Nurturing Your Adopted Child to Grow on the Inside
November 22, 2010
Growing Up on the Inside
You may have heard it said somewhere that love is an action, not a feeling. There is no time in life that this is more true and more crucial than in infancy. The sad fact is that this is a rarity for children who are abandoned, whose early life is spent in an orphanage or who lived in a chronically neglectful or abusive family. Unmet, this need for nurturing does not disappear.
Meeting these early nurturing needs forges the indispensable foundation upon which all subsequent healthy development depends.
In order to grow up on the inside a child must experience that they are good and capable and loved. This needs to come first from others before they can know it themselves.
In order to grow up on the inside they must experience this love in the way they needed to experience it as an infant. Now. By doing so, they will be free to be the person God created them to be. They will be able to manage life’s disappointments and have healthy relationships.
What will not work is relying on words or reasoning or “parenting discipline strategies” with these children, as we do with our children who spend their first months and years in a loving family, is like telling an infant that they don’t have to be scared and expecting them to calm down, stop crying and be happy.
How do we begin filling in this developmental gap for our adopted children? In my work helping adopted children and their parents, I have found Cocooning™ to be the answer.
“What is Cocooning™?” you ask?
Cocooning™ is sheltered time away from the hubbub of the outside world, just like the first few months after birth when a mother and her newborn are like one. This is a vital experience for the beginning of the development of a healthy person. It is a time at home together, resting, cuddling, and getting to know each other in a nurturing, relaxed atmosphere.
Cocooning will help your child begin to experience you as a safe haven. During this time parents provide the child with experiences of safe and appropriate interactions that engender a sense of safety, trust and well-being.
Cocooning™ helps …
- Facilitate opportunities for positive and healing attachment experiences
- Decrease overstimulation and triggering of trauma reactions
- Begin child’s healing and growth developmentally, emotionally, and cognitively
- Parents become familiar with your individual and unique child
- Establish family routines based on family, uniqueness of child, health of child
The idea of Cocooning™ with your newly adopted child may run counter to what you think you should be doing with your child who is no longer an infant and who may even be a toddler or an older child. People in your life such as relatives, friends, pediatricians and social workers may not agree with you following these methods.
You may find yourself alone in your conviction that giving your child and yourself the time and space to just be together, like when a new mother brings her infant home, is the most important thing you can do right now to solidify your child’s emotional development.
If this describes you, then my new book, Gotcha! Welcoming Your Child Home, is written for you. Gotcha! is due for release in early 2011. With this book as the vehicle, I will mentor you to provide you with the permission, support, encouragement and guidance to insulate you and your newly adopted child.
Also, available with the release of Gotcha! will be The Gotcha! Kit. The Gotcha! Kit includes all the tools you will need to help your family Cocoon™. A list of items is included in the Gotcha! Welcoming Your Child Home, in the event that you would like to be able to compile your own kit. A section in the book describes how to use the Gotcha! Kit items to help your child develop a capable, lovable, and valuable self-image, to develop affect regulation and to grow up on the inside.
Excerpt from Gotcha! Welcoming Your Child Home, a new book for parents of adopted children by Patti M. Zordich, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist, Director of Triangle Psychological Services, Cary, NC.
Coming Soon in 2011!
To order your advance copy click here.
www.trypsych.com 919.342.3458