I’ve been reading through some papers I set aside. There are notes from children and youth and from social workers and from parents. Teenagers use superlative language in liberal amounts. We often hear their annoyances expressed in aggressive tones. But they are equally effusive about good things in their lives.

A couple of years ago this is what Kirsten wrote:

Hi! My name is Kirsten and I am on this Adoption Exchange! I am so happy with the outcome…I have found a family that I love…well, you guys found them. They are so good to me, and I feel so loved and cared for…

….Seriously, I am not too happy with a lot of things that come about the foster care system but I am glad I had high hopes and did not give up….I am so welcomed and loved here! ….

….I was in foster care five years….I have hurt a lot….and I strongly believe that foster are is o place for any kid to grow up in….I am so lucky and privileged to have a family! I honestly couldn’t ask for me! They are wonderful! You guys have found a wonderful family and I thank you so much! I am so happy here…happier than ever!

Sometimes people hesitate to adopt because they think they won’t be good enough.

The children have already been compromised by abuse and neglect. The child welfare, mental health, education and court systems have let them down. Won’t it take really incredible people to be their parents?

We are tempted to think the children deserve super-moms and super-dads, given the trauma they’ve survived. But if we wait for that, they won’t ever have stability and love.

Helen Costello says that happy endings only happen in fairy tales. Then she goes on to say that happiness in some stories come after trials and turbulence.

And she should know. Helen has been an adoption professional, teacher, psychotherapist, and child welfare worker for as long as I have worked in the field. She has been an enabling presence in the lives of hundreds of Montana families.

When one family called and asked her to come and get their adopted daughter, Helen didn’t panic. And she didn’t get angry. She just said, “I can’t. She is your daughter.” Then she made an offer to help them be the kind of parents their child needed. Helen had seen families in crisis. She didn’t rush out and remove the troubled teenager. But she did spend the next two years helping the family get back on track.

One of the chapters in her book, From the Heart, is titled “Parenting.” Helen begins the chapter with a sort of definition of good parenting: “We are here for you! We may stumble, but we will not let you down!”

Helen is a good therapist. The real life stories in her book remind us that it doesn’t take perfection. It takes commitment.

Costello, Helen. From the Heart, Great Falls, MT, 2010.

Danielle Bush was a 16 year old in foster care when she wrote these words and shared them with members of Congress:

Our Cry
(Foster children of Today’s World)

We are lost, surrounded on all sides by pure
darkness
We are alone, with no one to follow
We look up to the sky and we call on our creator
We ask him to guide us to safety
We hear no response so we continue to stand
there in the darkness
We put our hands together and close our eyes
We try to think but our minds show us nothing
but the darkness our eyes see
We hear a voice in the distance but we can’t
understand what it is saying
We try to follow the voice
One by one we are swallowed into the blackness
that surrounds us
The voice continues to speak from a distance
There are two children left, they are trying to
find the voice
They cry out for help but the response is still
unclear
They continue to walk until one of the two
children is swallowed
The last child screams into the blackness

Did you even try to find us or did you just think we
would find you? Do you not understand that as we
tried to find you the blackness has swallowed us up
one by one? Did your heart not tell you to come
farther to find us? Did you not know that we were
blind and could not survive alone? When we needed
you the most you let us down. Now we have been
swallowed by this blackness and it will be
harder to reach us!

I believe that our actions form our reply to Danielle. In dedicating our hearts to the mission and our skills to the work of giving every vulnerable child a safe and loving family, we tell Danielle, “We heard your cry. We are listening. And we won’t give up for you.”

When you’re meeting someone face to face for the first time, you wonder how it will be. What will they notice? How should you dress? What do you say?

I listened while two adopted teenagers interviewed each other about what surprised them most when they first met their adoptive parents.

Ashley’s adoptive parents were in their late forties. She said she’d never thought she’d be adopted by people who were so old.

Then it was Mike’s turn to answer the question. He’d been adopted by a younger, single man. His big surprise? “I never expected to be adopted by someone who is bald!!”

Ahhh, teenagers.

Kim tells me that she and her husband are moving.

As with every new thing, there are losses involved. Kim is expecting some rough times for everyone as they move to a city where they know no one. But they’re also excited about new opportunities. And Kim’s husband’s job is waiting.

There will be great new places to visit, a new house, and new places to play. And there will be losses when they say goodbye.

Of course they had to share this decision with their five children, some of whom are adopted.

They expected the kids to balk, and she knows they’ll have to make adjustments to a new neighborhood and new schools. But Kim was surprised at the reaction her seven-year-old son had when he heard the plans.

He was upset at the idea of leaving his friends! If you’ve not raised a child from foster care, you might not understand the thrill of being a parent of a child who balks at leaving his friends.

Kim thinks it’s a good sign for a child who’s had attachment problems.

And this time this little boy won’t be handling the losses alone. This time his parents are moving with him.

Jack Kornfield wrote a book titled The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace. He reasons, “Forgiveness releases us from the power of fear. It allows us to see with kindly eyes and rest in a wise heart.”

Who wouldn’t want to see with kindly eyes? Who wouldn’t want to live with a wise heart?

Adoptive parents know that forgiveness is the necessary beginning for healing. But knowing isn’t doing. It’s human nature to cling to our anger and fear.

In the world of adopting there is plenty to make us angry. We hate what has happened to the children.

We loath the abuses, neglect, systemic delays, and misguided good intentions. So we have lots of chances to exercise forgiveness.

Any of us who know Kathy are very aware that she and her adopted son, Wayne, are incredibly close. But loving from a wise heart took a bit of time.

In the first months after adopting, Kathy remembers how fearful she was to share with her husband that she wasn’t emotionally attached to their son in the way she thought she should be. The admission itself brought immediate relief. Hearing her husband express his own fears helped set the stage for her to forgive herself for not being the perfect mom.

The ability to see herself, her husband, and each of their children through what Kornfield calls “kindly eyes” began to take shape.

Thirty years have passed. Wayne’s disabilities mean that Kathy and her husband are not empty-netsters like most of their contemporaries. They never will be. And Kathy says, “That’s okay with us.”

I think Kathy learned long ago not to try to change everyone else. But love changes the one who does the loving. Today when Kathy speaks about her family and the future, it is obvious that her words are spoken from a “wise heart.”

And I’d have to say that she has in fact been the perfect mom for Wayne.

Brian recalls his initial meeting with Benjamin, who smiled, yelled, stomped his feet, screamed and refused to talk. In fact, experts had predicted that Benjamin might never speak…At their first meeting, Brian sat quietly across the room, holding a teddy bear and a book. After approaching him, giggling and running away repeatedly, little Benjamin shyly climbed into Brian’s lap, placed his hand on Brian’s face, and said, “Daddy!”

….It must have been a seminal moment for the little boy. When Brian recently asked Benjamin what his greatest memory is about the adoption process, he stated, “I remember calling you ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!’ because I was so excited.”

Voice For Adoption shared Brian and Benjamin’s story with members of Congress through its annual Adoptive Family Portrait Project.

Voice for Adoption is a national advocacy organization, based in Washington DC. Nicole Dobbins, it’s Executive Director, knows what she is talking about when she describes the children in foster care. A few years ago she was one of them.

She wrote, “Children in foster care especially deserve, and want more than anything, for someone to hold them close to their hearts, nurture and cherish them. It is amazing what miracles can do and how severe trauma can be overcome when these children are placed in such an environment where they are loved, embraced and given an opportunity to flourish.”

Click here for more information on Voice for Adoption.

Behavior management is a pretty cold term. Who wants to do behavior management? People don’t adopt in order to spend their time managing behavior. People adopt because they want relationships.

Jeffrey Haugaard, Ph.D, reported on research conducted at Cornell University. Behavior management (there’s that term again!) of two parent families who had adopted school aged children were studied.

Dr. Haugaard reported that couples who agree on their behavior management methods had success. Couples who disagreed were raising children whose behavior continued to get worse.

The research suggests that the method of behavior management is less important than agreeing.

So that might mean that adoptive couples would benefit more from intervention for themselves on how to arrive at agreement than they would from training on how to manage difficult behavior.

Like most things in life, the outcomes have everything to do with relationships.

It’s a legal process. It is a social process (extended family, neighbors, friends). And it is an emotional process (for everyone).

Janeen’s foster parents were pretty excited when they told her they’d decided to adopt her. They’d thought about it for a long time. And they were ready to make a permanent commitment to love her, keep her safe, and make her part of their family for always.

Since Janeen was a teenager, Chuck and Judy knew her reaction could range from elation to anger. But she projected a ho-hum sort of response. And she let the process proceed. The family went to court, the judge finalized the adoption. And Janeen went back to school.

On the surface of daily living not much had changed.

Later that year Janeen and her mom were out running errands for the family, when Janeen stopped and caught her breath. She pointed to a specific window in an apartment building and said, “That’s where my first mom lives. I used to live there.”

The two stood and stared at the building for a few minutes. Then Judy asked her daughter what she wanted to have happen. Janeen said, “I want to know if she’s still there.” They talked it over and decided to walk right up and ring the bell. So they did. And it was Janeen’s birth mom who opened the door.

All three stood in a stunned and awkward silence for a moment, and then Judy and Janeen were invited to go in. Tears were shed. Promises were made, and Janeen left the apartment of her birth mom expecting to see her again soon.

The appointed day for the next reunion meeting came and went. No birth mom. Janeen’s birthday passed without the promised contact. More waiting. More silence.

Janeen’s mom and dad waited with her. They listened to her anger, and they caught the tears that flowed from her disappointment and hurt. And then – Janeen began to let them into her heart.

Attachment takes time.

Parenting came first. Chuck and Judy put their love out there for Janeen months before she was ready to reach out and claim it.

She had some internal work to do before she was ready to allow herself to be adopted in the final, emotional sense. Now they really are a family.

If you watch our website closely, you will notice that sometimes a child’s photograph is removed for a period of time. It may be that a family appears to be a good match and plans are underway. Or there may be other factors.

Here is the story told by the mother of one of those children whose photograph disappeared for a while, and then returned:

When Ryan got put back on The Adoption Exchange listing as available by himself because his brother had gotten placed, I saw the listing right away because back then I was monitoring listings nearly daily.

I submitted an inquiry and his caseworker responded immediately. We talked, and she linked me to speak with Ryan’s therapist and with his foster mother. It was sounding like a good fit. Then my husband and I … spent a couple hours reviewing [agency] documentation, which did not scare us off, but confirmed we were on the right track.

There were a number of steps in the process. There were people to meet, life books, sharing of photographs, visits, and conversations.

And then Ryan to his very own family. Now his photograph is gone from our website for good. His mom says, “I dearly love my new son, he is an absolute treasure.”