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Home › Articles › Holidays: Winter › An Adoptive Family Holiday

An Adoptive Family Holiday

How New Families Can Cope with the Chaos

By Mark Stackpole

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Unfortunately, not all family members are in such a generous holiday mood. "There are family members who completely ignore my daughter because they are bitter over the issues with other family who are spoiling her," White says.

Know Your Child
Victor Groza, a social worker and professor at the Mandel School of Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, believes that an adoptive family needs to have a plan for integrating their new arrival into the larger family and holiday picture. As some adoptive children have special needs, careful attention must be paid to their emotional and behavioral well-being.

"Many children may not respond well to chaos," Groza says. "They respond to structure, limits, consistency and predictability. Families need to think about how they will structure their holiday. Parents need to come up with a management plan that will meet with the needs of their children."

As the holiday planning begins, Groza advises new adoptive families to consider visiting other family members for a few hours rather than a whole day, or if it is easier, have the family members come to visit them. Huge family events can be replaced by a series of smaller ones, which are easier to host and visit. If a family does travel for holiday visits, it is important for parents to have a place to spend some "downtime" with the child – an extra bedroom, for example.

Stranger Anxiety
Having a new child around usually means that everyone will want to hold, hug and play with her. Parents should understand that a certain amount of stranger anxiety is perfectly natural, nd that both children and family will need some adjustment time.

"Parents should not thrust a child at a stranger, even if the person is not a stranger to the parents," Groza says. "Allow children to make their own connections with other adults as they feel comfortable. If a child has been in the adoptive family for fewer than three months, families may want to limit their exposure to others. The child needs to be firmly attached to the family and not be thrust into making a connection with all members of the adoptive family network."


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