Called To A Higher Standard

In this episode, I share the details of our adoption journey, from unexpected challenges to beautiful moments of connection. We discuss the deep emotional impact adoption has on children, the importance of awareness and understanding, and how adoptive parents are called to a higher standard of love and care. I believe that awareness is power, and I hope my story inspires others navigating the adoption journey.

What is Living With Joy Renewed with Jeanette Nafziger?

Welcome friend! This is the Living With Joy Renewed podcast, where adoptive families find healing for the present and hope for the future.

I'm Jeanette Nafziger, and I'm here to come alongside you on your parenting journey each week with tips, real-life stories, and encouragement to help your family find renewed joy at home.

Hi, welcome back to the joy renewed podcast.

We talk all about adoption here. And adoption is such a beautiful story. My husband and I didn't start our life together ever thinking about adoption. But now I wouldn't choose it any other way. If I was given the chance to go back and choose how I wanted to grow my family, I would choose it to happen exactly how it did every time.

But that doesn't mean it was always easy.

One time I had a mom in another mom's group that I was in, she turned around and she said, You're so lucky to have just been handed most of your children. You didn't have to go through the whole pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum thing.

I just kind of looked at her sideways and got my mouth shut.

Anyone who has been involved with the child welfare system knows how difficult it is. It is a heart wrenching roller coaster sometimes, especially if they are foster children before you adopt them. That balance of giving as much love to the child as possible, yet supporting the biological parents. And then that bittersweetness when reunification doesn't work out and you are able to adopt them. The range of emotions in that journey is immense. One of our children never had visitation with bio parents and termination of parental rights happened quickly. Another one worked towards reunification for a year. Another one they worked towards reunification for six months, and parental visits happened weekly. One of our children was very close to reunifying with birth family, and then that suddenly got changed, that goal got changed to adoption very suddenly.

I share all of this because it's hard to really explain the range of emotions unless you understand what this looks like. And just that journey of a roller coaster as you foster to adopt.

We were first and foremost foster parents. But we were also available as an adoptive home.And we had no control over who we were, at any time someone else was controlling this. We didn't know from week to week how it was going to turn out. But we were loving and caring for these children immensely. No matter what they were a part of us. They you know, they were a part of our family.

Now take all of these emotional feelings. That feeling that, you know we were feeling that confusion, the fear of loss, the temptation to protect our hearts by pulling back because of all the uncertainties and apply them to our children's lives. The degree that we feel all of this as adults has got to be minuscule compared to what they're feeling about all of this. Now, you may say you adopted your children as infants, or they came at such a young age, they wouldn't have understand all that was going on. True to some degree.

Their minds were not mature enough to understand the dynamics of what it meant that the trajectory of their lives was hanging in a balance at that time. But their brains were absorbing all of the feelings and emotions that surrounded it. They could hear and they could feel your confusion, maybe your frustration. Sometimes they can see feel your sadness. They definitely knew that their surroundings were unfamiliar. And anything that had been familiar from the womb, or the biological home that they had been in is no longer accessible to them such as their mother's voice, the smells, the sounds, you know they were in the city and now they're in the country. Things are are unfamiliar.

So no, maybe they couldn't voice any of that out if they were young. But the pathways, no brains were being etched. The brains primary job is to protect in order for survival. And there would have been some real warning bells going off in their brains, even as infants, young children, about the world when suddenly familiar, familiarity is gone, strangers and strange surroundings have taken their place, and uncertainty about which one was safer, the familiar or the new, is creating this perfect storm for adoption trauma that puts the brain and the child then in full alert mode, trying to figure out if anything in the world is actually safe.

So we all understand, you know, maybe to a better degree how this happens with an older child in foster care, or has you has been adopted, but don't discount the power of it with these little ones, their brains have absorbed it. And to some degree, it could be even more difficult because the memories may not be accessible to them. So they can't at all understand why they have difficult feelings, difficulties feeling secure, or why they see the world a bit differently than their family or their peers may see it.

So this introduction gets us into the topic for today. And the topic is being called to a higher standard.

I believe that adoptive parents are called to a higher or if you want to say different standard of parenting. And it's just not one we're really prepared for going in. I wish I had known. I've said that so many times, I wish I had known.

Really, very few parents feel completely equipped for parenting when they're going into it. But you know, when you when you get pregnant and you give birth, there's a learning curve. There's things you learn along the way as you adapt to your baby as you adapt to being parents.But adoption adds a different layer to this, you still have the same learning curve, the same adapting to parenthood the same getting to know and understand your baby, or your child's cues. But no matter what age they are, when they enter your lives, whether they were 15, or their eight years old, or an infant straight from birth, they're not coming to you with a quote, “clean slate” so to speak.

Life has already thrown them some curveballs that have begun carving pathways of thinking and a belief system into their brain. Ideally, our job is to help them heal those pathways that have put a negative influence on their thinking. The trauma experiences are stored because of things that happen to them. Or maybe just because the familiar that they were used to left and strange things have emerged, creating a sense of insecurity.But we have to be aware of all this before we can learn how to become beacons of healing for them. And that brings us back to that word again, awareness.

When we are aware, we are powerful. This is because our responses, our actions, our words, our behaviors, our decisions, all come from that place of awareness of how all of these things can affect our child. All of these things are listed again, our responses, our actions, our words, our behaviors, or decisions or reactions as parents, they have the ability, the ability to bring healing, or increased trauma.

Let me give you an example. Every parent has bad days, we all do. And let's say on one of these particularly difficult days, your patience is short, and you without thinking spurt out to your child. Just shut up. I need a minute in a way that is actually very rare for you. Maybe you you don't often spurt out like that. The child may run off to their room upset with sudden unusual response from mommy or daddy. And you immediately feel awful you go to the child to acknowledge what you did, why it was wrong to apologize to them. When this happens, any child whether they're a biological child or an adopted child, will most likely have these few brief moments of thoughts like why did mommy or daddy lash out like that? Will they do it again? And their brain may start this subconscious train of thought that well maybe mommy isn't as safe as I thought. Or maybe I just did something so bad maybe I'm not really good person if I made her mad like that.

Picture for me a ball of playdough, so you've got a nice smooth ball of playdough in your hand, take that little plastic knife and make a soft, little scratch type of trench in that playdough, a path that you can see, but that doesn't really break through the top layer. Now picture being able to lightly run your finger over that scratch and the playdough. And the ease with which it disappears. And suddenly the ball is smooth again,

I want you to take in your mind that same smooth ball of playdough. Take that little plastic knife. And this time, I want you to think about pushing harder into that playdough while making a path, a little trench, make it deeper to where it breaks through the top layer and it goes down into the soft dough. When you run your finger over it, it doesn't smooth out as easily, and it doesn't completely disappear. And maybe you can use your finger a little harder and make it look like there isn't any mark there on the surface. But you know that that trench is still under there. And you can't really make it go away without completely doing some work to need the playdough around in some way.

Example sounds like a little tangent, didn't it. But let's bring it back around to our scenario. A child who has not had any adverse experiences that make them feel constantly insecure, unsafe will have a brain like that, first of all playdough if they don't experience that uncertainty on a regular basis, meaning this type of outburst from you or daddy or mommy or daddy is rare. Your apology can close up that little pathway in their brain that was trying to form telling them that maybe you aren't safe or they aren't secure. But for an adopted child, those actions have not started a new pathway. They've deepened an already existing one. Picture your playdough again, and if that knife symbolizes your words or your actions, it goes in it digs deeper into a belief system that is already embedded in their brain and an apology is the correct way to handle this situation. But it is important to understand that it'll be harder for that apology to reach the depths of hurt and insecurity that they may have caused. Parents are human beings, I've said it before we make mistakes.

And we always need to be aware of those mistakes. And we need to model humility when we're trying to fix them. But I use this example, to help adoptive parents understand what I mean. When I say we are called to a higher standard of awareness, our responses, our actions, our words, our behaviors, our decisions, they have a greater ability to cause long term pain. But the opposite is also true. If their little plastic knife is a sudden outburst, a triggered reaction that lashes out picture a different response as maybe some of those extra little pieces of playdough that are always laying around on the table or the floor. If we're having a bad day, or if our child's having a bad day. And we are able to model control of our triggers and our reactions. If we stay aware that what we say and do can have one of two different effects.

We can learn how to bring healing. If our child expects a reaction that is harsh, and we instead instead choose to intentionally respond in a way that is loving, gentle, it shows unconditional love, then it's like taking that extra playdough and filling in a small layer of that trench. Over time that trench gets smaller and smaller. And while it will always be there to some degree, it can become instead of a belief system, more of a reminder of how Yes, things can be hard and scary sometimes, but I am loved. I am secure. And so I'm strong enough to handle the tough stuff.

You are a great parent. Life is really hard sometimes though, and making the right choices all the time is only really for sainthood. But the key here is being aware knowing that every response and interaction with our child is an opportunity to heal these negative belief systems that the world has embedded into their brain or they can work to embed them deeper.

When we are aware, we will find that out of our love. We will choose the healing words and actions more often than we will react negatively. And that is what brings us as parents to the place of becoming the most powerful conduit of healing in our child's life.

Thanks so much for joining us. I'm glad that you listened in. I want to continue these podcasts in a way that is relevant to the experiences that adoptive parents are facing each day. And in order to do that, I would love to hear from you.

What are your questions? What are your experiences? What are some things maybe that we could talk about on this podcast that can help us all on this journey together to support and encourage one another? Check out my instagram Joy renewed and see on there.

Check out my Instagram page, Joy renewed and comment.

I'll put a place on there for you to be able to comment what your questions are, what things you'd like to discuss what things could support and encourage you on this journey.

Again, thanks for listening in and we'll catch you next time. Bye bye