Adoption Month!

Good to Be with You During November, "National Adoption Month"!

Much of my professional life has been helping families come together, or learn to be healthy and strong. I have been fortunate to work with families who bring determination, courage, and very loving hearts and minds to the process, and I have learned tremendously from each child and family with whom I have worked. And yes, there have been glorious successes, and some tragic failures, among ALL types of families whom I have met. Hope, prayer and determination are the key words in supporting a family, whether they are foster, adoptive, birth or extended families.

Today I sat with Barbara Tremetiere, an expert in adoption, and a birth and adoptive mother (15 children all told!) herself. She talked about the grit that it takes to parent a child, no matter what the circumstances of the family's life (I couldn't agree more!). Barb will be speaking at a dinner for Upper Bay Adoption and Counseling, Wilmington, DE, tomorrow, and will talk a good bit on how much genetics influences our relationships. What would it mean, for example, if by the genes given to us at birth, we are a "half full" person, and we are a part of a "half empty" family? Barbara admits that she is from such a circumstance, and I can only guess the friction, frustration, or even hardship when Mother and Child clashed over how to look at each and every situation. This is more or less a "simple" difference of personality, but what about things more complicated, such as what we are recently finding in brain studies -- that our pattern of expressing anger is, to a great extent, genetic? What happens when a family is a "no-outward- expression-of-anger-is-permitted" family, and our genetic code is set on "let-it-out-and-get- over-it" method of releasing anger? Could be pretty problematic for everyone!

Please understand, I do not believe that INBORN PATTERNS cannot be changed, adapted, altered, or maybe even just softened. But, imagine this. A child comes from rough beginnings, in which he or she was abused, neglected, or any of the seriously destructive (yet FAR too common) circumstances of early life for many of the children in the world. Now imagine that this child comes to a "Forever Families" through foster care or adoption. This child may be a "half empty" child by nature, and now that belief that "life is cruel, hurtful, and unfair, and I have few positive ways to make it better," has been solidified in the child's mind and view of the world, through no fault of its own.

By contrast, the family into which the child has come, is a "half full" family, excited about adding a child to their loving home and with great expectations for sweet attachment and bonding and living "happily ever after." Parents are often totally unprepared for what may lie ahead.

It is my belief that we cannot predict nor dictate how our lives, and the lives of our children, will turn out. We live in the moment, planning for the future based on our beliefs of how the world should work, and our place in it, using our strengths to fulfill our mission in life. I personally believe we are "Powered by God" to fulfill this mission, but do know that there are many, many wonderful people in the world who do not share my belief in this regard, and I do not think less of the power of their love and contributions to the world.

So, we know that there are children who bring to their adoptive families a history and now pattern of behavior including negativity, hurts beyond measure, and FEAR of/resistance to trusting new adults in their lives (no matter how many times parents tell children that they are safe -- it's been ingrained in the child's inner being, at least until we work hard at de-programming the child). Parents who are "half full," excited, loving, and expectant of "instant bonding and attachment," and not prepared, are going to be hit head-on with shock, fear of failure, rejection and hurt. And so, the negative cycle begins, and often spirals downward with everyone losing.

Now for the GREAT NEWS! There are many, many programs now in existence and already being tested, formally and by the test of time and experience, which can help families to be happy and successful, even when genetics and past experience collide. One place you can go to check out what IS WORKING to help families come together is www.instituteforchildren.org.

I started the Institute for Children & Families in 2007, and it has since taken on a life of its own. The premise of ICF's work, however, is easy. When children have rough beginnings -- traumatic starts -- whether by abuse, neglect, high stress in families, maternal (post partum) depression, multiple moves, childhood illness, especially with great pain, and other circumstances, there are now many gentle, helpful, positive and safe interventions that make a difference and can heal even the most devestating emotional injuries. What a JOY to see families move through the stages of healing, and come through with hope, love, and support, AND the acceptance that everyone in a family does not have to be the same, they just have to love, support and respect each other.

So, November -- yes, it's a month for celebration of the millions of adoptive families around the world who have enriched their lives by coming together through foster care and adoption.

AND, November is a month to just celebrate the strength of families, and the determination to find the answers to how we -- our own families -- can be as strong, healthy, loving and supportive as we can possibly be, in fulfilling our mission, and passion, in life.

I'll be talking with you,
Dr.Lark

Introducing the Strong Family Nation

Good to be with You.

This blog, as you can guess, is for Families ~~ however Families come to be. I am writing for Intact Families, Adoptive Families, Foster Families, Extended Families, Single-Parent Families, Waiting-to-Be Families, and All Manner of Families in between. It will be great getting to know you!

I am a child-and-family psychotherapist, a Doctor of Psychology and Certified School Psychologist, and also a part of several Families ~~ my Family of Origin, of course, with 88 and 89 year old parents and three siblings who are still very much in the picture and fabric of my life and the life of my own family, including my husband, children (birth and step), and family members that stretch the idea of extended family to many corners of the world. My life's work has given me the joy of having been a children's librarian, an elementary school principal, a school psychologist, a child and family psychotherapist with specializations in trauma therapy, attachment and bonding work, cognitive, behavioral and neurological healing, and our own particular model of therapeutic intervention, "STAT" ~~ Synergistic Trauma and Attachment Therapy ~~ which we practice at the Institute for Children & Families, which I began 7 years ago and which is a thriving center for healing in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Teaching and training have become a focus of my work in recent years. Even in Central Europe, when my husband and I were chosen by Rotary International to develop a treatment and training center in Croatia after the war in the former Yugoslavia, teaching with a translator was one of the most fulfilling parts of the almost-year we spent there. Teaching now brings me to many places in this country, and I am off on a new international (Asia and Australia) teaching adventure in the Spring of '08

Through my work I have learned from numerous mentors and masters, but mostly from the parents, adolescents and children with whom I have walked the path of understanding, teaching, learning, healing, and growing. My book, Becoming a Family: Promoting Healthy Attachments with Your Adopted Child, was conceived and supported through its formation, by the families that asked me to put together the many things we had learned through our work together.

My mission, in this blog, is be a conduit for the wisdom of my life, work, and the wealth of knowledge that has come through me to give tales and tools ~~ ideas of what to do to help all families be as strong as they can be, and to share examples of what families can do to be healthy & loving, to support each other, to use Families as the great support they can and should be in our lives.

I plan to write several times a week, about what makes Strong Families, and often about Special Needs Families. My hope and prayer is that there is information here that will help you to build, strengthen, and gain tremendous joy from your families!

I'll be talking with you!
Doctor Lark