Customer Reviews

Parenting Your Adopted Older Child: How to Overcome the Unique Challenges and Raise a Happy and Healthy Child

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We adopted a four-year-old boy from Russia during the middle part of last year, and, of course, we faced many of the challenges that other families encounter in building trust, establishing a bond, integrating a new family member, and so forth. Having nearly survived the difficult early period, we were recommended this book by our social worker as something of interest to parents in our situation.

I found this book to be okay: helpful on the diagnosis side, but not so helpful on the resolution side.

As with other books about parenting, it does to tend to present issues more in the light of nightmare scenarios (exaggerating what most parents encounter, which is not to say that some parents don't encounter situations just like those presented, of course).

It's nice that the book immeidately goes beyond the catch-all rubric of "attachment problems", a phrase that is uselessly vague and helplessly non-specific. Our son faced (and continues to face) a number of challenges that this book does help identify (sexual abuse, abandonment, language skills, etc.) and categorizing the different kinds of issues in their own framework is a huge benefit.

It then proceeds to give bullet-point ways to try and address the situations. This is not an entirely satisfactory. Instead of seeming surefooted, these come across more like folk remedies (with no measure of success, no case studies showing whether something is working or showing lack of progress as well). Some things just seem like they are thrown out because they worked for the author. For example, why is it that giving your child a massage is a constant suggestion? I mean, yes, by all means, use physical contact as appropriate, but really now... family foot massage time is such a specific recommendation. It seems like the suggestions could use more polish.

I found a lot of the suggestions to be rather indistinctly delivered as well. Having validated one's observations (or stirred one's fears) there is relatively little material on how to work on various problems.

I don't know how things will ultimately work out for our family, of course. I like to think that, for the most part, we have the issues under control and are creating a happy, safe environment for our son. This book in many ways recognizes the challenges this presents and is valuable in helping identify challenges that might otherwise go unnoticed. But it is not so helpful in resolving the problems. For that other books might be more suitable.

The book is a good overview of the parenting challenges that characterize the adoption of older children. The challenges are well, though briefly, defined and described. The challenges themselves are well-illustrated with vignettes of families.

What this book really lacks is resolution to the challenges identified. The vignettes each end with the intolerable situation that drives the family to seek help. They are followed by parenting tips for handling the situation, but without a second vignette showing how the family overcame the chanllenge the book feels depressing and the problems remain unresolved. The author, in not including a resolutions to the challenges identified, has missed a valuable opportunity to show the techniques she lists in action.

Nevertheless, this is a useful book and a good overview of the area. It would be a good introduction to the area, and a good complement to a more in-depth treatment such as Deborah Gray's Attaching in Adoption.

The book contained chapters dealing with a variety of issues involving older child adoption, including ADHD, FAS, RAD, self esteem, creating a family, and other issues. She offered suggestions and solutions about how to best deal with these behaviors.

My one complaint involves the scenarios she outlined to explain each point. In them, she never resolved the conflicts she creates. I would have liked to see how those solutions might fit those scenarios.

The book offered me much food for thought as I considered undertaking an older child adoption.

While my wife and I have not looked far and wide, it seems that much of the non-academic adoption literature is very "adopt at birth"-focused.

McCreight's book is a rarer find, focusing on the differences older-child adoption presents. It is also rare in its presentation: wonderful, bulleted recommendations in bullet form, covering all of the major behavioral problems adoptive parents might run into. (Easy to look up in crisis situations!)

Lastly, McCreight has all the best street-cred: she's both a child therapist and an adoptive parent of seven.

I'd highly recommend this text for any prospective or current adoptive parent of an older child.

I read this book prior to adopting my daughter at age four. I felt it was helpful in preparing us for what to expect, including emotional and behavioral issues resulting from past trauma. Like many older child adoption books, it can 'scare' prospective adoptive parents a bit and have them thinking "is this really something I can handle?" But that is good, because parents can not go into older child adoption thinking that love will fix everything. I just loaned this to a friend who is struggling in the first year with her new children through older-child adoption. I think it will help her understand that this is challenging for most parents and she is not alone in feeling discouraged sometimes.

Christine Mitchell
Author and Illustrator of
Family Day: Celebrating Ethan's Adoption Anniversary
and
Welcome Home, Forever Child: A Celebration of Children Adopted as Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Beyond

An excellent read and very insightful for parents of older adopted children. I highly recommend this book. Gives you insight into
what the child may have gone through and reasons why they may be behaving
in certain ways. A valuable book and great for reference as the child
grows older.

Over the past 8 years we have adopted an 18 month old, a 3 year old and a 12 year old and amassed a large adoption related library. I just stumbled across this book last week and found it to contain a lot of information that is not adequately addressed in any of my other books. I sure wish I had found this book 2 years ago, before we brought our 12 year old home. Not everyone who adopts a child over age 2 will need the material presented here, but most everyone who brings home an elementary age or pre-teen child will benefit from this book!