Our Adoption Journey, Step 3: Parent Training

Our homestudy required lots of steps: paperwork, visits with our social worker and parent training.  The parent training process was not what I expected.  I expected to be told about how to be a good parent: discipline, expectations, consequences, etc.  But, the majority of our required 12 hours of parent training was more insightful.  We learned about how to be a good parent to our child.  The unique struggles that he (or she) will have.  Struggles from living in an orphanage.  Struggles from a transracial adoption.  Struggles from loss and grief, unique to adoption.  We also learned about the importance of attachment theory in adoption.  

For those that are not aware of attachment theory, it is the understanding of the importance of  emotional bonding that (should) occur between parents and their child from the moment the child is born.  Everything that seems natural to parents (direct eye contact, mimicking sounds, close body contact, etc.).  Sadly, children in orphanages or other circumstances that can lead to adoption are deprived of this crucial bonding.  It can have a detrimental impact on a child's development.  For more information about attachment theory, I strongly recommend reading The Connected Child by Kathryn Purvis (one of the leading researchers and authors on attachment) and Forever Mom by Mary Ostyn (a personal account of one mom's stories of adoption).  Both books give excellent insight into the importance of attachment.  

I am no expert in any of these fields, but our parent training was very enlightening.  It provided so much for us to consider and gave way to great conversations.  Conversations about expectations in our home.  Conversations about adoption.  What other people will say.  How to handle rude comments.  How to approach the topic of adoption to our child.  How to love them as our own, but respect their experiences as an adopted as genuine and different than our own.  So many valuable things.  

Throughout our parent training, I continued to realize that I will mess this parenting thing up. Big. Time.  I will say the wrong thing.  I will react the wrong way.  I am a broken, sinful person, trying to raise a child.  But, despite these things, God loves me.  He loves me because I am His child.  And that is the same love that I will give to my child.