Who is a suitable adoptive parent

Through RainbowKids, thousands of special needs and waiting children have found families Toggle navigation. Home About Us Blog Login. Waiting Children 3, kids ready to be adopted 33 adoption agencies that can help. Main Menu Toggle navigation. Parents should be willing to ask for help from their support system when and if needed. In case of an emergency, who will be there to help? Any personal issues should be processed and dealt with prior to adopting.

Educable — Anyone considering adoption does not need to have all of the answers already, but they do need to be willing to learn, and keep learning, what it takes to be an adoptive parent. Sense of Humor — Having the ability to laugh off everyday events will help keep adoptive parents sane.

Having a good sense of humor is the only way to deal with the many absurdities in adoptive parenting, such as the myriad of nonsense questions, frequent reminders, outrageous conversations, and incessant chatter. Children who join their family through adoption bring their own challenges, and parents will need to be able to look back and laugh at situations, such as the time their child poured lotion all over the floor, took a bath in leggings, or flushed a hand towel down the toilet.

Accepting, understanding, tolerant and flexible — Parents will need to be able to accept each child as they are, and understand that they have experienced trauma and will need time and flexibility in order to heal. Parents need to be able to effectively communicate with their children. Maintain parental role flexibility. One factor distinguishing successful adopters of older children is the ability of one parent to perceive the signs of burnout in another parent and move into the caregiving role while the stressed out parent recovers.

Single parents can find similar results when they: Build a network of support through membership in a foster or adoptive parent group Find friends who can listen and offer informal breaks from parenting responsibilities Establish a working relationship with respite care providers who can give them formal parenting breaks Have a systems view of their family. When parents view the family as a system—with complicated interrelated relationships among all members—they tend to look more deeply at reasons behind behavior, sibling difficulties, and interaction with parents, etc.

These parents are willing to look at how each member affects another and tend to mobilize all their resources to better cope with a new foster or adopted child. Take charge of their parental role. Their own comfort in being a parent helps them overcome any unusual circumstances or irregularities and they are able to take charge of the relationship.

Just as parents of newborns begin by acting like a parent and then transform into parents, so do successful foster and adoptive parents. Insist on developing an immediate relationship with the child.

Successful foster and adoptive parents of older children know they have a limited time frame to turn things around for the child. These parents can appear intrusive but in a caring way. They make up for lost time and try to establish contact and intrude much like parents of infants do by making eye contact and body closeness to build intimacy and trust. Practice self-care and use humor. Parents who master a balanced lifestyle, including incorporating self-care strategies and humor into their daily lives, are able to establish a healthy pattern and refuse to accept martyrdom as the price of parenting.

Regular evenings and occasional weekends away help parents gain perspective, regroup, and come back to the family with renewed energy. Operate in an open versus closed family system. Return to Victor. But as you consider becoming a foster parent and await the right placement for you, there are some key characteristics that will help you transition into the role. Certain family qualities may contribute to a successful adoption experience. All families and children are different, but certain parenting traits can ease the process of fostering and adopting children who have been in foster care.

Learning and using a new set of parenting skills and strategies to support youth who have experienced separation and loss. Seeing discipline as an opportunity to support children and youth in learning and growing rather than as a punishment. Using strategies to convey compassion and having compassion for birth parents and the challenges they may face. You may need to change your approaches to parenting to understand and validate the overlapping identities and lived experiences of your child.

It will be helpful for you to identify your existing parenting practices that may need to be adjusted to meet the emotional, developmental, social, and physical needs of children and youth who have experienced separation, loss, and other forms of trauma. At Victor Treatment Centers we give neglected and abused children and teens a safe, caring home during a season when their birth parents are struggling or need some time to recover from challenges.