Attachment and Cocooning Part 3

Here's the last post in our attachment and cocooning series. You can check out parts 1 and 2 here, and here. *This post was written by another adoptive mama and we have been given permission to share here on our blog. Some parts have been edited to fit our situation.*

Dear Family & Friends,

After over three years of waiting, our precious Ryah is finally coming home! We know that each of you receiving this letter has, in some way, supported, loved and prayed for us. Because we know your care for Ryah and our family, we want to share with you some information that we hope will best equip everyone around her to assist us in laying the strongest and healthiest foundation - emotionally, physically and spiritually.

In many ways, Ryah will be like the children who will enter our family through birth; we will parent like other Christian families as we bring all of them up in the instruction and discipline of the Lord. But there will be a few, initial differences. For years now, we have researched bonding and attachment in children, especially those coming home through adoption from an institutional orphanage setting.

     We are confident of this: God’s design is PERFECT! His plan for parents and children is a beautiful and meaningful picture of His love for us. Attachment between a parent and child occurs over time when a baby has a physical or emotional need and communicates that need. The primary caretaker (usually mommy)meets the need and soothes the child. This repeats between a parent and child over and over to create trust within the child for that parent; the baby is hungry, cries in distress, mom nurses & calms the baby - which teaches him that this person is safe and can be trusted. By God’s very design, an emotional foundation is laid in the tiniest of babies, which will affect their learning, conscience, growth and future relationships. The security provided by parents will, ultimately, give children a trust for and empathy towards others.

    Children who come home through adoption have experienced interruptions in this typical attachment process. The loss of a biological mother at an early age can be a major trauma on their little hearts. The good news is that we can now, as Ryah’s parents and forever family, rebuild attachment and help her heal from these emotional wounds. When Ryah comes home, she will be overwhelmed. Everything around her will be new and she will need to learn not just about her new environment, but also about love and family. She has not experienced God’s design for a family in an orphanage setting. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the ones to hold, snuggle, instruct, soothe and feed her. As this repeats between us, she will be able to learn that parents are safe to trust and to love deeply. We are, essentially, recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once Ryah starts to establish this important bond, she will then be able to branch out to other, healthy relationships.

     Ryah will have, what may seem like, a lot of structure, boundaries and close proximity to us. Please know that these decisions are prayerfully and thoughtfully made choices based on immense amounts of research and instruction from trusted adoption mentors. We will be doing what we believe is best to help her heal from those interruptions in attachment as effectively as possible. Why are we telling you all of this? Because you will actually play an awesome and vital role in helping our Ryah settle in, heal, and lay a foundation for the future. There are a few areas in which you can help us:

The first is to set physical boundaries. It will help us immensely if adults limit what is typically considered normal, physical contact with Ryah. This will (for a while) include things like holding, excessive hugging and kissing. Children from orphanage settings are prone to attach too easily to anyone and everyone - which hinders the important, primary relationship with parents. Waving, blowing kisses or high fives are perfectly appropriate and welcomed! Ryah should know that the people with whom she interacts are our trusted friends.

Another area is redirecting Ryah’s desire to have her physical and emotional needs met by anyone (including strangers) to having us meet them. Orphans often have so many caretakers that they, as a survival mechanism, become overly charming toward all adults. A child struggling to learn to attach may exhibit indiscriminate affection with people outside of their family unit. It may appear harmless and as if they are “very friendly” but this is actually quite dangerous for the child. To share this is difficult for us because we have snuggled, cared for, fed and loved so many of your children. Please understand that we want nothing more than to have Ryah hugged, cuddled and cherished by ALL of you (she’s totally irresistible and huggable). But until she has a firm understanding of family and primary attachments, we would be so grateful if you direct her to us if you see that she is seeking out food, affection or comfort.

    What this will look like for us is: we will be limiting our outings greatly. We won’t be going to overly stimulating places such as church, small group, grocery store, etc. We want to keep her world as small as possible for as long as possible until we see some positive signs of attachment between her and us.

     We are incredibly blessed to have so many loved ones around us. We couldn’t ask for a better extended family & circle of friends for our precious Ryah. Thank you so much for your love and support over the past three years. If you have any questions please feel free to ask at any time!