National Adoption Week: The Journey (Part 2)

Earlier this week I posted about our the first part of the adoption process. As National Adoption Week draws to a close the Adoption Journey continues...

So, we'd been moved onto stage 2 of the Adoption process, but what does that mean? It meant that we'd passed the initial assessment process and would be moving onto assessment by an adoption panel to be approved by our adoption agency as an approved adopter.

While Stage 1 is intrusive, Stage 2 is gut-wrenching. You are visited by your social worker regularly and talk through all of the things you'd written about yourself during Stage 1. All of the feelings and emotions that were raked over during Stage 1 are dug up again and inspected with a magnifying glass. The reason for this is because our social worker was identifying any weaknesses in our approval and wanted to get them straight in his head so that he could answer any inquiries the panel may have regarding our suitability. 

Understanding why he was doing this doesn't make it any easier for someone to list all of the things about our adoption application that he thought wasn't up to scratch. The fact that the Mrs didn't speak to her dad was seen as a weakness and the fact I had been divorced was seen as a weakness. Going through all of this again really and truly hurt.

After a fair few meetings our social worker told us that we were ready and that we had been booked in for panel and it was booked in the head office of our adoption agency, about an hours drive from our house. We decided that rather than travelling over on the day we would book a cheap hotel and stay the night so that we were at least in the city on the morning of panel and didn't have to worry too much about traffic.

I don't think either of us got very much sleep that night, there were far too many thoughts racing around our heads. We had a meal together and a quiet drink in the hotel bar and stared at the ceiling for the rest of the night. 

We arrived at the adoption agency's office on time and met our social worker there. He told us that he had already spoken to the panel and they had some questions for us. One of them was about our weight. This wasn't the time that we wanted this particular issue raising it's head again. However, we simply said that we understood healthy eating and would promote that with any children that were placed with us.

Our social worker was called into panel and the longest fifteen minutes of my life (until the next panel!) began. The feeling of helplessness was absolute knowing that a room full of strangers were discussing our suitability to be parents without any input from us. I was nearly sick a few times.

Then  the door to the panel room opened and the our social worker came into our waiting room with the chairperson of the panel who introduced himself and gave us a couple of questions to answer when we were called into panel. He shook our hands and then left again whilst we discussed our answers.

The first question was easy. What support could we offer a child who was placed with us. We decided to talk about our calmness and our patience and our belief in therapeutic parenting. The second question knocked me for six. As I was going to be the primary carer while the Mrs went back to work they wanted to know how I (as a man) would cope with the children when they were having a bad day! The answer, of course, was exactly the same way the Mrs would cope, which in a roundabout and polite way is what I told them when I got in there.

And so they called us in, 12 people sat around a table, suspiciously like a jury of our peers. They asked their questions and we gave our answers and we were asked to wait again.

After what seemed like an age the panel room door opened and the chairperson was on his way back again with our social worker in tow. Hidden behind the chairperson our social worker gave us a thumbs up.

I still didn't believe it was true until the chairperson said it. And it was unanimous!

We'd been approved as adopters. Now we had to find our family.

National Adoption Week: The Journey (Part 1)

This week is National Adoption Week and over the course of this week I will be blogging about our adoption journey. If I can help to give one child a happy, loving home then it will be worthwhile, so I would appreciate it if you could reblog this post on social media using the hashtag #supportadoption

You are all wonderful.

The start of our adoption journey is a difficult one to pinpoint. Does it start eight years ago when we decided to have children? Does it start when we found out that we couldn't have children? Does it start from the point we were refused access to IVF that we probably didn't really want anyway? All of those are correct, but for the purposes of this post I'm going to start from the point we decided to adopt.

The Mrs, still coming to terms with what she thought was the loss of a dream, saw an advert on Facebook. There was a drive by the local council to find prospective adopters for the thousands of children in care who are awaiting homes. After a long discussion we decided to go along to the open evening. What we heard was extremely positive and we booked a visit from a council social worker.

The meeting went well and we were sure that the journey to our family was starting now. Our excitement quickly turned to despair. Despite the positivity at the meeting and despite the fact that we were exactly the sort of people they were looking for to adopt they decided that we couldn't because we were both overweight. They believed that somehow affected our ability to care for children. It certainly looked like our journey had ended before it had even begun.

It was probably one of the biggest kicks in the teeth I've ever had in my life. Bigger even than finding out we couldn't have children in the first place, because that was merely an accident of biology, but to have it suggested that we were unfit to be parents, however wrong that may have been, was painful.

I should point out at this point that although we are both overweight we are both fit and very active and are in excellent health!

We were in limbo for nearly a year until the Mrs again saw an advert on Facebook (she does more than read Facebook, honestly!) for an independent adoption agency. In their advert they said that they were looking for people who could provide a loving environment for children and that they would consider all circumstances. Although we felt like pariahs who had been rejected as parents we knew we could offer the very things these children needed, and so after another long and tearful discussion (the tears were mine!) we decided to give it another go, which is how we found ourselves in another adoption presentation almost a full year after the first. Again we signed up for interest and booked a visit.

Filled with understandable trepidation we awaited the social worker. The meeting went very well and the social worker told us that we were exactly the sort of people their agency was looking for. Looking at each other, the Mrs asked the dreaded question, would our weight be a barrier to us adopting? The social worker looked us like we'd just asked her if breathing was compulsory. Of course not, was the reply. We were on our way.

Stage 1 of the adoption process is one of the most intrusive things that you will ever have done to you (apart from possibly certain procedures performed in private by medical professionals, and trust me, it feels like that at times). Every single facet of your life is discussed. My one piece of advice at this point is "Be Honest". With the social worker, and if you're adopting as part of a couple, with each other.

I had to write in depth about how I felt when I divorced my first wife and how I felt when I lost my mum and the age of 28 (awful and worse) and the Mrs had to explain, in depth, why she doesn't really have a relationship with her father.

They requested references from half of the people we know (or at least that's what it felt like) including my ex-wife (who was a superstar and wrote us a glowing reference). It felt like the interrogation would never end! All of this is necessary, of course. The last thing they want to do is move a child from an uncertain living situation to another.

After all of that, and after a wait that seemed to never end, we were told that they were putting us forward to Stage 2, which is when they go in depth about what it means to be an adopter, prepare for your first adoption panel (scary) and you truly see what it means to have strange little people invade your life with very little preparation!

But that will have to wait until tomorrow.

If you have read this blog and are considering adoption as an option (hey, that rhymes) and want to discuss with someone privately feel free to message me, or contact your local council or an independent adoption agency.

10 Ways To Deal With A Meltdown

Every child has meltdowns. However, some are more prone than others. Looked after children and children who have been adopted can often struggle to keep their emotions in check. Over the last few months we've had a good opportunity to see what works and what doesn't. Please remember that all children are different and what works for us may not work for everyone.

1) Separation: When a child is acting out they will often be playing to an audience, even if they don't realise it themselves. The simple way to limit the effect of a meltdown is to remove the child from prying eyes, whether you are at home or out in public. At home, take the child to their room but outside try to take them somewhere away from further disruption.
2) Calmness: unless the meltdown is putting the child in immediate danger of harming themselves you should appear calm at all times. Anger feeds on anger and often a child will provoke you in order to make you as angry as they are. If you get angry the situation is likely to spital out of control. Have you ever tried shouting at a wall? It's hard to stay angry when you are getting nothing back. Try your best not to react. It's hard though because disrupted children can do and say some pretty horrible things.
3) Do not engage: as mentioned before a disrupted child will try to engage you in order to pull you into confrontation. It's what they want. Don't give it to them. Answer questions if you must but avoid lengthy conversation. The child will pretty quickly realise that if they want your interaction they will need to calm down.
4) Keep them company: do not leave a disrupted child on their own. They need to know that no matter their behaviour you are still emotionally available to them. Cutting them off will only breed resentment. Time outs are fashionable at the moment and work for a lot of people but if the child is already feeling a disconnect from you as a parent leaving them on their own will only deepen the fissure between you. Stay with them but remember numbers 2 and 3.
5) Contact: as soon as it is safe to do so make physical contact with the child. This is about judgement but you know your child best. Hold a hand, pat their back, stroke their hair. You are letting them know that you are still there. Nothing they have done will stop you loving them.
6) Separate a child from their behaviour: try not to tell the child they are naughty or bad. A child who thinks they are bad will see no reason to be good. Tell the child that you love them and let them know that you do not like their behaviour. It gives a child something to focus on that is not just them being bad, but more importantly it let's them know that their behaviour has no effect on how you feel about them.
7) Don't ask why: it's second nature to ascribe meaning to why something is happening but a child, especially a disrupted one, can no more tell you why they are misbehaving than they can tell you the science behind time travel. Demanding explanations will only lead to frustration, which will only prolong the problem.
8) Wait it out: When a child is disrupted they will not listen to you. They will shout, scream and twist your words around. The more you speak to them during the meltdown the longer it will last and the less likely you are to get anything even resembling sense. Wait until they're calm and then speak to them. Keep your voice light and free from accusation. Ask them if there is anything they want to talk about.
9) Consequences: poor behaviour should always have consistent consequences. Once all is calm again talk through with them what the consequences are. Minutes off bedtime, toys going into timeout and no tv time are always useful in our house but you will have your own preference. Never take away rewards that have been earned and never take away something the child uses for comfort (favourite blanket for example).
10) Forget about it: you may think that staying calm in the face of angry abuse was hard but trust me, this is the tough one. Once the meltdown has been dealt with and the consequences have been put in place, forget about it. Don't bring it up again and don't keep reminding the child about it. Shame is a massive aftereffect of poor behaviour and can leave the door open for repeats of the behaviour.

So, in a nutshell... stay calm, stay with them, stay quiet, wait it out, deal with it and then forget.

Penny For Your Thoughts

Every now and again Little Miss gets a faraway look in her eyes and she will go very quiet. Her whole demeanour will move inwards and she will be very hard to communicate with. It's quite a shock as it can (and often does) come out of nowhere with little or no warning. It's such a change as she is normally such a happy, cheery little girl.

I wish she would talk to me and tell me what is going on inside, but I'm fairly sure she doesn't know either. It may have been something she has seen or heard that has sparked a repressed memory or simply she has thought about something and has retreated into herself.

I wish I could hold her hand and take her inside her head and hunt out those bits of memory that are causing her pain and take them away, but for better or worse they are part of her and forgetting painful memories is probably just as damaging as burying them.

As much as we would like to change it we need to be ready to discuss some very painful memories with her (Mister Man is unlikely to remember any truly painful things given his age) and deal with them in a comforting but honest way, all of this without vilifying the birth family who allowed these things to happen. The connection with the birth family and the anxiety of separation from them will only become more detrimental to her mental health if we don't deal with this properly.

So, penny for her thoughts? I'm not sure I actually want to know it will just make me angry but I will give everything I have to make those thoughts hurt her less and to fill her head with happy thoughts and happy memories so that when she goes inside her head it's not the dark but the light that she is lost in; and maybe we'll get a little smile.

Birth Family

This is a hard post to write. Whenever you think about adoption it's never too far from the conversation, like a shadow casting over everything you do. It's in the colour of their hair and the way they talk. They had another family before us.

Years ago it was thought to be better for the child to not know about their birth family (or even to know they were adopted) but it was soon realised that keeping details to yourself about adoption and a childs heritage was detrimental to a childs mental health.

These days a childs status as adopted is not kept from them but embraced. They are told about their birth family and given as much information as is age appropriate about why they have been adopted.

It's a tricky thing for us adopters to manage because on one hand we are super-happy about having the children living with us, completing our longed-for family, but we have to appreciate that for them this is anything but happy and is, in fact, very scary. They can be angry and they can be hurt and it is likely that, regardless of what has happened to them, they will not understand why they can't just go and live with their birth family.

And what of the birth family? For all our joy the flipside of the coin is that a family has been torn apart. I cannot put into words how that must feel. For all that the reasons for it are very often sound (and in the case of Mister Man and Little Miss it most certainly is) there are still people for who our joy is someone elses utter misery and that hurts me.

It is hard to empathise, knowing what we know, with the birth family but we have to try for the childrens sake because in order to help the children become the best version of themselves we have to understand all of them, however much we wish we didn't.

Visiting the Family

Family is a very fluid concept for children who have been adopted. For most people, the concept of family is a solid, consistent one. Even if we don't like our family very much we know who they are and we're pretty sure the definition isn't going to change soon. Adopted children, however, are different. As with much of their early lives, there is no such consistency for them.

They have their birth family, who in a lot of cases they no longer see. Even just thinking about them can cause upset and hurt. They may have experienced some bad things when they were with their birth family so even the very concept of family may be a difficult one for them. That said, there are probably members of their birth family that they were close to or have special memories of. It's not unusual for them to be very sad when thinking of losing their birth family.

They are also likely to have at least one or possibly multiple foster families that they have lived with and there will be members of that family who they have come to know like family and will think of as family. In a lot of cases children will not see their foster carers again after they have moved onto their forever family. Our kids absolutely adored their last foster placement and still miss them. It's still one of the most heart-wrenching things I've ever done driving the kids away from their foster carers house for the last time.

And then there is us. The adoptive family. The family that will be their family for the rest of their lives, or at least legally so, but in their heads it may not be as simple as that. When they hear the word Mummy or Daddy do they think of their birth family? Do the words Mummy and Daddy cause them  pain? Thankfully in our case it doesn't seem that way, but we are always open with the children about their past so any hurt they are feeling, whether from memories of past experiences or simply from missing members of their birth or foster families, can be brought to us without fear of offense. We have to make sure they know that we understand that there are always going to be confused feelings when it comes to the concept of family.

Over the last few weeks we have been introducing the kids to the family and the kids have been fantastic. There has really been a connection with our family and it's beautiful to see. Our families have opened their arms, their hearts and their homes to these two strange children who have parachuted into the middle of their lives and they have treated them like they have always been there.

The hardest part for the family though must be the need to be reserved. They have lived this journey with us and have prayed to whatever being they chose for us and we know that ever since the kids moved in with us they have been itching to descend on us to meet them and to start to get to know them and love them. It must have been so hard for them to stay away, and when they did meet them not to smother them with hugs, kisses and gifts, but they have all been superb and done as we've asked in order to help the kids feel comfortable in their environment.

There is just one more part of the family to meet and it's going to be an emotional one. When the times were at the darkest they ran the race with us and got us to the finish line, even though they were far away.

It's just going to be a joy to know that this extra little bit of their family is being welcomed in with open arms and for something that can be so difficult every single member of our families has been overwhelmingly wonderful and I cannot thank them enough.

What's In A Name?

Picture a wall. It has a lot of bricks and on that wall is a picture of your face. That wall is your identity. It's the wall that you've built up over the years and will continue building for the rest of your life. Now, you add to that wall throughout your life but the most important parts of that wall are built when you are a young child. They are the foundations on which the rest of the wall is built.

Children who have been in care, foster care or through adoption struggle more than anything with identity. "Who am I?" is a massive question for them. They have had so many changes in their short lives that it must all seem like a whirlwind to them. They live here with these people. Now they live here with these people. And now these other people and this other town.

Think about your early life and think about the consistency that you probably had. Same house. Same parents. Same siblings. Same friends. Same school. Same city. Same name.

For them? Not so much.

Fairly soon, Mrs and I will be applying for an Adoption Order for Mr Man and Little Miss. It will mean that very soon their names will be changing. Out of all of the constants that have been removed from their life the one thing that has stayed consistent is their name and now they're going to lose that too.

We have brought the subject up with them over the last few weeks and there is definitely a fair amount of confusion and even some hostility to the change. Little Miss said that she doesn't care if we change her name she's still going to use her old name. Over the weeks she has started getting used to the idea of the name change and it is important that we, as parents, make sure that she doesn't forget her old name and her old life, or at least the parts that aren't too painful for her to remember.

Mr Man is a bit more confused by the whole thing. The concept of names; of first names and surnames is all a bit baffling for him. He knows who he is and what his name is but isn't really sure why, which makes the fact that this will soon be changing all a bit strange for him. 

All we can do is be there for them as this massive change happens in their lives and support them through the difficulties that they will undoubtedly face. It doesn't help that the kids haven't told the children at school that they have been adopted. They are still struggling to accept that being adopted doesn't make them abnormal. They still feel this is maybe something that they should be ashamed of. It's something we're working on. When they go back to their school after the summer holidays, quite possibly with a new name they will have a lot of explaining to do!

That being said it's important that we don't do damage to their identity. We are all the sum of our experiences, whether they be good or bad and everything that has happened to us goes some way into shaping our identity, our sense of self. They will be fine and we will add a beautiful new brick to their wall, but we have to make sure that by putting our new brick on the wall we're not damaging the wall that is already there.