Someone recently asked me what I thought about "special needs" adoption. I am not sure what she thought when I told her I think every newly adopted child has "special needs."
In the US, we tend to label everything, especially kids. Some are "special needs" which many times means they have been diagnosed with something... HIV+, Hep B, cleft pallet, club foot, blindness, FAS, ADD... There is an endless list of labels that we attach to kids.
When we first started the adoption process, some people warned me that we should stay away from children with "special needs." They were concerned that having a child with special needs would just be far too difficult on our family. The child we were working toward adopting would be our fifth, after all. It would not be fair to our older kids to be saddled with a sibling with special needs.
That made sense to me at the time.
But what I did not fully realize was that (in my opinion) ALL newly adopted children have special needs when they first enter a home. Some children are more resilient than others. Some adapt more quickly than others. But they all start out with special needs! (I truly could extend this "special needs" concept to all children, as I truly believe that every child needs to be parented in a way that is unique to his/her strengths and weaknesses.)
Research has proven that kids ARE NOT more resilient than adults. Children who have experienced trauma need MORE support sorting through it than adults do, not less. (That is a whole different post.) ALL children - even babies who are adopted at birth - deal with trauma when they are separated from their birth parents. Thus every adoptive child placed in a family has experienced trauma and loss - and each and every child will need "special" care from their family as they process that loss.
That is why I believe all newly adopted children have special needs. Will they forever? In many cases, no.
We did parent Joshua very differently than his older siblings when they were his age, at first. However, every month he has needed less and less "special" parenting. We are now at a point that the way we parent Joshua is very close to the way we parented his older siblings at the same age. His "special needs" have, in many ways, been "cured." They were temporary... for the most part. We will always have different discussions with Joshua than we do with his siblings. Yet, each of our children have different issues they have to face, different skills they have to work on, different challenges - that is just part of being human.
I think that meeting your child's "special needs" and helping them become stronger, more loving, more capable, and more confident is THE most beautiful and rewarding parts of parenting!
***I do not say any of this to discredit (not sure if that is the word I am loking for) the difficulty in parenting a child who has long-term special needs. I can not imagine how difficult that is. I can not imagine the courage and determination and faith it takes to raise a child who has long-term special needs. I am in awe of the many who have CHOSEN to parent "the least of these." I only point this out because I think sometimes when bringing home a "healthy" child the "special needs" come as a very difficult and unwanted surprise. Don't let "special needs" scare you - but do be aware of them and prepare for them!
