target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_c1e487d3-518f-54a3-9dc9-8ad1a5224d3e">Kids Develop Expectations Pre-Adoption
2“My New Brother or Sister Experienced Trauma”
3“Yes, We Brothers and Sisters Need Information”
4“I Am a ‘Quality’ Parent!”
Reviewing and Refining Your Parenting Strengths
5“Finally! My New Brother or Sister Is Arriving!”
Planting the Seeds that Grow Post-Placement Attachments
6“After He Came, Everything Changed!”
Common Post-Placement Challenges
7“My Brother or Sister Won’t be Living with Us Anymore”
Disruption, Dissolution, Displacement, and Other Leavings
8“Help Me Cope, Please”
Striking a Balance Post-Adoption
9Triggers, Losses, and Feelings
Facilitating Your Sons’ and Daughters’ Grief
10“You Know Your Birth Mother and I Don’t”
Blending Children with Diverse Birth Histories—An Emerging Common Challenge
11“My New Sibling’s Behaviors Are So Bizarre!”
Learning to Be a Peaceful Family Again
12Two of the Toughest Behaviors: Sexual Acting Out and Aggression
Ensuring a Safe, Secure Home Environment
13“We Hardly Have Family Game Night Anymore”
Restoring Family Fun
14“Yes, I have Experienced Positives!”
Brothers, Sisters, and Adoptees Speak about the Benefits of Adoption
APPENDIX
REFERENCES
RESOURCES
Foreword
When Jessica Kingsley Publishers asked me to write the foreword for Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption, I felt honored and privileged—honored to be acknowledged by JKP as a person whose voice might help promote this book and privileged to be able to do this for my colleague and friend, Arleta James. Arleta has helped so many children and families address the challenges that they face as they transcend the adoption process on their journey to becoming a family, and by writing this excellent book, she is continuing her efforts to help every person who is involved in the adoption arena: parents, children, adoption and mental health professionals, extended family members, school personnel, etc. Adoptive families interface with world as do all families; however, some of the issues unique to these families are either not understood, misunderstood, ignored, not acknowledged, or simply minimized to the point that the child and family do not get what they need to help them move from unfamiliar and unconnected to closeness and securely attached.
There are books that are primarily theoretical in their orientation. There are books that are comedic for the reader. Other books are seemingly practical but not written with an underlying theoretical framework. After I have read some books, I say, to myself, “AND?” James has produced an extremely practical, theoretically based book which will have many parents laughing and, sometimes, crying. So, in one book she has successfully integrated many components which offer readers an intimate view of what occurs with children who have been traumatized, separated from their birth families, and united with a family who has taken on the task of loving a child or adolescent who may not have any understanding or experience of being loved or of loving, of being tolerated or being tolerating, of being respected or of being respectful. The insiders, that is, adoptive parents, those people very close to adoption, and some older adolescent or adult adoptees, will immediately recognize the issues illuminated in Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption.
What struck me as I read each page of this book was how frequently the author encouraged families to share information with all of their children—HONESTLY and COMPLETELY. James’ suggestions about how to deal with tough issues, that is, sexual abuse and sexual activity, will be helpful to families as they ask themselves, “How can I share____________? When should
I share____________? How old should my children be when I tell them____________?” I believe that the reader will find nearly every issue that they face addressed in this book. James leaves no stone unturned, and she provides hundreds of examples of how to approach the sensitive issues that confront families.
Throughout the book, James discusses the impact of bringing a traumatized child into a family with children already living there. She goes into great detail about how to prepare the children in the family, whom she refers to as resident children, for things previously unknown and foreign to them, such as sexual abuse, sexual activity, stealing, lying, aggression, chronic dysregulation, and the chaos that they see their parents endure as the new brother or sister joins their family. Her pre-placement suggestions will help immunize, if you will, all existing family members from the trauma that the new sibling may bring into the home environment. As I read her explicit discussions of what may occur with the resident children, I thought of what one adopted adolescent told me about his other adopted siblings, “I think that this adoption thing is a good idea gone bad.” Perhaps, had this book been available at this time, his parents would have been better prepared to help every member of the family.
Whether you are interested in pre-placement issues, post-placement concerns, disruption/dissolution, sexual acting out, blending siblings, or marital stress, Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption will have something to offer you in 14 information-rich chapters. I believe that every adoptive family will be better able to deal with difficulties that their children and family may be experiencing. Adoption agencies should consider making this book mandatory reading as a component of their pre-placement training program, and anyone who works with adoptive families will appreciate the deep insight that Arleta James has shared with us.
Gregory C. Keck, Ph.D.
Founder/Director of the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio
Co-author of Adopting the Hurt Child (2009), Parenting the Hurt Child (2002), and author of Parenting Adopted Adolescents (2009)
Acknowledgments
My first thanks go to the many adoptive parents, brothers, sisters, and adoptees who contributed to this book. Your lives are busy, yet you eagerly took the time to personally write or to allow me to portray your experiences. You did so out of
