Bringing Your Newly Adopted Children Home - Expectations

By Dr. Patti Zordich

Parenting is never easy, whether your child is adopted or biological. This is especially important to remember when parenting an adopted child since it’s easy to chalk up difficulties as adoption-related. And it’s beneficial to remind yourself that the struggles may be “normal” or “typical” parenting experiences. The challenge may be due to expectations, parenting style, the parents’ temperaments, the child’s temperament, and sometimes a mismatch between the two. 

In this post we’ll talk about expectations. This is a great time to explore the expectations you have for yourself, your spouse and your child(ren).  The expectations we hold about a relationship and how the other person is supposed to behave can interfere with a positive connection. You have waited for this moment for so long and you have prepared so hard. It makes sense to think that all this preparation would help to prevent your child from having problems. In my case, I expected everything to be pretty smooth sailing (in the big picture of course) when our one and only child was born based on lessons learned from personal counseling and five-years of doctoral studies in child development and attachment. But reality was different. I learned very quickly that the expectations of myself as a parent and my child were way out of whack. Things went more smoothly when I let go of exceptions. It’s not easy, but it’s simple.

If we have expectations that parenting “should” be a certain way or that our child “should” act a certain way, we will frequently be disappointed and even exasperated with the outcomes. I have heard it said that the amount of serenity a person experiences in any relationship is inversely related to the level of expectations one has for that relationship.

We can vastly improve the quality of any relationship just but letting go of expectations and accepting the person for as God created them. Sometimes the person we’re placing into God’s hands is ourselves. 

The following exercise will help you gain clarity about the expectations that might be getting in your way and prompt you to let go. Plan a time to be alone for 15 minutes so that you can complete the exercise.

Becoming Aware of Expectations

Start by sitting quietly for a moment. Be aware of your breathing. No need to change it right now, just notice it. Close your eyes and breathe gently in and out seven times. Now think about your adopted child and ask yourself what expectations you have of him/her. Be honest with yourself and write them down. Try to think of at least three.

Now that you have written down at least three of your expectations you are more aware of them. Awareness is the first step to change. The next step is to let them go by giving them to God. Imagine yourself holding your paper in your hands and offering them to God. Then, for each of your expectations, write a statement of acceptance of who your child is. Here is an example:

Expectation: My child is six-years-old so I expect him to dress independently. I expect that I can leave him for ten minutes to be dressed or be well underway when I return.

Acceptance: The independent dressing never seems to work out the way I expect. For some reason, my child is better able to dress himself when I sit with him. I accept that my child wants my company while he’s getting dressed, even though I don’t fully understand why.

There’s one last part to this exercise. Go through the steps again, but this time about yourself. Write down at least three expectations you have of yourself as an adoptive parent. Hand them to God. Write a statement of acceptance of who you are for each of your expectations.

Return to this exercise weekly or whenever you’re struggling and everything you’re trying doesn’t help. Remember, awareness is the first step to change. 

Keep a look out for the the next blog post in this series about helping your children grow up on the inside.