Our dear friends Dawson & Alicia posted this on their blog today www.theolferts.blogspot.com and I thought it had some really great insight worth passing on...
Dear Friends and Family,
We finally got our email from the US Embassy in Addis Ababa saying that we can go and pick up our son! We will be on an airplane Wednesday, April 4th heading to Ethiopia. The first thing we would like to do is to thank all of you for your love and support during this long, difficult, and hopefully character building =) adoption process. Because we know you care for Josef and our family, we want to share with you some information that we hope will best equip everyone to assist us in giving him a solid foundation when he gets home.
When a child is born into a biological family there is an instant bond. The baby knows from their first days that they can rely on their parents to meet their needs. If they are hungry…they cry and their parents feed them. If they need a new diaper…they cry and their parents change them. This cycle of expressing a need and having it met builds trust in the parent/child relationship from a very early age. Children who come home through adoption have experienced interruptions in this typical attachment process. The loss of a biological mother at an early age can be a major trauma on their little hearts. The good news is that we can now, as Josef’s family, rebuild attachment and help him heal from these emotional wounds. When Josef comes home, he will be overwhelmed. Everything around him will be new and he will need to learn not just about his new environment, but also about love and family. He has not experienced God’s design for a family in an orphanage setting. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the only ones to hold, snuggle, instruct, soothe and feed him. As this repeats between us, he will be able to learn that parents are safe to trust and to love deeply. We are, essentially, recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once Josef starts to establish this important bond, he will then be able to branch out to other, healthy relationships.
Children from orphanage settings are prone to attach too easily to anyone and everyone – which hinders the important, primary relationship with parents. Waving, blowing kisses or high fives are perfectly appropriate and welcomed, but it will help us immensely if adults limit what is typically considered normal, physical contact with Josef. This will (for a while) include things like holding, hugging, and kissing. We also want to redirect Josef’s desire from having his physical and emotional needs met by just anyone to having us meet them. Orphans often have so many caretakers that they, as a survival mechanism, become overly charming toward all adults. A child struggling to learn to attach may exhibit indiscriminate affection with people outside of their family unit. Please understand that we want nothing more than to have Josef hugged, cuddled and cherished by ALL of you (he’s totally irresistible and huggable) when the time is right.
Our plan: If you are in Billings, you are MORE than welcome to greet us at the airport. Our flight is scheduled to arrive at 11:40pm (unless we miraculously make the earlier flight on standby and arrive at 7:30 – you can call my parents if you want to check, Ron and Terry @ 252-0481) on Thursday, April 12th. On Friday, we will make a short visit to see some of our family, and then we’ll be heading back to Lustre. Once we are home we are going to enter a cocoon phase for the first month. We will basically stay at home, and Dawson and I will alternate taking Diek and Hadden to church and other activities. We will limit visitors during this time. We know that you are all looking forward to getting to know Josef, and we want him to know you, but it is so very important that he feels safe and comfortable in his new environment with his new family. We will constantly be evaluating things as we go, so please be patient with us as we figure this out. After the cocoon phase our family’s routine will get back to some kind of normal. At this point we would love to introduce Josef to our church family and friends. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions anytime.
We finally got our email from the US Embassy in Addis Ababa saying that we can go and pick up our son! We will be on an airplane Wednesday, April 4th heading to Ethiopia. The first thing we would like to do is to thank all of you for your love and support during this long, difficult, and hopefully character building =) adoption process. Because we know you care for Josef and our family, we want to share with you some information that we hope will best equip everyone to assist us in giving him a solid foundation when he gets home.
When a child is born into a biological family there is an instant bond. The baby knows from their first days that they can rely on their parents to meet their needs. If they are hungry…they cry and their parents feed them. If they need a new diaper…they cry and their parents change them. This cycle of expressing a need and having it met builds trust in the parent/child relationship from a very early age. Children who come home through adoption have experienced interruptions in this typical attachment process. The loss of a biological mother at an early age can be a major trauma on their little hearts. The good news is that we can now, as Josef’s family, rebuild attachment and help him heal from these emotional wounds. When Josef comes home, he will be overwhelmed. Everything around him will be new and he will need to learn not just about his new environment, but also about love and family. He has not experienced God’s design for a family in an orphanage setting. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the only ones to hold, snuggle, instruct, soothe and feed him. As this repeats between us, he will be able to learn that parents are safe to trust and to love deeply. We are, essentially, recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once Josef starts to establish this important bond, he will then be able to branch out to other, healthy relationships.
Children from orphanage settings are prone to attach too easily to anyone and everyone – which hinders the important, primary relationship with parents. Waving, blowing kisses or high fives are perfectly appropriate and welcomed, but it will help us immensely if adults limit what is typically considered normal, physical contact with Josef. This will (for a while) include things like holding, hugging, and kissing. We also want to redirect Josef’s desire from having his physical and emotional needs met by just anyone to having us meet them. Orphans often have so many caretakers that they, as a survival mechanism, become overly charming toward all adults. A child struggling to learn to attach may exhibit indiscriminate affection with people outside of their family unit. Please understand that we want nothing more than to have Josef hugged, cuddled and cherished by ALL of you (he’s totally irresistible and huggable) when the time is right.
Our plan: If you are in Billings, you are MORE than welcome to greet us at the airport. Our flight is scheduled to arrive at 11:40pm (unless we miraculously make the earlier flight on standby and arrive at 7:30 – you can call my parents if you want to check, Ron and Terry @ 252-0481) on Thursday, April 12th. On Friday, we will make a short visit to see some of our family, and then we’ll be heading back to Lustre. Once we are home we are going to enter a cocoon phase for the first month. We will basically stay at home, and Dawson and I will alternate taking Diek and Hadden to church and other activities. We will limit visitors during this time. We know that you are all looking forward to getting to know Josef, and we want him to know you, but it is so very important that he feels safe and comfortable in his new environment with his new family. We will constantly be evaluating things as we go, so please be patient with us as we figure this out. After the cocoon phase our family’s routine will get back to some kind of normal. At this point we would love to introduce Josef to our church family and friends. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions anytime.
We would appreciate your continued prayers during this time of transition for our family. Thank You.
Dawson, Alicia, Diek, Hadden, and Josef Olfert
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