I admit to being a little gun shy after last week’s reception of the PMS article. However, the point is, these are common parenting mistakes that adoptive parents make. I made them, and I would like to help other adoptive parents avoid them, if possible. The only way to do that is to share information, including, why it was a bad parenting idea.

For about five years, I was a compensated mentor of new foster and adoptive parents for the state. I spoke regularly with hundreds of parents, so I know that these issues are common mistakes. One issue, brought up repeatedly by the adult adoptees is adoptive parents expecting adoptee appreciation. They have explained to us repeatedly how harmful that was to their self-esteem. I realized after reading through their comments and blogs that I made this mistake. Only, I also used a double-standard, which may make it an even worse offense.

We have six children adopted through foster care. Two of them came to us as newborns; they in fact have the same birthmother. Because we have had them since babies, I never felt that they should feel appreciation for being adopted by our family. On the contrary, we felt incredibly blessed to have them be a permanent part of our family. They are wonderful, sweet, loving boys, even at nine and 13. We also feel incredibly blessed to have been chosen by a birthmother to parent our now two-year-old daughter. We matched about three months prior to her birth through private domestic adoption. She has been part of our family since then. I would never expect her to appreciate being adopted. 

This is the hard part to confess. I set a different standard for my older adopted children, especially the ones adopted first at 15 and 9. Most children in foster care, especially older children, have multiple placements. We were the girls original foster care placement. We fostered them for two years, maintained contact with their entire birth family, and then adopted them when none of the birth family would come forward to do so. It was not an easy decision because the birth family frequently gave us a hard time about our parenting decisions, yet none of them would take the girls. We took them to five years of private therapy, private riding lessons, private music lessons, and 4-H to name a few. 

The oldest, is the one that ran away at 15, but she was a pretty good kid. The nine year old, painted feces on walls, killed animals, defaced property, hurt other children, and was very difficult to parent. She rarely showed emotion and if she did, it was over the top. I did expect them to show appreciation for everything that was done for them. In hindsight though, they were kids, traumatized kids at that. When numerous family members could have taken them, but did not, they struggled with many abandonment issues, and still struggle at 25 and 20. Children just need their needs met, they do not really understand appreciation until much later. That was a mistake and unfortunately, I still know many adoptive parents of older children who have similar attitudes. However, my 25 year old daughter, now truly does appreciate that I babysit for her two toddlers several days a week for free. I truly appreciate having a relationship with my two wonderful granddaughters whom I would not be claiming except for older child adoption.

In 25 years of parenting, that happen to include 14 years of foster and adoptive parenting, I have made plenty of mistakes. Sometimes, as adults, it is difficult for us to admit that we were wrong, or that we made a mistake. But, let’s face it, this parenting stuff doesn’t come with a “How to” manual, it is an ongoing, learning process. If we aren’t making any mistakes, it is probably because we aren’t doing anything. If we can learn from our errors and change our ways then we have the chance to become a better parent. I hate to admit that some of my errors have taken me years to realize. Because I am still parenting though, I have a chance to change and do it right. Every Saturday, I would like to share a mistake that I have made in parenting with other foster and adoptive parents. In doing this, I hope to help some parents avoid these mistakes or realize that they too, are doing this, and nip it. I hope you look forward to reading, Parenting Mistakes, Saturday, or PMS. Feel free to share or contribute if you feel so inclined. You can email me privately if you have a topic that you want me to cover and you don’t want every else to know you suggested it.

Photo Credit: KungPaoCajun

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