10 Simple Ways To Build Your Connection With Your Adopted Child

Read to and with your children as long and as often as they will let you. From Brown Bear to Anne of Green Gables (both favorites in my house), anything is fair game. When your child learns to read, you can take turns or let them read to you, but reading together is a great calming activity, no matter your child’s age.

Sporting events, plays, and yes, even movies and TV shows. Watching together gives you a shared memory, and sometimes all an exhausted parent can muster is snuggling on the couch and watching a movie. If you’re doing it together, it counts!

Get outside and go for a walk. Toss a ball around, wrestle in the living room, splash around in a lake. Do something active together.

Riding in the car is another parallel activity that helps many children feel safe enough to talk. Go on a road trip. Even though both of my kids need lots of physical activity and I’m not a huge fan of driving, we all do surprisingly well on long car rides. Explore a new city (or even your own city). See the sights. Take photos. Enjoy the local cuisine.

Let your child give you a lesson on his or her “thing.” Minecraft, My Little Ponies, whatever they love. Take half an hour and let them teach you all about it. Look into your child’s eyes (if he or she will let you!), savor the enthusiasm, and let your child be the teacher.

Board games, card games, imaginative play, sports… all of these are great ways to bond with your child while helping them practice turn-taking and problem-solving skills.

People expect parents to hold, carry, rock and snuggle their infants and toddlers. Sometimes, children who were adopted didn’t get the physical touch that they needed when they were younger. It is perfectly appropriate for parents to fill these needs for physical touch with older children too. Letting your child experience safe, affectionate touch from you is a great way to build your connection.

The first year after adoption is full of many firsts… your first Valentine’s Day, Easter, summer vacation, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas together. Take pictures of all of these! And after that first year, remember together. A shared story brings people together, so take time to reminisce (photographs are a really helpful tool for remembering—especially for younger children).

Often parents do not have all of the information that they wish they had about their children who were adopted. It’s OK to imagine together with your child what she or he might have looked like as an infant, or how he or she might have explored precociously as a toddler. Imagine the past together, and then imagine the future.

Have you used any of these activities to connect with your children? Which ones worked best? And what would you add?