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Piping in from the Russia board - but I think most IA older child adoptions have the same issues. We brought home a 6 year old (and 7 year old) about 3 years ago. The language transition went well for us - we did full immersion...did not speak to them in Russian at all from moment one. The thing that helped us a lot was STRUCTURE. Every day was exactly the same for awhile. We didn't cocoon ourselves, but I had a set time to run errands, set times to eat, set times to watch TV, set times to work on "learning", etc. The predictability made them feel a little safer. Here comes what did not work for us: my ability to attach. It was very hard for me (and somewhat for DH). They aren't totally reliant on you as an infant is. They come to you already with attitudes and it can be hard to parent a "stranger" without feeling a little upset that they are being difficult. It took a LOT of time away from our oldest son, plus rocked his world in that our lives went from fairly laid back to "high alert" for awhile. We couldn't have a lot of "hey, let's go find something to do" time. Now, we are having major issues with learning differences. We are searching out testing - but it's an uphill battle with school districts. They missed out on so much by being institutionalized (and they were both with birth family for a decent amount of time prior to the orphanage). I'm at a bit of a low point right now, but really feel that the issues are far deeper than we figured on. And, we did a lot of reading and studying - felt very prepared.
Don't get me wrong. Our family has exactly the members it's supposed to have...but it's not an easy road. Very steep climbs for much of our time so far. They are overall physically healthy and most of the time happy kids. Just be very prepared for even the worst case scenarios and then everything better will be a blessing!
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