How to welcome adoptive children

[ParisGarters]

Hi all,

A friend of mine is due to meet her two children soon, with them coming home shortly after. Any tips on how, as a friend, I can help to welcome them? A lot of us have children around the same ages, and so they will be coming into an existing group. Am I over complicating things, or are there additional hints and tips to help them settle in?

Thanks

[vintageteacups]

I would chat to your own children about adoptees and then act as you usually would when you make a new friend and you meet their children. I don't see as how it's any different.

You do sound as though you are over complicating things a bit to me.
If they are old enough, just get some colouring books and crayons or something age appropriate and organise something like a trip to the play park/water fun in the garden/treasure hunt or picnic etc. Something where you are all doing something together until they get to know you all.

If they're not British and don't speak the language, you could try to learn a welcome greeting in their own language.

Bake some cookies and tell your kids to behave and be kind to them.

[RipVanLilka]

LISTEN TO YOUR FRIEND!

Your friend will probably have decided how they are going to introduce them. Don't push. You may only first have the opportunity to meet with them for say an hour, and that might be a quiet, low key meeting. Then building up from there. As for mixing into a new group of children, I would say don't interfere too much, they will probably sort things out between themselves.

I would prepare the other children for their arrival by explaining what is going on briefly, then leave them to it, and only step in if anything goes wrong

You do need to listen to your friend though. These children almost certainly will be traumatised, and difficult to parent. Your friend I would guess will be doing a different style of parenting to you (therapeutic parenting) and so you need to follow your friends lead on meeting them and how to behave around them. For instance, iIt isn't appropriate for friends to hug the children after coming home because their new parents need to be doing all the hugs, to build a bond between them and the children. Also it could be confusing for the children. I suggest keeping any welcomes very low key and short at first. I wouldn't buy the children gifts, because they will be overwhelmed enough coming into a new house, totally new environment, without loads more new things from people they don't know. I would however give your friend a gift, just as if she has just come home from the hospital with a new babe (some people just ignored me when I came home with mine, but they brought other new mothers presents. Ouch). Follow your friends lead, and don't overwhelm the children, and things should be ok

Cognrats to your friends, very exciting time :)

[KristinaM]

My advice is to print out Mary and lilkas posts and commit them to memory. Then show them to all the other adults in your group of friends

I applaud you for asking for advice and not just assuming that you know what to do. You sound like a good and thoughtful friend

[ParisGarters]

Thank you all very much for your comments. It's reassuring to know that I wasn't too far off the mark in my thinking.

The suggestion about practical ways to help, shopping/meals etc, is great and feels like a comfortable way to offer support, while allowing the family time to bond. I'll make sure she knows that we're always there for a chat/rant/cry/laugh without any judgement. FWIW there are few (if any) situations where the terms "damaged" or "badly-behaved" would feel comfortable to me, or indeed "punish" and "threaten" - but that's a different thread.

I know my friend is already planning lots of children's stuff for the house and so I'll make her the focus of a little indulgence instead. I know how important my friends have been to me over the last few years, so just want to be able to reciprocate.

Thank you again for your suggestions. I'll definitely be printing off and committing to memory!

[hester]

It's really nice of you to approach this so sensitively. I'm not sure I can add to the good advice you've already been given, other than to tell you from my own experience what helped and what didn't.

What people did that was really nice:

• be thrilled for me
  
• send cards, flowers, gifts to mark the occasion, just as they would with a new birthchild. The cards were particularly welcome, because I could keep them for dd's memory box to show her how welcomed she was
  
• ring to ask how I was getting on
  
• offer practical help
  

What people did that wasn't so good:

• not send cards, flowers, gifts (this was most of my friends and relatives)
  
• visit and comment disapprovingly on dd's behaviour ('Oh you poor thing, she really is hard work, isn't she?' because this delightful baby had just lost the only mother she'd ever known and so was, unsurprisingly, clingy)
  
• persist with intrusive questions about the birth parents and the circumstances of adoption
  
• gleefully tell me all their favourite adoption stories with unhappy endings
  

I know you won't do any of the horrible things! I'm mainly writing them here for others who will read this thread.

[KristinaM]

[bugrin] at mary