I went for a walk today with our youngest daughter, and I decided to use that small bit of alone time to talk to her about her feelings and thoughts about the adoption. In our house there is always someone else around, and I realized that I hadn’t had a chance to really talk about this one-on-one with each of our children. So I figured it might be a good idea to ask them each how they felt, during a time when there wasn’t anyone else around to put words in their mouths or interrupt them.
When we have talked to our daughters about the adoption, they have been generally excited. They are looking forward to having a new sister. And when I first brought the topic up with our youngest tonight, it was no different. She is looking forward to getting to know someone new. She thought it would give her *something to do*.
“Discoveration”, she called it. She made that word up, is claiming it as her own, and I sort of like it. She used it to describe the *discovery* process of getting to know a new person, their likes and dislikes, their habits, their personality… their birthday. It’s all very exciting stuff, and it certainly will give her something to do! However, this child might not be as receptive to that as she would like her to be.
I got the impression from our discussion that my daughter might not be as prepared for this as I had thought all of our children were. It seemed like she was under the impression that this was going to be like a sort of long-term slumber party. She’s young still, but she is old enough for a dose of reality.
I tried to carefully explain to her that, while we hope it will be exciting and fun to get a new sister, she can’t go into this expecting all flowers and rainbows. I carefully told her that her new sister will have to adjust to a new family, a whole group of new people, and that she may have had some very negative experiences in her past that will make it difficult for her to feel like she belongs here. I asked her to imagine (while reassuring her that it would not happen!) that she was taken from us and placed with a whole new family and how difficult it would be to become a part of that family while dealing with the loss of the family you left behind. I explained to her that her new sister may have had some bad experiences, she may have been treated badly by others, and she may be reluctant to form new relationships.
She said I was scaring her. Obviously, scaring her was not my intention, but it’s hard to determine where the line is. It’s hard to know what we should and should not tell our children. I believe in being honest, but being honest does not mean you have to tell everyone everything, and sometimes children are not ready to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Sometimes they need some real world honesty mixed with a little optimism and a positive attitude.
Relationships are hard, people are unpredictable, and when you do your best to make your children feel loved and appreciated, it must be difficult for them to imagine that others might not feel the same. Being the social butterfly that she is, always surrounding herself with people, always everyone’s friend, I think she just feels that this new person will be a friend to her like everyone else. I hope that is what happens, but I also think she needs to be prepared in case it doesn’t.