Patty Cogen - Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child: From Your First Hours Together Through the Teen Years

The Harvard Common Press
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Boston, Massachusetts 02118
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Copyright 2008 by Patty Cogen
Cover illustration copyright 2008 by Hugh Dunnahoe

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cogen, Patty.
Parenting your internationally adopted child: from your first hours
together through the teen years / Patty Cogen.
p. cm.
ISBN978-1-55832-326-1 (pbk.)ISBN978-1-55832-325-4 (hardcover)
1. Intercountry adoptionUnited States. 2. ParentingUnited States.
I. Title.
HV875.5.C6342008
649'.157dc22

2007047233

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Cover design by Night & Day Design
Interior design by John Kramer
Cover illustration by Hugh Dunnahoe

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my brother, David

If I thanked everyone involved with the development of this book, the acknowledgments would be longer than the book itself. The short version I offer here is only a slim reflection of the immense amount of daily support I have received over the past ten years from family and friends as well as professional colleagues and clients with whom I have worked. Thank you to all who remain anonymous, but whose names are in my heart.

Both my mother and my daughter lost birth parents at an early age and my relationship with each of them has given me a close-up view of what such loss means to a child throughout a lifetime. My daughter, Sun-Jia, whom we brought home from China when she was three years old, has been exceedingly frank, open, and articulate about what it means to grow up as an internationally adopted child. She has been both an inspiration for me and a model for what I have to say in the pages of this book. In addition, Ying Johnstone and her mother, Barbara, have contributed a great deal of information that is incorporated here, and I am grateful for their openness and enduring friendship.

I began dreaming about the possibility of this book in the late 1990s during conversations with Nina Berson, Sue Betts, Karen Delshad, Lois Langland, Aimee Liu, and Michelle Thoreson. Insightful readers of early drafts included Rhonda Bolton, Judy Challoner, Jan Faull, Gail Hudson, Barbara Johnstone, Jeri Jenista, Roberta Wilkes, and Linda Ziedrich. I am grateful to Jeannette Dyal and other members of the Child Therapy Association of Seattle who invited me to speak about my work more than once.

Thanks to my writing teacher, Nick O'Connell, who taught me to appreciate critiques. Deep thanks to my insightful and indefatigable agent, Elsa Dixon, who helped me to stay true to my original vision. Special thanks go to my editor, Dan Rosenberg, for his unfailing insight into my meaning and the exceptional kindness that accompanied each of his queries. I was exceedingly fortunate to have Dan as an editor. Thanks to Barbara Wood for her final polish on the manuscript. Thanks to publisher Bruce Shaw and the staff at the Harvard Common Press for their support of and confidence in this project, and for their patience. A special word of appreciation is owed to the book's cover artist, Hugh Dunnahoe.

Deep thanks to my old friends from Scripps CollegeSam, Merrilee, Lucille, Joanne, Mari, Deirdre, and Dalewho restored my flagging energy as the final editing drew to a close. Thanks also to Deborah Lodish and Judy Rothman for their compassion and insight. I owe much gratitude to my brother and sister-in-law, David and Dove Cogen, who took over the care of David's and my mother in the last year of her life and as I completed the writing of this book.

Special love and thanks for daily support, home-cooked meals, help with editing, and constant inspiration go to my children, Robin and Sun-Jia. Thank you, Robin, for encouraging me to take the big step of enrolling in my first nonfiction writing course and for your steadfast belief in me. Finally, profound thanks are due to my husband and co-parent, Larry Stein, for taking care of our family while I was up to my eyeballs in writing and for sharing the unfolding adventure of parenthood and international adoption.

Patty Cogen
Seattle, Washington

RAISING AN INTERNATIONALLY ADOPTED CHILD is both a challenge and an adventure. It is a challenge because it requires an adoptive family to face and overcome obstacles. It is an adventure because it is filled with surprises, excitement, and new learning. I hope that what you read in this book will help you to overcome the challenges you face and to experience your family life as a series of wondrous adventures.

There is one all-important concept behind this book, and it is the concept of proactive parenting. A proactive parent is the initiator of interactions with a child, as opposed to being merely a responder to a child's communication. Proactive parenting is effective in any family, but it is particularly important in adoptive families. In the pages of this book you will see how recent researchabout how internationally adopted children behave, about the most effective parenting strategies for this group of children, and about the family traits that integrate an internationally adopted child most successfully into a new familyall point in the direction of a proactive parenting style. A proactive approach, in which you are knowledgeable about your child's needs and are able to anticipate problems before they occur, keeps you ahead of, rather than behind, your child. When the inevitable challenges arise, the proactive parent is able to address them before they get out of control.

In 1991 Vera Fahlberg published an important book entitled A Child's Journey through Placement, which focused attention on the child's experience of being placed in a new family setting. Fahlberg describes the cycle of arousal and relaxation that occurs when a child fusses (is aroused), a parent responds with care, and, as a result, the child calms and relaxes. Fahlberg makes use of the psychiatrist John Bowlby's observations that a child's attachment is based on the speed and intensity of a parent's caregiving response, and also that a child's trust grows as the parent responds with empathy to the child's distress. Fahlberg describes how a newly adopted child, regardless of age, needs to experience contingency parentingthat is, responsive, empathetic parentingin order to become attached to his adoptive parent.

Since 1991, contingency parenting has been a primary focus of many adoptive-parenting classes. The concept of contingency parenting helps parents recognize that responding quickly and fully to a child's distress, either physical or emotional, is important and appropriate following adoption and will not result in bad habits or a spoiled child. The concept reassures parents that they do not need to worry about giving "too much attention."

I have found that most adoptive parents view contingency parenting as a temporary parenting approach that can be set aside, once trust and attachment are established, in favor of a more traditional parenting approach that centers on parents' age-appropriate expectations about how the child must learn to control himself and must learn to wait to have his needs met.