows much more about the computer than you. What’s more, he has the nerve to offer assistance to you whenever you might need it.

And to top it all off, he seems really nice. Over the next few days, your boss spends a lot of time with the new worker. They even have lunch together. The new worker asks you to join them, but you decline.

Friday afternoon, you make several personal calls between work assignments and feel as though the “new guy” is watching you, that he disapproves, and may talk to the boss about it.

During your weekly one-on-one meeting with your boss, you are told that you need to work more efficiently and that others have mentioned a deterioration in your attitude since the new worker came on board. Your boss’s last remarks to you are, “I expect your attitude to improve or we will need to be making some changes around here. We’ll talk again next week”.

Stay within the experience I have described. Put down this article, close your eyes and be that secretary.

Think about how the scenario of adding a new worker might have been handled differently and how that might have helped you.

Try to be the first worker, put your self in his position.

Imagine what would have helped.

Open your eyes and return your attention to the room. Make a list of feelings you experienced.

See how your list compares to the one that follows.

Camaraderie

Friendship

A sense of competence and incompetence

Fear

Anger

Resentment

Feelings of exclusion

Feeling as though you were being used, both by boss and new worker

Worry about the future

Hope that it will be ok

Competitive

Excited

Challenged (positively and negatively)

Now, make a list of the ways the boss in this exercise could have handled the very same situation in a different manner. Review my list below and if you notice actions you hadn’t considered, think about adding that to your list.

Preparation

Consideration of space issues

Honest communication

Activities of inclusion and relaxed fun

How have you handled or planned on handling adding a new child to your family or dealing with sibling issues. Hopefully this experiential activity helped put you in touch with some of the thoughts and feelings that fuel sibling rivalries

CAFFA NEWSLETTER

Nancy Golden

For September Newsletter

Sibling Rivalry

Part III

This is the third in a series of articles about sibling rivalry. The special issues of sibling rivalry within adoptive families will also be addressed. This month’s column will highlight specific activities, techniques and ways of communicating with your children that help reduce sibling rivalry.

In my work with adoptive parents, I emphasize the importance of taking a significant amount of time to help the existing child/ren prepare for a new child’s entry into the family. Everyone adjusts better to change when we approach the new situation with clear expectations. Be concrete with your children. That means talk in practical terms about how things will be. Remember, children are egocentric, they see themselves as the center of the universe and will need your help to prepare to share “center stage” with a sib. The following suggestions are offered to help your child understand that the addition of a new sib will not devalue him/her in any way.

· Help your child understand that some things will change and others will not.

· Teach your child that he will be valued and special exactly as he is now.

· Assure him again and again that your love for him will never change.

· Use examples, talk about other families in which a new child has recently been added.

Preparing your child by helping him understand the role of the older child will also reduce sibling rivalry. When children can picture themselves in important new roles, their concerns about displacement are reduced.

· When the family is anticipating the arrival of a new baby or a second, younger child, parents can begin to talk with the existing child about how important his help will be in caring for the new baby/child.

· Give examples of being mommy’s helper; feeding and holding the new child, teaching him things that he has known for a long time, taking him on walks, etc.

· Help him feel important.

Prepare your child by teaching him about double dip feelings. Each of us experiences this double dipping. Double dip feelings occur when we have very different kinds of feelings, about the very same person or event. One family shared a story of the arrival of their second child from another country. The whole family went to the airport several times anticipating the newest member’s arrival, but for some reason the child was either not on that plane or the plane was delayed several days or some such thing. Much to the parent’s surprise and delight, their first child appeared absolutely jubilant after these airport excursions. What they later learned from grandma was that their son was so delighted because each time he thought the new child had arrived and then gotten on another plane to go to a different family!

· Help your child understand that it is perfectly normal to love his new little brother one minute and wish he went back to the hospital or the foster family or the airplane the next.

· Remember that examples help children understand our words on a deeper level. Use examples from your family or church or neighborhood or community.

· Talk about how Johnny sometimes has a hard time since his new sister came. Explain that’s because sometimes Johnny wants to do big boy things now, just like he did before his sister came, but sometimes he wants to be baby.

· Talk about how sometimes Johnny feels loving and protective, like the big brother, but sometimes he feels jealous.

· Emphasize that that’s normal and ok and he can come and tell you about his feelings and you will take him in your lap and listen and not get mad.

Next month’s article will offer other ways to reduce sibling rivalries. A bibliography will also be included.

CAFFA NEWSLETTER

Nancy Golden

For October Newsletter

Sibling Rivalry

Part 4

This is the fourth in a series of articles on sibling rivalry. Previous articles in this series described the nature of sibling rivalry. Feelings which fuel the behaviors that often emerge when children fight for their parents’ love and attention were also discussed. Last month’s article highlighted specific activities, techniques and ways of communicating with your children that reduce sibling rivalry. This month’s column offers more ways to enhance sibling relationships.

Parents can reduce potential rivalries by carefully considering the age of the child and the best times to add a child to the family.

· When possible, try to avoid having more than one child needing the same kind of care and attention at one time.

· Recognize the implications of adding an infant to the family when the older child is still very young. Realize that the first child does not yet have the capacity to understand the parents' explanations with respect to the efforts needed for the care of the new baby. A child that is still too young will not be able to understand and respond to the new baby's arrival in a reasoned manner. Rather, the first child will tend to respond in a purely emotionally negative manner.

Parents can reduce rivalry by giving each child their protected turf.

· All family members need a special place of their very own.

· Allowing the older child “his space” demonstrates your respect and interest in his feelings.

Parents can build empathy by talking about feelings and teaching and modeling the steps involved in conflict resolution. Validate and normalize your children’s feelings.

· When an incident happens, validate your child’s feelings. For example, someone’s toy gets broken.

· Do not deny your child’s feeling statement by saying, “You don’t hate your sister.

· Normalize feelings by teaching your child that the feelings they are having are normal. Use examples.

· When a child says, “I hate you, I hate you”, a validating response would be, “It looks like you are feeling very angry now and I don’t blame you. Your favorite truck is broken and you didn’t do it. I bet you are plenty mad.”

· Use every day events to point out situations in which people have different feelings and work out their differences.

· Use TV, movies, books and everyday life as examples.

Parents can enhance positive interactions by planning frequent family activities with all of their children.

Try all kinds of team-building activities.
Some examples might include simple board games, baking as a family, family outings, and jigsaw puzzles or growing a children’s garden.
Avoid games and contests in which one of the children “wins” and the others “lose”.
Look for activities and hobbies in which everyone “wins” if they cooperate with one another.

Above all, parents need to spend time with each one of the children. Maintaining special connections with each child is essential.

· Schedule regular dates and/or one-on-one time.

Nancy Golden

Co-director Midwest Adoption Center