Adoption Session 4

Last Friday we had our fourth interview with the assessor. This session focused on safety of children, in particular from physical and sexual abuse, but also about appropriate discipline strategies, and developmental milestones. It was a full-on session, talking about how we would manage a situation if we felt uneasy about a coach or neighbour spending time with our child, and what we would do if our child ever told us about abuse.

We were given a number of vignettes or case studies which we then had to respond to. A basic example is of a 4 year old boy who refuses to sit in his car seat and you have to go somewhere in your car - What would you do? It sounds simple, but each case study escalates until we are discussing very serious consequences.

We also had homework to do for our session next week. We have to provide short answers to questions like What sort of things might make it difficult for an adopted child to bond with you, and for you to bond with an adopted child?, and What role or importance do you think and adopted child's extended birth family has in his or her life?   Lots of questions which really make you think about what we are doing and constantly asking ourselves if this is the right path to follow. And the end of each session, no matter how exhausting, Murray and I are excited about what we are doing, which I think means this is right for us.

I've been reading Deborah Gray's book Attaching in Adoption- Practical Tools for Today's Parents, which has been really helpful. It has case studies all the way through and talks about different ways of building attachments with an adopted child. Hopefully I will get to put some of these things into practice one day!