Seedling

This evening before dinner, R. was having a hard time. She had earlier been disappointed that a disc she was watching was scratched so needed to be turned off which caused her to go stomping up to her room and slam the door. This actually pleased me as she was able to express her frustration and not bury it deep down while disassociating. I'm all for honest emotions, sometimes even when they involve slamming doors. But that is not really what this post is about.

Later, R. had come downstairs and was able to mutter that she was hungry. J. got her some peanuts and suggested that she might want to watch D. and Y. play a video game. He also added that he was so glad that R. was able to tell him what she needed because he I and I like to take care of our children and give them what they want and need. R. then takes her peanuts into the family room to watch the video game. A moment later, H. asks, "Do they really?" 

I think this caught both J. and I off guard. J. assured H. that yes, we do really like to take care of our children. She then made some unrelated comment that made me think that her observational and cognitive thinking skills had improved so much over the years, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was she said. I think I was still mostly caught up with thinking about her very honest and earnest question that came before. 

I know I write on this topic somewhat frequently,but judging by comments and questions I see from adoptive parents, it clearly cannot be said too much. And what is that? That it can take a very, very long time for children who joined family at older ages to really understand what a family is and to feel their place is secure in that family. 

H. came home in March of 2012; that is now over ten years ago. Feeling safe and learning about what it means to be a part of a family has been a very long and very slow process. So many things tell me that she is mostly secure here, but every so often something like today's question will come out and I wonder how deep that security really is. I have botany on the mind after my weekend of planning and it seems as though after years of not really being able to sprout or take root, H. is now a seedling. Not a little seedling anymore, but certainly one that does not yet have an extensive root system or very many real leaves. A seedling that size, in the right circumstances, will continue to grow and become firmly rooted, but until then is still very much in need of protection and nurture.

There is nothing about this that is a quick process. There is no pre-determined timeline for a child to feel truly safe and secure and understand exactly what a family means. It is instead a back-and-forth, layer upon layer continuing evolving of what this new life means and how they fit into it. There is nothing that says a couple of years home means that a child has or should be fully transitioned. Even a child home ten years will have moments of needing confirmation or reassurance of a parent's love or of their place in the family. We can tell our children that they are part of our families forever, but this is just a lot of words that more often than not will have no actual meaning. 

Do not let the amount of time home determine your expectations as to how secure you child should feel. If you are a new adoptive parent, remember when experienced adoptive parents say to take the long view, we are not talking weeks or months, but years and possibly decades. In some ways there may be no final point, but instead an ever growing understanding along a continuum.