Preparing for a toddler adoption

Preparing for a toddler adoption is something I know a lot about. Being prepared for a toddler to come and live at my house is something I am pretty sure I will, at some point in time, feel like something I knew nothing about. That being said, I do feel like God blessed me with the ability to teach young children for many years before I became a mom and that those experiences will help me as I parent. As a teacher and someone who has a master's degree in literacy, I think a lot about Kenson and Conleigh's language abilities and brain development. Not because I want them to be perfect but because I know how much early exposure to good language experiences influences brain development. I do believe both orphanages do a good job at providing stimulation in terms of oral language skills for the kids they serve. In both places, the nannies talk to the babies and sing to the babies and play those little patty cake type word games with kids.

But I also recognize that my kids are missing out on valuable vocabulary development because they are not hearing English and are not hearing the "normal" conversations that a family has. They are also not being read to and seeing written environmental print like street signs and grocery store prices. So in some ways my kids will have some challenges because of this.

My kids will also have some challenges because they are toddlers. Toddlers in general are caught between being babies and being big kids. They're torn between needing an adult and pushing for independence. They are stuck with big kid wants and little kid vocabularies. Toddlers can be frustrated by that. And frustration leads to feeling out of control. And out of control leads to, well, everything being out of control!

Now take a toddler who has had his whole world uprooted by an adoption. Those toddlerish feelings of frustration are coupled with new places and new people and new rules and a new language and a new schedule. I'm sure you see the challenge.

Here's where the teacher in me jumps out...As a teacher I have worked with both kids who feel out of control and with kids who have some language delays. For Kenson, I'm hoping to work on both of those by creating cards based loosely on a program called Boardmaker. I've made several things which I hope will be useful as we transition. (I started posting them in this same post but then it got kind of long so I think I'll break it up. Stay tuned for more posting.)