Our Attachment Plan

Attachment ~ "The formation by a child of significant and stable emotional connections with the significant people in its life. This process begins in early infancy as the child bonds with one or more primary caregivers. A failure by a child to establish these types of important connections before the age of about five years may result in the child experiencing difficulties with a wide variety of social relationships for significant periods of time in its life."

We are not perfect people. We will not be perfect parents. We know this.

But we also know that we are going to be prayerfully doing our best as God leads and directs us.

One of the things that we believe is needed when adopting a child is an attachment plan. An attachment plan is, very simply, a plan of how we intent to foster and promote our attachment to Maya K and Maya K's attachment to us.

This plan is unique to our family and is what we feel we need for OUR family!!! We are not "promoting" this as some new fabulous and perfect way of parenting. This is simply our plan for our family.

We have created this plan after doing much research via reading adoption books, talking to our social worker, reading adoption blogs, talking with families who have adopted, etc.

This plan will probably change!!!! But everyone needs a starting place, right?!?! So here is our starting place.

• We are planning to both stay home with Maya K for the first full week that she is home. Nathan is taking the week off from work and we will focus on getting to know our daughter in our home and to allow her to get to know us with out any outside distractions. If people bring us meals (which we will GREATLY appreciate!!!) we will not be inviting them into our house or asking Maya K to come to the door to meet them.
• Once Nathan goes back to work, we will be keeping our schedule VERY limited. Most evenings and weekends will be spent at home, trying to keep to a very normal routine. Maya K needs a fairly strict routine when she comes home to allow her to work through her emotions as she may be grieving the "loss" of the only life, country, and culture she has ever known. There will be so many new sights, smells, sounds, language, food, EVERYTHING, that the more "normal" and simple we keep things, the better she will be able to process and adjust.
• We are going to pay attention to what MAYA K needs during this time and will not rush this. If things are going well and she seems to be adjusting to us and to her new life, we will begin introducing her to other people and to take her to new places.
• When we start taking her to new places and she begin to meet new people, we are asking that people give her (and us) plenty of space. Don't crowd around us and overwhelm Maya K. We would LOVE to have you meet her, but we are going to be paying the most attention to how SHE is doing with all the attention in a new environment. Feel free to tell Maya K "Hi", that you are excited to meet her, or whatever you want to say, but don't try to hug her our touch her in any way.
• We are asking that our friends and family, during this transition period, have a "hands-off" policy when it comes to Maya K. Because she has had so many different care-givers, it is important that she learn that WE are her mommy and daddy and that WE meet her needs, no one else. This may seem to us like a normal thing for her to realize, but it is often a difficult concept for newly adopted children. Especially children who are older when they are adopted. This is sometimes called "indiscriminate affection." The child is basically not able to distinguish WHO they are supposed to be showing their affection to. Often it happens that whoever the adult is nearest to them at the time becomes their "new" mommy or daddy in their eyes. Because of this potential issue, we are asking that you do not hug her, tie her shoes, give her food or candy, personally give her any gifts or anything, pick her up, etc. If she is need of something and you are with her, tell her to come ask her mommy or daddy or come get us yourself. This might not even be necessary at the beginning because we intend to be with her almost all the time. This is a VERY serious potential issue and because we aren't going to take the time to delve into all of it here, please ask us if you have any questions. We want family and friends to hold to this "hands-off" policy for a while, possibly as long as six months or so. This will really be dependent on how Maya K is doing!!! We don't anticipate this being something that will ALWAYS be the case, but we are wanting to do everything we can early on to help Maya K. And, by the way, this does not include other children. Other children can interact and play with Maya K just like they would with any new friend!!! This "hands-off" policy is just for the high school and college students and adults.

We know that some or all of this might sound a little crazy and different to some of you, and yes, we are new parents :-). But we are also drawing from the experiences of other parents who have adopted. Even from others who have both biological children and adopted children and who have seen the differences that are needed in parenting your newly adopted child. Differences that will probably not always be there, but that need to be addressed in a unique way early on. Since we haven't done this before ourselves, we are praying that God will give us wisdom and direction as we seek to raise Maya K into a godly young woman.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us!!! We know that you will be respectful of our wishes and our plans even if you don't necessarily understand or agree. Please continue praying for us and for Maya K. This transition will be hard for all of us, but especially for Maya K!!!