we got picked!!!!

Congrats.... Can not help with your questions I am still waiting.....

Adoption is not quite like going to Disneyland. It is a massively difficult job that may test your patience more than anything else in your life. Add a little foreboding to your excitement. It will drive you toward better preparation and make the wait easier. Stay away from implied expectations about what the kid will do or will like. Say "We know some fun places to go camping," rather than "You will like the places we go camping."

Congratulations! I adopted an older child 3 years ago (he was 14) Here are a few thoughts from my experience. I'm sure everyone's experience is different, just some things to think about! School: I asked the school counselor to give my son a "private tour" prior to the first day. They may be willing to do this over the Christmas holiday. It can't hurt to ask, and it made my son feel less lost on the first day. It also gave him a friendly face at the school. Holidays: Holidays are very tough for a lot of older kids, so I think it's both a blessing and a challenge to have the placement over Christmas. I've heard that most disruptions happen over the holidays because of all of the mixed emotions and stress. I'd strongly caution against going overboard with gifts, even though it's tempting. From my experience, gifts bring up very difficult emotions for a lot of kids who have suffered loss. I think it's a combination of a lot of things: from greiving the years that they spent without the luxuries, to feeling unworthy of the gifts, to feeling like buying them new stuff is saying you're "better" than their old family or prior placement (and by extension, them). For this reason, I'd also caution against replacing their old stuff right away (even holey socks and broken toys). With this age group, I think there's a common myth that makes a child believe that once they're adopted, all their troubles are over. He may or may not have ever seen a healthy family from the inside, so what you teach him right away will set his expectations for the future. Even though you may want to spend the first month making up for lost time, setup the expectations right off the bat. If you expect him to make his bed, put his dishes in the sink, etc. define this right away. I suggest a family meeting early on to discuss "household rules" including what the family expects from one another. One of my biggest mistakes was treating my son like a guest (cleaning up after him, etc.) at first because I wanted to be the nice mom. It was my fault for setting that expectation, so I had no right to be annoyed when I had to re-train him that he's perfectly capable of washing his own dish! One more thing...my son is still overwhelmed at times being around extended family. He loves them and they love him, but a part of him sees a close knit family, little kids having a happy childhood, good parents...and he feels a sense of loss for what he missed out on. It's especially tough for him to see good dads take care of their sons. This is tough around the holidays but easier if you know to expect some difficult emotions and can talk about the conflicting feelings. Congratulations again and have fun, this is a wonderfully exciting time and I wish you and your whole family the best!

Jeff, thanks for the tips on the scrapbook... As far as the excitment, I've been super guarded all through this process, and realized I'm going ot miss the joys and excitement of becoming a parent, if I stay too guarded. Sooo, I'm super excited now, yet cautious that it's not for sure and as with anything with a beauracracy, it's not official that it's going ot happen until it's practically over. Won't try to say I have a perfect balance at this, but I try. :D Edy, thanks for your input... that's exactly what I was hoping for. LOVED the idea of the private tour, if they can't over break, maybe we can do it on a visit. I'm actually REALLY concerned about the holidays... on a disney movie level, it's cool. HAAAA, but in reality, that's a lot of pressure for a kid and new family. To make it worse, it looks like he was abandoned around Christmas, so I don't know if Christmas will even have a positive meaning to him. I'm concerned about our Christmases and meeting so many strangers... I think I may have him help me make some deliveries and meet several of the family members in a brief manner, before he just goes to a Christmas with a house full of strangers. And I don't know many people, for whom December is a calmer month... kinda crazy that we celebrate our Savior's birth by running ourself ragged. ;) I hadn't thought about how kids may wonder what strings are attatched to their gifts... that makes a lot of sense. Great point about not replacing a lot of things that we see are "broken". I appreciate both of ya'll's input and ideas.

True! But I'm curious if you would tell that to an expecting woman...to add foreboding to her pregnancy excitement? I assume she has that part covered (esp since I see she's parenting her teenage godson) :) Great idea. And if possible, be willing to tone down the "house full of strangers" based on how he handles these mini visits. This was hard with my family/friends who had been hearing about my son for months before he even knew they existed, and were so excited to overwhelm...I mean welcome him. Our latest and greatest household blow up was after an awesome family trip with extended family. After a week of perfect behavior, my son was ready for a fight literally the minute the plane hit the ground. Sitting back and analyzing this, I see that even though he had a great time, part of him knows he got the short end of the stick by not being able to have that with his birth family. But that's the "duh!" moment that comes after the storm :)

Great thread! I'm in the process of transitioning a 14 year old girl. Over in the special needs forum I asked about issues I was having with the foster families discipline and it became a discussion about not overwhelming new kids with activities and people around the holidays. Some of it was really good advice but a lot of the posters have only adopted young children. I was hoping there would be someone that had dealt with this with teenagers. Thanks, EdyDedd! We are having a small Halloween party the second weekend she stays over. I'm planning to introduce her to most of the people coming in short meetings before then. Hopefully that won't be too overwhelming. I thought about cancelling but she knows about it and is super excited so I don't want to disappoint her. The rest of the holidays are going to be low key, though. We are also talking about her moving in right before Christmas because of the school break. I imaginge that's going to be hard on everyone. Fortunately we don't have family around here that expect us to get together for Christmas so I think it will be easy to have a quiet celebration in our home. Good luck with your placement, Gospelfan. Congratulations!

In my own experience and in the experience of a fair number of families for whom we have provided respite care, parenting a birth child tends to be quite a bit different than parenting an older adopted child with a trauma background. I've seen parents who approach their adoption as a self sacrifice for the sake of helping a child and I've seen parents who approach their adoption as a way to fulfill their own drive to become a parent. Both approaches are valid, but most of the disruptions seem to be coming out of the later group. Sometimes the adoptions result in a gratifying parental experience, and sometimes not. There will, of course, be joys and sorrows along the way with any child.

Congrats biojen. One thing that worked for me was during transition, I let my son pick a paint color and we painted & decorated his room together. He felt like it was his own and could go there if he needed space. Jeff: I agree for sure. It's very different, and I'm surprised by new challenges all the time--even though I thought I was going in with a healthy sense of foreboding. I volunteer with teens in foster care, and have seen a fair number of placements & disruptions. I think problems sometimes come from parents, on whatever level, expecting the kids to truly appreciate the sacrifice they're giving. Of course we're making sacrifices, but how can we expect someone to be grateful for losing out on the healthy family that they deserved to begin with? If I'm being honest, I catch myself with this feeling more often than I'm proud of. I fall short of saying "Do you know where you'd be without me," but I won't say the thought doesn't cross my mind when I'm getting some attitude. I didn't mean to argue your original point, which is a good one, just saying that parenting a birth child is (I assume) no trip to Disney either. Our challenges are definitely different though, like you said.

Congrats biojen :) One thing that worked for me was during transition, I let my son pick a paint color and we painted & decorated his room together. He felt like it was his own and could go there if he needed space.