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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 a strong desire to help those who will read this book. Over time, I have been privileged to learn from you, and now others will reap that same benefit.

Pat Johnston—you initiated my first book on this topic, Brothers and Sisters in Adoption, after attending a workshop I conducted. This work allows all children in adoptive families a voice that might otherwise have gone unheard. So, thank you for the nudge I needed to speak on behalf of the brothers and sisters in adoption. You are now retired, but I also want to thank you for your long-standing commitment to the field of adoption. I entered the field of adoption almost 17 years ago, and feel I “grew up” as a professional as a result of many Perspective Press books you published.

Stephen Jones and Jessica Kingsley Publishers—you came along just when I needed a new publisher. Thank goodness! The opportunity to write this new book is indeed a gift to the parents and children that will benefit from its content.

Greg Keck and Tom Collins—my mentors—thank you for the knowledge, patience, guidance, and opportunities you have offered me over the past 17 years. You gave me my professional foundation. This work is built from that secure base. It reflects you, and, as you look at it, I hope you are pleased with your images.

My human foundation came from my mother and family members. Because of my family, I am able to achieve, thrive, and enjoy life. You gave me the gift of a healthy beginning that, in turn, has given me a present and future filled with endless possibilities.

Certainly, I have also been influenced by the work of a significant number of other professionals, foremost among whom are Barbara Holtan, Daniel Hughes, and Regina Kupecky. Thank you for helping me along my journey through adoption.

Anne-Marie—you are the sister extraordinaire and the most remarkable personal assistant! Thank you so much for taking care of so many things so that I could work on this one book!

Nancy G.—no matter where I live or what endeavor I take on, you are always there to help me. Thank you for being a friend and colleague.

Introduction

Why was this book written?

Many families coming forward to adopt are already parenting children—children born to them and/or children they have adopted. Certainly, adding a child or children to the family carries visions of chuckles and fun! There are also images of one child teaching another to build with blocks, to utter words, to read, to play games, having a snowball fight, jumping on the trampoline in the back yard, riding bikes together, shooting hoops in the driveway, and so much more. Ample cuddles and kisses will be shared as well!

Yet the arrival of an adopted sibling can—unexpectedly—adversely alter the lives of these children already in the family as well as their parents’ lives. This is especially true if the adoptee enters the family with a history of trauma—abuse, neglect, abandonment, pre-natal drug and/or alcohol exposure, and so on—as have a large majority of waiting children, infants to adolescents, intercountry and domestic.

Trauma can have long-lasting deleterious effects that are inadequately represented by the phrase special needs, which is so commonly used to depict the children waiting for a place to call home. Complex trauma offers a more realistic portrait of the damaging imprints that traumatic experiences embed, in children, in their aftermath. Complex trauma better describes the potential for the newcomer, from orphanage or foster care, to arrive with issues that may not simply fade away with time and love.

Thus, Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption is put forth as a guide. It is designed to help siblings flourish in spite of challenges that may arrive with the newcomer. It is intended as a plan to facilitate the types of close, connected relationships that mothers and fathers want for themselves and all of their children.

Which families will benefit from this book?

Much of this book is about integrating traumatized children into families whose composition already includes typically developing children. However, families that adopt and then give birth, adopt for a second time, or blend step-children into the family will benefit from the advice as well.

I’ve also written this book to help professionals, extended family, family friends—anyone who desires to help brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, and adopted children pre- and post-placement—so they can find the information and tools to fulfill this aspiration.

The book concentrates on the growing-up years of children who are raised from infancy to the age of majority and who, whether by birth or adoption, are those children whose development is proceeding on track through predictable stages.

Socially, emotionally, cognitively, and physically, these children already in the family at the time of the adoption are thriving. They are able to learn, explore their environment, make and keep friends, express and accept affection, participate in extracurricular activities, and, overall, simply enjoy and happily absorb what life has to offer them. They are already residing in a family that adds a child who has complex trauma. Within the book, I refer to these children variously as “brothers and sisters,” “birth-” and/or “previously adopted children,” “resident children,” “typical children,” “age-appropriate children,” “healthy children,” “appropriately developing children,” or “children who are on track developmentally.” It is worth stressing that they may have been born to the family or they may have been adopted, as certainly there are many adoptees who enjoy appropriate development.

As there are many other excellent books written on understanding and meeting the needs of the adopted child, within this book I take as my primary focus the needs of appropriately developing children. However, the content also includes an introduction to the types of trauma that newcomers experience pre-arrival, and this book is full of parenting tips to better manage behavior, facilitate grief, talk with children about being adopted, and so on.

What does this book address?

Navigating relationships between sons and daughters who are growing well and those who are struggling is rewarding and yet presents various challenges. Frequently, parental time and family resources shift to caring for the “ailing” family member—the adoptee. The needs of the healthy brothers and sisters, as well as the parents, are often put on hold until the adoptee heals. Once in this pattern of focusing so much of the family’s resources on the child with a history of abuse, neglect, or abandonment, parents find it difficult to rectify the situation—to strike a balance and to meet the individual needs of all of their children.

Parents begin to question themselves, often asking:

“Did we make the right choice by adopting?”

“How is this affecting our typical children?”

“What can we do for our resident kids?”

“Will our adopted son or daughter heal?”

“Will our family ever be the same as it was before we adopted this child?”

The brothers and sisters might start saying things like:

“It’s annoying. When my new brother moved in, I didn’t think he was going to have any problems. When I figured out he did have problems, I just wished he had been born to my mom and dad. Then he would be okay. I don’t like it when we go somewhere and he starts acting bad and then Dad starts yelling.”

“Prior to the adoption, someone could have told me how attention-needing she was. Someone could have explained to me that having a little sister was not going to be all fun and games. The changes she brought to the family have affected me. I have had the loss of a peaceful household, the loss of parental time, and the loss of privacy. She, at age ten, knows much more about ‘bad words’ and what they mean on TV shows than I did at her age, or anyone at her age should.”

“I get really mad at my brother. I also feel like I can’t go anywhere without him right behind me breaking something of mine or making fun of me, copying me, or touching something of mine that he shouldn’t be touching.”

Welcoming a New Brother or Sister Through Adoption responds to these questions and issues in an honest and forthright manner—and with a lot of optimism! The content, stories, and the writings of the resident children themselves feature within “Sibling Talk” boxes, sprinkled throughout the chapters, which highlight the “common challenges” that the adoption-built family faces as it works to weave the needs of a child with complex trauma into its fabric, accompanied by abundant solutions!

When helped, brothers and sisters do shift their perspective, as is exemplified by this young man who moved from “stuck in feelings” to “love and happiness” for his brother-by-adoption:

“Since we adopted my brother, seven years ago, my household has not had many peaceful moments. I’ve lost a lot of parental attention. This makes me jealous and angry. For a while, I had to share a room with my new brother and I lost a sense of privacy and space in the process. I was angry that I couldn’t have my own room. I also had to lock a lot more things up after my brother started stealing from me. I lost a lot of material possessions. I didn’t get as much as I used to and the things that I did have were often broken by my sibling. This angered me once again because some of the things had sentimental value to me. I definitely lost a peaceful household and fun activities.

“Eventually, my parents and I started to talk a lot about the situation. I learned to ignore the things that my sibling was doing. I do have to admit that sometimes I still do explode and my parents have to remind me that my sibling does things to push me away because he is scared of being loved.

“To tell the truth, in the beginning, I was mad, sad, jealous, and embarrassed. I learned (and am still learning) that feeling and being ‘stuck’ in those feelings doesn’t do any good for you. And now my feelings have now changed to love and happiness toward my brother. I don’t know what I would do if he wasn’t in my life.”

The more education this young man received, the better able he was to cope and to navigate positive relationships with his sibling. It is so unfortunate that this took seven years! Certainly, an intended goal of this book is to reduce the amount of time family members spend engaged in an unhealthy emotional climate.

How is the book structured?

The book is organized from pre- to post-placement. Chapter 1 describes the types of expectations that brothers and sisters develop when they learn their family is adopting; Chapter 2 offers an overview of complex trauma; Chapter 3 suggests ways for mothers and fathers to conduct pre-placement preparation with their sons and daughters. Chapter 4 is for moms and dads. There are parental qualities that contribute to enhanced success when combining typical and traumatized children, tweens and teens, so this chapter is for parents who want to hone and expand their strengths.

Finally, the child moves in and Chapter 5 is there to guide international or domestic families with this part of their journey. Chapter 5 discusses the pros and cons of traveling—with the children already in the family—to the newcomer’s homeland. This chapter is rich with ways to transition the new son and daughter sensitively and by including the brothers and sisters. This phase of the adoption process is really the time to plant the seeds that eventually grow post-placement attachments.

Next, Chapter 6 covers the “common challenges” that arrive with the son or daughter with complex trauma. “Common” means that these issues emerge with frequency in the family that expands by adoption. Most families will learn to cope with these daily dilemmas. Yet Chapter 7 is offered for those parents who feel the challenges are too great for their particular family composition. Chapters 8 to 13 are packed with solutions, solutions and more solutions! Hope and healing—for each member of the family—abound in these pages! We end on a positive note in Chapter 14.

The full details of any books, websites, movies, or useful organizations mentioned in the pages of this book will be found in the “Resources” section at the end of the book.

As a prelude, a healthy sibling offers us her sentiments:

“There are so many positive aspects of adoption! Yeah, it’s scary as hell to bring a total stranger into your home who may not want to be there, but the positive aspects outnumber the negative aspects so greatly. I enjoy playing with, talking to, and teaching my younger brother a lot of things. Even though the siblings act like they don’t love me, they do. Also, adopting forces you to look deeper into people and to have a better understanding of why people act the way they do. The greatest of all, though, is that I know that I partook in giving two children a home.”

Brothers and sisters—from diverse backgrounds—can learn to navigate relationships when joined by adoption!