The Connected Adoption: Parenting After Adoption

Today we are talking with Melissa Corkum. She is a Co-founder of The Adoption Connection, a post-adoption support specialist, co-founder of The Adoption Connection, Safe and Sound Protocol Practitioner, and an adoptee. Melissa Corkum has helped hundreds of adoptive parents shift to a brain-based view of behaviors so they can laugh more and yell less. When she’s not working with parents, she loves helping other adoptees process their stories using the Enneagram. She and her husband, Patrick, have six kids by birth and adoption. They've taught her a lot about what creates thriving parent-child relationships…and what doesn't.

I first came across Melissa’s Podcast, the Adoption Connection, a few months ago, and I must say, as an adoptive mom, there are several things that I have found helpful in my journey, so I wanted to share her work with you as well because I think diving into this work while you are waiting to match could be incredibly helpful to you as a hopeful adoptive parent.

What areas should be focused on while waiting for a placement?

The first thing a hopeful adoptive family should do while waiting for placement is to be honest with yourself about why you're adopting. If the reasons are parent-centered instead of child-centered, wait. Do a little bit more grief work and self-reflecting before you jump into the process of adoption.

Next, Melissa suggests you start following a diverse selection of adoptees on social media. You can read their books, follow them on social media, and listen to their podcasts. Every adoptee's story is different, and every adoptee experiences their story differently. So it's important to hear from even adoptees that aren't from the same story that you're walking, such as former foster youth, adoptees who are adopted at older ages, adoptees who were adopted as infants, transracial adoptees, and adoptees that were adopted into the same race or culture or country, It’s important to understand how diverse the adoption community can be.

Another important thing to do while waiting is to start seeing adoption and trauma-informed mental health professional regularly. You’re going to need a good therapist to process a lot of the things that are going to happen to you as a parent. It’s important to know what type of professional will help you the best so that you aren’t jumping from therapist to therapist.

You should also learn about and commit to trust-based parenting while you’re waiting for placement. Sometimes you'll hear it called trust-based parenting, connected parenting, or brain-based parenting. The common thread is understanding how trauma and separation from a primary caregiver impact the brain. This approach helps you understand that behavior is more than what meets the eye. That there's something bigger and deeper than my child being willfully disobedient, acting like a jerk, or trying to hurt me. There are tools that we can use that support and help our children both feel safe and grow. 

While waiting for a placement, create a safety plan for your family. We all know that the adoption journey can put a lot of stress on the relationships around you. So understanding how you react in those situations, I feel, makes you a better parent because then you can start to understand your partner's safety plans and people all around you to help to support you to really make sure that you're showing up the best you can to support this child because that's ultimately your goal.

Find a respite provider and create a regular respite schedule.  As adoptive parents, it’s important to regularly take breaks. Remember that 18 years at a minimum is a long road to look at without thinking about how you will energize and stain yourself. A lot of that energizing can't happen unless we take true breaks and respite. So work towards a small break a day. It could be just like a rest time. Or it could be a couple of hours a week, trading off with your spouse to get a cup of coffee, see a friend, or something like that. If you can't do it every week, at least every month to get away. Even a date night a month, and then a full 24 hours to a full weekend long if you can get away with it at least once a year, both moms and dads need that. The other thing I think is important is to recognize that many of our kids have separation anxiety because of their attachment challenges. I know a lot of parents will say it's not worth it, or my kids terrified when I leave, and I can't do that to them. One of the ways that we can help grow our children's window of tolerance for these things is in small chunks. So it might be that you leave them with a person who you know that they are safe and with who maybe they've had interactions where there could be a grandparent, for instance. They might still scream when you leave, and you might only leave for a cup of Starbucks, but this is what builds your ability to work towards longer periods of respite. 

Save at least $10,000 per child for future post-adoption services.  This is a little bit of an arbitrary number, but it's a ballpark for future post-adoption services. That's not just for therapists and counselors or other people on your mental health team. It's also for the speech-language services that you might need for your children as well as a potential occupational therapist. Another thing to plan for is bodywork things such as EMDR. This is Eye Movement Desensitization and reprogramming trauma release exercise, the safe and sound protocol, brain spotting, all of these things are such great tools for families, and they can be costly, and insurance doesn't cover them. You just need a little bit of wiggle room financially, and now is a great time to start thinking about how to meet the needs of your kids. This could be so many things, from having the money to buy extra fidgets and weighted blankets to even hiring an education advocate because many adopted kids need IEPs. There are just a lot of things to think ahead about financially, and planning now will help you in the long run.

If you’d like to connect with Melissa or listen to her podcast, it is called The Adoption Connection. You can also find her group on Facebook or learn more about her on her website adoptionconnection.com. I hope that you found today's conversation incredibly valuable. I know that myself as an adoptive parent, I find a lot of value in the work that Melissa and Lisa are doing over at the Adoption Connection. So I certainly do hope that you take the time to check them out. 

Hi, I Am Amanda

I am an adoption profile expert on a mission to help you create and share your family's story more affordably!