- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- iparenting adoption articles
- iparenting adoption q&a
- message boards
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
 |
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Adoption Times Two
Unique Issues for Families Adopting Siblings By Sue Poremba
Biological siblings, particularly twins or multiples, will form a team, especially at the start, in part to protect themselves from the unknown. It can be exhausting, Val Woo says. "They tag team each other," she says. "When one is behaving, the other is getting into trouble."
When a family adopts one child, parents get to focus on that one child during the bonding period. But when multiple children are adopted at once, parents may find the bonding process a little more difficult. A parent might find that she naturally gravitates to one child but not the other, and the other child feels left out.
"A child can sense when their adoptive parent is more attached to a sibling and will interpret that as another rejection," Huhnerkoch says. "Therefore, it is very important for the adoptive parents to be extremely proactive in attaching to all of their adoptive children."
Attachment is a process and requires hard work, Huhnerkoch says. "Adoptive parents should always keep in mind that a child's 'rejection' is not about them," she says. "The child simply lacks the verbal language to express their hurt, sadness, confusion, anger, etc., about their relationships with their birth parents or previous caregivers. If the adoptive parents can understand that the rejection is not personal and instead help the child to grieve their losses and verbalize their feelings,a healthy attachment will be possible."
