One of my favorite people in the entire world is Barbara Tremitiere, a well known national expert in the area of special needs adoption and preparing families for what to expect after the kids move in. She has a most interesting quote about bonding. Tremitiere has always said to us that "it is not the adopted older child's job to bond to their new adoptive parents but rather the new adoptive parents' job to prove that they are worth bonding to."
What I believe Tremitiere means is that we can't place the burden of bonding on the newly placed child and whether bonding occurs has far more to do with whether the new adoptive parents can prove they are worth bonding to.
You see, when you place teens and pre-teens for adoption, as my agency does, the young people we place simply assume at placement that it is a matter of time before they will be rejected yet again and ultimately kicked out of this new household. The newly placed youth usually proceeds cautiously to protect him or herself from the expected rejection he or she believes will occur soon by staying somewhat detached from the new family and by resisting getting close to the new family.
How can adoptive parents of teens and pre-teens prove they are worth bonding to? Well, having been involved in nearly a thousand placements of children during my 20-year career I can think of no better answer than shared laughter.
Christian Hageseth in his book, "A Laughing Place," noted that "humor is essential to the enterprise of being a parent. It may be the single best antidote for parent burn-out. Humor plays a central role in parent/child bonding." Dr. Laurence Peter, of Peter Principal fame, noted in his book, "The Laughter Prescription," that "shared humor creates a bond between people. It says 'we both see, understand, and enjoy.' The shared memories of the funny stories cement relationships."
Shared laughter between parent and child is an incredibly effective way to cement a new parent/youth relationship and to speed along the bonding of that relationship.
BE ASAP - AS SILLY AS POSSIBLE
Children and youth love silliness. They love playfulness. They love to see their parents act silly and playful. It generates so much household laughter. Even those teenagers who seem not to appreciate anything appreciate it when the adults in their lives act silly and playful. This relays to the youth that you are someone who might be a safe person - by going out on a limb, by taking the risk of embarrassing yourself by being playful and silly - you give the youth the message that you might even be someone worth the risk of bonding to.
A lot of people think acting silly is stupid. Steven Allen, Jr., M.D., the son of the famed comedian, had this to say about silliness and those who say silliness is stupid: "Stupid means ignorant and uneducated. You do stupid things because you don't know any better. Having fun and playing is not stupid - it is silly." Silly, Allen goes on to point out "derives originally from the Old English (ge)saelig, which meant completely happy, blessed. Silly was a blessing you wished upon those you loved. It meant to be happy, prosperous and healthy." Below are eight concrete and silly ideas to bring more laughter into your household with older children to enhance your bonding experience with them.
EIGHT CONCRETE IDEAS TO GENERATE MORE LAUGHTER INTO YOUR HOME LIFE WITH TEENS AND TWEENS
So, concretely speaking, what are some ideas and suggestions of silly and playful things you can do with your recently placed teen or pre-teen children, and really any child you find yourself living with, to promote bonding through the use of silliness and playfulness? Below are some suggestions of some great silly ideas you might want to do with your new child to enhance bonding and laughter in your household. Many of these ideas have been taken from Vicki Lansky's book "101 Ways to Make Your Child Feel Special. "
1. Take your child to the local magic store. Buy some magic tricks and teach your child how to do the tricks. Kids love to be able to trick other people. It is empowering for children to possess some knowledge that other people do not have. Kids love to play and the magic tricks generate their playful side. When they grow up they will always be able to recall fondly the parent who took them on a trip to the local magic store and bought them the tricks that allowed them to fascinate, and perhaps even make other people laugh.
2. Let your child plan an un-birthday party allowing him or her to invite a group of friends and family members. This is a silly idea that all the other kids invited to the party will enjoy and remember your child for. That, in turn, will create a memory that your child will remember you for.
3. Send your child a funny greeting card by mail. You can make it, or you can buy one especially designed for kids. Kids love to receive mail. And if the mail is funny it creates another bonding experience your child will remember you for.
4. Order a copy of a newspaper that was published on your child's birthday the next time you see one advertised in a catalogue or magazine. Give it as a special birthday gift. This sends your newly placed teen or pre-teen child the message that his or her birthday is an important day in your life because he or she was born on that day.
5. Funny face photos. Remember those photo booths in airports, shopping malls and amusement parks? Next time you and your youngster pass one together invest in some funny-face photos of the two of you together. They will be treasured for a long time.
6. Comic strip or cartoon relevant to your child. When you find a comic strip or cartoon that is relevant to your child in some way, photocopy it with a cut-out picture of your child's head placed over the favorite comic character's head.
7. Teach your child a few simple riddles or jokes to tell friends so that she or he can get a good laugh. Creating a laugh gives kids a powerful and wonderful feeling. You can easily find good, clean children's jokes on the Internet. Otherwise, try to remember the jokes you found funny as a child and teach them to your youngster.
8. Design one special frame for a permanent, prominent display of a current yearly photo of your child. Keep putting the new one on top of the old one and let the frame serve as storage for those pictures of past years.
SHARE YOUR IMPERFECTIONS
One other way to show your child you are a fun and safe person is to share your imperfections. Let your child play with your vulnerabilities, share with your child your most embarrassing moments, or encourage your child to share with you one of his or her most embarrassing moments. Kids feel imperfect about a lot of things and this is particularly true for new kids placed at older ages. Children appreciate a parent who can playfully make a fool out of him or herself, or a parent who can take a joke from a child. Children appreciate a parent who will allow a child to play with his or her imperfections up to and including a child who might have accidentally embarrassed the parent and the parent can laugh about it anyway.
For instance, it isn't a secret in my house that I have a hard time knowing what spelled out words are unless I have a pen and paper in hand to write them down. If you said to me "let's go to the C-A-R, I would have no idea what you were talking about until I wrote C-A-R down and saw that you were spelling out the word "car." My daughter learned about this imperfection at an early age and has played with it ever since.
She first learned I had this imperfection when she was a little 3-year-old sitting in her stroller and her mother suggested to me that I take her to the P-A-R-K. Misunderstanding her mother, I had proceeded to ask her where the "penny arcade" was. She then repeated her suggestion that I take her to the P-A-R-K. Misunderstanding her again, I then said that I never even heard of "Pierre's Arcade." After another round of not understanding that her mother was spelling out a word my 3-year-old daughter screamed at me "The Park, Daddy, the park! Mommy wants you to take me to the park!"
"Oh," I said out loud.
From that day forward my daughter knew I had this imperfection. She also picked up that I wasn't defensive about it. As a result she had my informal permission to play with it. One day when I came home from work when she was about 6 years old she had one of her friends over. I started to playfully kid around with the two of them by doing silly things. My daughter seemed a little annoyed and started spelling out to her friend that her daddy was a "S-I-L-L-Y-B-O-Y." I had no idea what she was spelling out but I wanted to make sure this eight letter word that began with an "S" was not some curse word like "sh-head."
So, I ran all around the house looking for a pen and paper so I could write out "S-I-L-L-Y-B-O-Y." After I wrote the word out I not only realized she was not spelling out a curse word, but she was paying me a big compliment. Referring to her father as a "silly boy" was about as big a compliment a little girl could bestow on to her dad.
For years parents have spelled out words in front of their young children so the child would not know what was being said. In my house, my daughter spelled out words in front of me, so I didn't know what was being said. She took full advantage of playing with my imperfections. Kids often do things that can put their parents in an embarrassing situation. It is up to the parent to utilize this situation as a bonding experience and an opportunity for shared laughter.
To give another example, let me share with you something that happened to a co-worker of mine who brought her newly adopted 10-year-old son into the office because she was getting ready to go to a birthday party for herself after work that day. When I found out my co-worker was going to a birthday party for herself I asked her "Hey Joanne, how old you gonna be?" I asked her knowing full well that she was approaching 40.
"It ain't none of your business," she retorted.
Then I said, "Oh, come on, tell me."
"No way!" she said. Then her son Terrell jumped in saying "Mr. Pat, I know how old mommy's going to be." Joanne shouted loudly to Terrell, "don't you dare tell him!" Following his mother's instructions obediently, he immediately told me, "Mommy is 22."
Then after Joanne heard him say "22" she said, "well, OK, you can tell him if you want" and then everyone in the office laughed. Then I was wondering why Terrell thought his mother was 22. I figured we might get another little laugh out of finding out his mom actually told him she was 22. So I asked, "Hey Terrell, how do you know your mommy is 22?"
Very innocently, Terrell replied, "because whenever I look in Mommy's dresses they all say '22' in them."
Did you ever try to hold in a laugh that needs to come out? Everyone in the office wanted to burst out laughing but we all had to hold it in and look over to Joann first. When Joanne started laughing, everyone joined in relief. It was one of those precious moments that Joanne and Terrell will be able to share forever. The only reason this situation turned into a bonding experience was because Joanne allowed it to be so. She could have gotten angry, taking Terrell home, and punishing him. Many parents would have done so for a lot less. However, Joanne saw the opportunity for both laughter and bonding experience in that moment, and that moment was able to be recalled for the 15 or so years since that placement was made.
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR LAUGHTER AND BONDING ISNOWHERE
Did you read the above title as "the opportunity for laughter and bonding is no where?" Or did you read the above title as "the opportunity for laughter and bonding is now here?" As in life, we all see the exact same thing but we can, nonetheless, see something completely opposite and different. You can look at any situation, particularly those situations where your child does something that leads to an embarrassing moment, as a moment creating shared laughter that leads to a bonding experience. Or you can look at the exact same situation and choose to make it whatever the opposite of a bonding experience might be. Whether every experience with your child turns into "a laughter and bonding is now here" opportunity or "a laughter and bonding is no where" opportunity is completely up to you. We, of course, suggest you choose the positive over the negative and make as many of these moments "laughter and bonding is now here" opportunities as possible.
DEVELOP A "JOY JOURNAL"
The two stories I shared in the "Share Your Imperfections" section above were able to be shared with you for one reason and one reason only: because after they happened I wrote them down. I was able to recall them time and time again because I took the time to write them in my "joy journal." We actually never have to tell a joke if we can simply recall the funny things that have happened in our lives.
Taking the time to help your child develop his or her own "joy journal" is another wonderful bonding experience. Kids love to be able to tell things to people that will make them laugh. If they have a joy journal full of funny stories, especially stories that have occurred since their placement as a teen or pre-teen with you or another adoptive family that you know, it will continuously remind them of the good times they shared since moving in with you or their new family. This is bound to help cement the parent/child relationship and bond.
CONCLUSION
I can go all day with stories about how laughter, playfulness and silliness help cement relationships. Always remember how important it is to be silly, to share your imperfections, to give your child permission to kid around and joke with you, and to savor these stories by writing them down in your own, and your child's, joy journals.
I'd like to end with a letter written by a young adult who was placed as a teen with a single mom. Mom had been so proud that her daughter got accepted to college. When her daughter left for college she so much wanted her daughter to get good grades. In fact, she was the type of mom who, when her daughter was in high school, got upset if her daughter came home with bad grades. One day, this mom got a letter from her daughter during her first semester away at college:
Dear Mom:
I am sorry that I have not written, but all my stationary was destroyed when the dorm burned down. I am now out of the hospital and the doctors say that I will be fully recovered soon. I have also moved in with the boy who rescued me, since most of my stuff was destroyed in the fire.
Oh yes. I know that you have always wanted a grandchild, so you will be pleased to know that I am pregnant and you will have one soon. The wedding date is set for the middle of the month and I hope you can make it.
See ya soon.
With Love, Theresa
P.S. There was no fire, my health is perfectly fine, and I am not pregnant. In fact, I do not even have a boyfriend. However, I did get a D in French and a C in math and chemistry. I just wanted to make sure that you keep it all in perspective.
