One thing you can do to prepare for the day when your child is finally in your home is to make a list of questions you would like answered by your child’s primary caregiver – generally orphanage staff, if you are adopting from Africa. This can include the following types of questions:
*What types of food are they eating? Are they on solids? Which ones? Do they use a spoon and fork? Their fingers? Do they feed themselves? Don’t assume that because children are a certain age that the food they are eating will be similar to that of an American-raised child. I have seen 3 week old babies started on rice cereal, adopted a 15 month-old who never had solids of any kind and a 5 year-old who had never eaten meat or used a fork or knife (she had only used a spoon).
*What is the sleep routine? When are naps? Bedtime? What type of bed are they in? Do they sleep alone or with others?
*How is your child soothed when he or she cries. Does she cry? (It would be a red flag if your child never cried.) How does they soothe themselves?
*Are they potty-trained? What exactly does that mean? Are the workers actually the ones who are trained? Did they learn to go on a pot? Are they used to peeing on the ground? Are they potty-trained at night? How often do they have accidents?
*How do they interact with others? Is it age-appropriate? Are they always bullying others? Being bullied? Do they play well with others their age?
*How is their education? Are they going to school if old enough? Do they participate? Do they seem to understand their schoolwork
*What is their personality? Gregarious? Shy? A personal favorite of one worker? I have discovered that “favorite” means “spoiled like crazy, has never heard the word no in their lives”, making it more difficult to transition them into normal family life. The upside, of course, is that they were loved! How do they deal with anger and disappointment? How do they deal with good things that happen? Are they good sports, win or lose?
*Probably most important, what is their story? The orphanage workers may know more about your child than you think. You will want to know things like: How did they end up in an orphanage, available for adoption? How long have they been there? Do the orphanage workers know anything about the child’s life before? If they were not placed in the orphanage until they were a little older, chances are very good that they were breastfed exclusively and carried everywhere as a young child. That’s good! That usually leads to children who can form healthy attachments, because they had one once. What else can they tell you?
(The caveat, of course, is that you probably won’t get all your questions answered. But, if you don’t ask any, you’ll get even fewer answered!)
Here are some other resources:
