[MariposaLoca]

Does anyone have any tips for facilitating bonding with a 6 y.o.?

Our son (to-be) is in Taiwan and will hopefully be coming home in a few months. We're just waiting for the courts. I have a few things planned already like homeschooling (at least for the rest of this school year), feeding him M&M's while maintaining eye contact, and keeping him with me and/or my husband all the time. I've sent him a blanket for him to use now so that when he comes home, he'll have something familiar with him at nighttime. I'm also planning on sending him some disposable cameras so he can take pictures of his favorite people and places. When he comes home, we'll get them developed and make up an album together.

Is there anything else that anyone can think of off the top of your head?

[Cobb]

Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents by Deborah D. Gray is a great resource for parenting techniques that promote attachment. It helps you to determine where your child is at and gives suggestions to enhance their attachment to you.

Good luck,
Cobb

[Cobb]

BTW, the link that comes up when you place your cursor over the title, is not the book I'm referring too.

Let's try this Attaching in Adoption

Just tested, this is the one I meant.

[MariposaLoca]

Originally posted by Cobb
BTW, the link that comes up when you place your cursor over the title, is not the book I'm referring too.

Let's try this Attaching in Adoption

Just tested, this is the one I meant.

Thank you, Cobb. I have this book and have been reading it, but I haven't found a whole lot in the way of actual things to do yet. Much of the first part is about different experiences adopted kids may go through and various problems. I guess I need to keep reading! :-)

[Cobb]

Skip to chapter 8. I found that their explanations of "phases" of attachment was helpful to determine where each of my girls were and what I needed to go back and do. Also, Keck and Kupecky in Adopting the Hurt Child and Parenting the Hurt Child have some good suggestions. If I remember right, they have lists of activities utilizing the senses that help with bonding.

Reading is always good, but it sounds like you will be getting first hand experience soon. I imagine after aquiring some general information as a foundation, you'll instinctively figure out what you need to do with your son when the time comes.

I hope bringing your son home goes well.
Cobb

[MariposaLoca]

Originally posted by Cobb
Skip to chapter 8. I found that their explanations of "phases" of attachment was helpful to determine where each of my girls were and what I needed to go back and do. Also, Keck and Kupecky in Adopting the Hurt Child and Parenting the Hurt Child have some good suggestions. If I remember right, they have lists of activities utilizing the senses that help with bonding.

Reading is always good, but it sounds like you will be getting first hand experience soon. I imagine after aquiring some general information as a foundation, you'll instinctively figure out what you need to do with your son when the time comes.

I hope bringing your son home goes well.
Cobb

Thank you! I've been reading some online stories of people with kids with RAD and I realized I really don't know what I would do in their shoes. That's probably not the place to start researching the subject, huh? :-)

[Cobb]

LOL! No, I wouldn't go straight to RAD info. Just remember there is quite a broad continum of attachment behaviors. Not all are diagnosed with RAD or AD. There are many, many things that you can do to both promote attachment and overcome insecure attachment. Knowing where to get the info is good, just in case, but unless they've warned you about problem behaviors it's probably unlikely.

[Just Julie]

I'd suggest sending photos of YOUR favorite places to him and photos of your friends and neighbors, home and yard and store and playground, etc. That way when he comes he will sort of recognize some places already. Maybe you have thought of that already. God bless.

[MariposaLoca]

Originally posted by Just Julie
I'd suggest sending photos of YOUR favorite places to him and photos of your friends and neighbors, home and yard and store and playground, etc. That way when he comes he will sort of recognize some places already. Maybe you have thought of that already. God bless.

Yes, I've sent him 2 little photo albums so far, but there are more pictures I could send (store, neighborhood in general, school, etc). He wants to see pictures of what toys we have for him, too. :-) I've sent a couple pictures of toys so far, but I could send more.

Thanks!

[Howdy]

The book called Theraplay has suggestions for activities to promote attachment.

One of the games is the Cotton Ball game. You put a drop of hand lotion on each other's noses and then stick a cotton ball on each other's nose (or maybe you stick it on the kid and do your own nose, or maybe who puts the lotion/cotton ball on who depends on how cooperative the kid is).

Then you blow the cotton ball off of each other's noses.

I don't know what the exact "rules" of the game are. I am between kids (waiting for a committee to make a decision on a child) so I don't have anyone to try it out on. I did it to myself and blew it off my own nose, and it was hilarious!

There is another game they talk about that is supposed to help attune the child to the parent, to add some structure and give some control to the parent (I think that is what the book said), and that game is called Peanut Butter and Jelly. The parent says Peanut Butter, and the kid says Jelly. But the game is that the parent uses different voices, such as High, Slow, Deep, Funny, Drawling, etc., and the kid tries to imitate the same voice.

The book has an appendix that lists the games by purpose (Engage, Structure, Nurture, and Challenge).

Another activity they talked about was feeling the child's toes in their socks and saying 'oh, you have grapes in your socks!' and pull off the sock and say 'oh they are toes, perfect little toes'. Something like that, but that may be one of the games they did not recommend for newly adopted children. In all the games you only do it if the child enjoys it, or if you can tell that the child will enjoy it even if they aren't cooperating right away because they think they won't enjoy the interaction or are simply resisting the parent (i.e., if they are really afraid don't do it, but if they are trying to avoid interacting with the parent go ahead and keep having fun until they can't resist smiling etc).

The book said to keep changing activities rapidly, every minute or every couple minutes I think they meant. In the book, the sessions (of the therapists doing the games with the child) lasted only a half hour and part of the time was rocking the child in their arms. I got the impression that the parents were supposed to do a little bit of it frequently several times a week, and make it a sort of lifestyle of how they interact with their children.

They emphasized not letting the child distract the parent from the game, and not letting the child take over the game. If the kid suggested a different way of playing a game, the parent was to say 'you have great ideas, but right now I want to play it this way'. And a lot of time the parent was just to ignore what the kid said (because the kids would be trying to distract the parent so they would avoid having to become engaged by the parent's game).

The book is extremely hard to read, like a textbook, but it had a lot of good stuff about promoting attachment. It also had examples of Theraplay sessions, that illustrated what all their boring text was saying (can you tell I have a love-hate feeling toward the book? it had such good information in it, but was presented in clinical terminology that made it hard to find the good stuff - and hard to stay awake).

Oh, another game was trying different kinds of hats on each other.

And another was putting a little bean bag on each other's head and catching it when it falls off.

And falling over very dramatically with admiration and humor (from a position of sitting on the floor) when they give you a push with their feet or hands. I think that game was to encourage confidence and self esteem in withdrawn children. Or maybe it was to circumvent uncooperative children, when they tried to push away the parent, the parent would turn that into a game by falling over dramatically and saying how strong the kid was and that they didn't think the kid could do that again, and then getting the kid to push again (even if you have to take hold of their hands or feet and do the push yourself), fall over dramatically again, and that way lure the child into interacting with the parent.

And familiar games like patty-cake, mother-may-I, etc.

And a game where the kid moves, for example, two steps to the left when the parent blinks their right eye twice, etc.

They played a lot of games that involved making hand and foot prints, I think by the parent rubbing lotion on the child's hand or foot and then somehow making baby powder prints on paper. I didn't quite understand how it would be done, but they also said the parent could use paints (or pudding - yuck!), and then the parent should wash and dry the child's hand or foot when done.

The energy of the activity was to depend on how much stimulation the child can handle, they should have a lot of fun, but not be made wild. If they are hypersensitive or hyperactive, the activities need to be done slower (choose slower calmer games).

They also said to do an 'inventory' of the child just like a parent does with a new baby, count the child's fingers, freckles, etc., in a loving admiring way. Have them make a muscle and admire it, measure it, measure how tall they are, etc. Look into their eyes and describe the color 'cinnamon brown', etc. They repeated this at the beginning of each session if I remember correctly.

Make a tracing of the child's hand or foot on paper.

Swing them around, or if they couldn't handle that, carefully hold them up and move them like an airplane very briefly, then let them down before they get too stressed by the activity.

One of the 'challenging' games was to get a single sheet of newspaper and hold it up pulled tight between your hands and let the child punch through it, so they feel challenged, successful, competent, etc.

The book had separate chapters for kids with different needs, such as foster/newly adopted kids, developmentally delayed kids, autistic kids, etc. I think the chapter on adopted kids said to focus on the games for nuturing, structuring, and engaging, and avoid doing many of the challenging games.

The children in the examples were (in general) hesitant in the beginning, then extremely resistant, got mad, cried, tried lots of ways to avoid what they were realizing was having to interact with parents (because they had attachment problems), and then after a few (or several - depending on the child) they would start to have fun.

That's all I can remember right now.

The idea of the games was to get rather intense interaction, face to face, with the kid looking at the parent. And everything is supposed to be done either in a very fun spirit or a very nuturing spirit (alternating activities, i.e., have a little hilarious fun, then rock and feed the child like a baby, then do some more fun stuff, then nurture some more).

They ended their sessions each time by singing to the child a personalized version of Twinkle Twinkle, such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, what a special boy you are, With dark brown eyes and soft soft cheeks, twinkle twinkle little star, what a special boy you are. [i might not have that exactly right, but you get the idea]

[Dr. Art]

Rather than guess at what to do...which suggests you know what are the problems or deficits to be addressed, which you don't...not all "AD" is the same. I'd stronlgy urge you to get a throrough assessment. Specifically I'd have the child assessed by an Occupational Therapist who is SIPT certified. I'd also get a good mental health and attachment assessment. They you can get specific advice on what to do and how to do it. You can find an appropriate person at ATTACh's list of registered clinicians

You can also read Becoming a Family by Lark Eshelman. This is a better book that the D. Gray book, I find.

regards and good luck

[MariposaLoca]

Originally posted by Dr. Art
Rather than guess at what to do...which suggests you know what are the problems or deficits to be addressed, which you don't...not all "AD" is the same. I'd stronlgy urge you to get a throrough assessment. Specifically I'd have the child assessed by an Occupational Therapist who is SIPT certified. I'd also get a good mental health and attachment assessment. They you can get specific advice on what to do and how to do it. You can find an appropriate person at ATTACh's list of registered clinicians

You can also read Becoming a Family by Lark Eshelman. This is a better book that the D. Gray book, I find.

regards and good luck

Thank you. I just received a report from the foster mother who has given me some insight on what to expect. She says he's well-behaved but when he does something wrong, he lies about it. He's also recently started taking things from classmates and claiming that they were given to him. After his foster parents talk to him a little while about it, he confesses that he took them. Also, when they go places, he's sometimes afraid he'll be left so he stays real close to his foster parents and doesn't have as much fun as he'd like. I'm very glad to have this information! Also, I looked on the attach.org site and found a therapist who is very close by. The only problem is, our son is in Taiwan and doesn't speak much English right now. It might be hard for a therapist to evaluate him when he first comes home.

[lucyjoy]

If the therapist is use to dealing with internationally adopted children, they can somewhat evaluate based on eye contact/movement and body language. They also can give you suggestions on things to do that will help your child and you to bond more easily. Many also use theraplay(not play therapy) to help facilitate bonding and much of it does not require language.

[whoownsthis]

You might also want to check with a local university's "Multicultural/International Student Services" office to see if there are any Taiwanese students who could serve as an interpreter during the evaluation.

Your city may also have an Asian cultural center where you can find a translater. Either way, you'd have a resource, plus they could teach you the language, too!

Rebecca

[MariposaLoca]

Originally posted by whoownsthis
You might also want to check with a local university's "Multicultural/International Student Services" office to see if there are any Taiwanese students who could serve as an interpreter during the evaluation.

Your city may also have an Asian cultural center where you can find a translater. Either way, you'd have a resource, plus they could teach you the language, too!

Rebecca

There is a Taiwanese Student Center at a big university near here, good idea!

Thanks, and thank you, too, Lucyjoy!