Wow, now that is a controversial statement if I’ve ever heard one.  And I really thought twice about linking to the article on my blog so close to posting our families Christmas letter.  But this is something close to my heart and thought anyone stopping by our blog should read this article.  Dr. Russell Moore wrote the article titled “Jesus has AIDS” over at the Gospel Coalition site, and its well worth your time to see what he has to say.  Click HERE for the link to the site.

Tigist was recently invited to a tea party hosted by one of her friends at church.  The night before we sat down and painted our nails and talked about how fun it was going to be to dress up fancy and drink tea from beautiful dishes. 

After I put her to bed, I couldn’t help but tear up at the thought that only a year ago she was still living in an orphanage in Ethiopia.  Alone, with no mother or father.  There were no special dresses or parties to go to.   It made me ponder again the beauty of adoption and the difference it can make.  Having Fikadu and Tigist in our family has brought such incredible joy this past 10 months.  I can’t help but think about which children are currently in an orphanage right now that may be gathering around our dinner table a year or so from now. 

I also want to ask a question for those who haven’t given to caring for orphans or adopted.  What were you and your children doing a year ago?  Perhaps you were preparing for the holidays?  Filling out wish lists?  While silent children slept alone in orphanages across the world.  Its so easy to not think about when its not in front of you everyday.

November is National Adoption Month and I want to encourage you to think about what role you might be able to play in either caring for, or providing a home to one of the 143,000,000 orphans in the world.  Who knows, maybe one or two of them could be enjoying tea parties this time next year!

Hopefully we’ll be attending this conference again this fall.  We encourage you to visit the website www.togetherforadoption.org

I love seeing this picture of our family’s feet.  It reminds my of the pitter-pattering I so longed for in years past.  Late last night I finished the book ADOPTED FOR LIFE by Russell D. Moore.  What I read is quite possibly one of the most impacting and compelling books on the case for adoption.  I would highly recommend this book for all adoptive parents, all adoptees (teens and above), extended family members of those who have adopted, those contemplating adoption, and any person who knows they’ve been adopted into the family of God.  You’ll find truth for your soul and a challenge to answer how you might obey God’s command to care for the orphans.

Russell Moore concludes his book with a few pages that begin like this:

     “I’m waiting for the sound of footsteps.  It’s quite early here; the house is still and dark.”   He proceeds to share about how he is waiting for the sounds of his children’s footsteps as they race downstairs to celebrate one of his sons birthdays.  He tells about how seven years ago his son was born, but no birth announcement was sent out, no flowers were given to his wife, no cardboard storks were on his front lawn.  He didn’t hear his son’s first cries.  His son’s birth went as unnoticed as any other foreign baby’s birth on the other side of the globe.

In the busyness of life I missed writing a post that I’ve longed to write for 5 years now.  A post about celebrating my very first Mother’s Day.  If you’ve read my blog for a while now you might remember these posts from the last two years. 

http://taylorfamilyadoption.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/happy-mothers-day

http://taylorfamily.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/he-cares/

You see, just like Russell Moore was completely unaware of his son’s birth while he and his wife were struggling with infertility and miscarriages; I also was unaware that there were two children in Ethiopia who were experiencing their first year with no mother in 2007.  While I complained about not having “children of my own,” God was orchestrating a plan to bring two precious children into our lives.  While I grieved and whined out prayers to God, unaware that He had already sovereignly answered, He was shaping a heart in me to not just be a biological mother, but a spiritual mother.  I’m growing even more now to understand who a mother really is, and that being a mother is so much more then biological DNA. 

To Fikadu and Tigist, you are the children I delight in.  You are my 2 favorite children in the entire world!  You bring me much joy and help me see a deeper view of our heavenly Father’s love.  My most earnest prayer is that not only will you know the joy of being adopted on earth but that you will experience the adoption into our heavenly Father’s family.  For like you, I was once an orphan, a cosmic one, with no hope of finding an eternal home.  But today I can rejoice to know that I am a beloved daughter of God!  I can hear you playing together upstairs, it delights my heart, I long for the day when we can share more fully about the glorious design of God in making us a family.  Thank you for making motherhood such a joy!

I love how Russell Moore concludes his book, “Maybe there are abandoned children languishing right now in cribs somewhere who will be blowing out birthday candles with their new families this time next year because of your witness, your money, or your encouragement.  Maybe they’ll be yours.  I don’t know.  Like I say, I don’t know you.  But maybe you’re waiting for the sound of footsteps too.”

Thank you to the many of you who prayed, encouraged, and financially supported us in our adoption so that today I can cherish the sounds of footsteps too.

This follow-up post has been a long time coming.  But over the last few weeks I’ve been able to read some great articles, excerpts from books, and have some great conversations with those much wiser then myself.  One thing I have realized though is that I was trying to combat two totally different issues in my original post.  Here is the ending paragraph from the original:

“So my question is as Christians how do we parent the adopted child who is showing signs of poor attachment?  Many of the things listed above can be seen in any range of children and sometimes its difficult to know what behavior is just a kid being a kid and what is something so much deeper.  I’ve read Christian Parenting books, and Adoptive Parenting books and can’t find much middle ground between the two.  So how is it that we teach adopted children the Biblical concepts of authority, discipline, obeying right away, telling the truth, showing kindness and so forth.   Is it possible to simply say, “Sin is sin,” with no regard to past experiences?  How would you Biblically counsel an adult who wasn’t trusting, had a core sense of being bad, a fear of intimacy, overwhelming feelings of shame?  Obviously by pointing them to Christ, but what if these issues were resulting in, stealing, immoral behavior, self-sufficiency, vanity?  As adopted children of God how have we been dealt with and what is expected?  Does this translate into how we parent adopted children?  I’d love the thoughts of adoptive parents and non-adoptive parents alike.”  

The two separate issues are 1. Attachment in adopted children  and  2. The instruction and parenting techniques for adopted children.  My original questions surrounded how to use Biblical parenting techniques WHEN you have an unattached adopted child, and that’s where it got a little confusing.  So today’s post is centering on what I’ve learned about the 1st issue at hand – how to form a secure attachment in adopted children.  

Originally I had considered attachment focused parenting to be over-permissive and too child-focused.  I was concerned that if we followed the advice of popular professionals in this area, we would end up with strong-willed, indulged children, who always got their own way.  And I was selfishly concerned about being respected, obeyed, listened to, and generally having obedient children who always did what was right.  Does anyone out there have kids like that???  

I was fortunate to have an excellent conversation with a mom to 14 children, 5 bio, 9 adopted.  She provided some excellent insight into attachment parenting for older children.  Many books will discuss regression techniques for the older child.  Allowing them to go back to infant and toddler emotional stages and nurturing.  Things she mentioned as helpful were: holding and rocking a child, providing all their needs such as making their meals, putting on their clothes, helping bathe them, co-sleeping.  Other helpful advice included keeping them with you all the time and always in eyesight.  We have found both F an T responsive to these techniques.  One thing I loved that she said was in the beginning its all about relationship over behavior; that as an adoptive parent your goal should be to meet the need rather then end the need.  That was a seriously helpful prospective to have when your as selfish as I can tend to be.   I’d rather end the need for drawn out bed times, slower transitions, end the perpetual questioning, end the toddler like temper-tantrums.  What I’ve come to realize though is that each time I lay down beside the kids for 10 minutes at night and talk about whatever, or answer each redundant question with patience and kindness, give them 5 minute warnings for transitions, and comfort them when they’re upset, they see that I’m hear, and listening, trustworthy, and kind.  And actually, within the last 2 weeks we’ve seen tremendous changes in both children. 

Another important thing I’ve come to realize is the fact that attachment is just going to take some time.  I think its easy to worry in the first 2 months and think that it isn’t happening yet, and what does this mean???  But when you think about normal adult relationships, when you meet someone for the first time, it certainly takes longer then 2 months to feel securely attached to that new person.  So as far as attachment goes, it is good to remember that time and truth are on our side.  And that what you read in attachment books really is helpful.  A secure attachment is going to come through the child seeing that their needs are consistently being met by their new parents, and that they are in a safe home.

Recently F and T have been asking if they will have to go back to Ethiopia.  I think they’re at a point where in their minds they want to trust us, and are starting to see what our family is all about, but before they can love us completely they want assurance that this isn’t just another stop on the way to somewhere else.   We’ve seen that they need this reassurance especially after encounters with Ethiopian people.  We live in an area with a large population of Ethiopians.  There are many Ethiopian restaurants, we’ve met people working at CVS and our local grocery store, and there are a few families in our neighborhood.    All these wonderful people have known that our kids are Ethiopian just by looking at them and will start to speak in Amharic to the kids.  For some reason this always seems to frighten Fikadu especially, and he needs the reassurance that he will be staying here in our family.  Tigist needs the reassurance more after she has done something wrong.  And that is what I want to talk about in my next post: Parenting techniques to use with unattached adopted children.  So although this is certainly not the most thorough or best article on attachment, my original questions surrounded more the parenting, instructing, and disciplining of unattached adopted children, and you can check back soon for my thoughts and discoveries in that area.

I’m planning on doing a follow-up to the previous post on this subject, and would really love to hear from some more people on their ideas.  Thank you Dr.  Arthur Becker-Weidman  for commenting as well.  My hope is to include your suggestions for improving attachment along with others professional advice  in my follow-up post.   It was interesting to receive the one comment about attachment disorders being bogus, and only diagnosed by a fringe group of specialist, it brings up some questions of how much weight we put into the opinions of doctors, and what we can perhaps look to deeply into.  More to come. . .

Any guesses as to what my children were attempting to convey with the following words??  (I figured it out, I just thought it’d be fun to hear everyone elses interpretations)

Fikadu: “Mommy, upstairs water coming.”

Tigist: “Baby Jesus, Mommy kiss.”  (Hint: She’s pointing to something on her while saying this)

***Answers***

Fikadu was looking out the window and explaining that it was raining.

Tigist was pointing at a freckle.  Apparently they call freckles Mary Kisses in Ethiopia.

Writing on this blog has become highly therapeutic.  There are days that I need to remember the good and others I need to process the difficult.  It’s been good to look back at the fun posts over the past 5 weeks, laugh, and see evidences of God’s grace at work.  

So today I’m writing again to process some of the attachment/bonding issues we’ve seen displayed over the last few weeks.  This post will hopefully also come in handy to keep records for our post placement visits.  I know many people have adopted infants who show signs of poor attachment, but since we have older kiddos (5 and 7) that’s what I’m hoping to focus on. 

I recently read an  informative article by: Arthur Becker-Weidman, PhD entitled “Attachment Problems: Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Signs”

Some of the Not-so Subtle signs we’ve seen include:

• Superficial engaging, charming behavior
• Avoidance of eye contact
• Indiscriminate affection with strangers
• Lack of affection on parents terms
• Poor impulse control
• Lack of Cause and Effect thinking
• Preoccupation with fire and/or gore
• Persistent nonsense questions and chatter indicating a need to control
• Inappropriate clinginess and demanding behavior

Some of the more subtle signs we’ve noticed are:

• Avoiding comfort when the child is physically hurt or feelings are hurt
• Over-valuing looks, appearances, possessions, and clothes
• Precocious independence
• Reticence and anxiety of changes
• Picking at scabs and sores
• Secretiveness
• Difficulty tolerating correction or criticism

The article goes on the explain that we must be careful not to simply focus on these symptoms, but to search for the underlying cause.  Dr. Becker-Weidman suggests that the cause is a break in the early attachment relationship that results in difficulties trusting others.  The child experiences a fear of close authentic emotional relationships because prior situations have taught the child that adults are not trustworthy, and that the child in unloved and unlovable.  He further suggests that this break in attachment causes:

• Fear of intimacy
• Overwhelming feelings of shame
• Chronic feelings of being unloved or unloveable
• A distorted view of self
• Lack of trust
• Feeling that nothing the child does can make a difference
• A core sense of being bad
• Difficulty asking for help
• Difficulty relying on others

So my question is as Christians how do we parent the adopted child who is showing signs of poor attachment?  Many of the things listed above can be seen in any range of children and sometimes its difficult to know what behavior is just a kid being a kid and what is something so much deeper.  I’ve read Christian Parenting books, and Adoptive Parenting books and can’t find much middle ground between the two.  So how is it that we teach adopted children the Biblical concepts of authority, discipline, obeying right away, telling the truth, showing kindness and so forth.   Is it possible to simply say, “Sin is sin,” with no regard to past experiences?  How would you Biblically counsel an adult who wasn’t trusting, had a core sense of being bad, a fear of intimacy, overwhelming feelings of shame?  Obviously by pointing them to Christ, but what if these issues were resulting in, stealing, immoral behavior, self-sufficiency, vanity?  As adopted children of God how have we been dealt with and what is expected?  Does this translate into how we parent adopted children?  I’d love the thoughts of adoptive parents and non-adoptive parents alike.

These are just the questions that I’ve been mulling over as we traverse this new road of parenting.  We have loved diving in off the deep end of the pool, and have regularly been reminded that God’s grace is sufficient, and that ultimately He’s in control.  I just want to do my best at getting wise, daily I’m so aware of my need!  So please leave your thoughts, advice, Bible verses, awful parenting stories, and success stories, and I’m off to do some study of my own.

After being home three weeks now our children have acquired quite the impressive set of English vocabulary.  They came knowing the following :

1.  Body parts in the song “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” 

2. Three classifications of animals: dog, cat, and horse (Fikadu also knew frog and all other reptiles fit in that category.)

3. Hello, Goodbye

4. I Love you

5. An interesting version of ABC’s that repeats letters l-z twice

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We thought they’d have a little more then that.  Essentially we were told they had “survival” English skills which included the usual “I’m hungry, thirsty, hurt, or need to use the bathroom.”

But alas, they really didn’t know any of these and we quickly learned “Survival Amharic!”  For survival Amharic I highly recommend the book and cd, “Simple Amharic for Adoptive Families” by Amy Kendall.  It can be found for $30.00 at this link:  http://adoptlanguage.com/Amharic.htm

We’ve been impressed with how rapidly the kids have acquired additional English vocabulary though.  Fikadu especially is determined to speak as much English as possible, and is quick to interpret for Tigist, who is less determined.  It has been fun to watch the progression of language learning.  A few anomalies that have been particularly hilarious have surrounded the use of the word bus.

Fikadu has an absolute fascination with cars and is starting to learn that there are different types.  Ex: bus, van, truck, car, tractor, and so forth.  But instead of realizing that the name truck or bus is actually what the vehicle is called he is confusing it with being an adjective to “describe” a kind of car.  This has shown in his use of the word bus to describe anything big or long.  It was particularly humorous when he said, “Mommy, Kohnjo bus hair!”  Kohn-jo is the Amharic word for beautiful and what he was trying to articulate was that I had beautiful “long” hair!  Equally amusing was when we were homeschooling and going over shape memorization.  I was trying to differentiate between a rectangle and a square and Fikadu interrupted by saying, “Yes Mommy, rectangle is bus!”

These are the moments I hold onto and cherish.  Even though yesterday was a particularly long, whiny day, I continue to have this overwhelming love grow in my heart for these kids.  I don’t want to ever forget how special it is to have Bus Hair! =)

One of my absolute favorite lines from the movie “Horton Hears a Who” is when Horton’s little friends come running up to him with their pretend worlds on specks.  His friend Katy says, “In my world everyone is a pony, and they eat rainbows, and poop butterflies!” 

Well one benefit of adopting older children is skipping diaper changing and potty training.  Something Joshua and I are quick to rejoice about.  However, beware that you will in a small way pay your dues.  When internationally adopted children come home they have very thorough pediatric exams which include checking for intestinal parasites.  This is accomplished by sending the parents home with stool collection kits.  Over the course of the weekend we were required to collect three seperate samples from each child.  And I’m pretty sure that in my world they aren’t pooping butterflies!