Adoption—the Sacred and the Sorrows: Gary Chapman and Laurel Shaler

Gary: If we don’t adopt, help the people who are. Do special things for them and for their children. There are lots of ways, whatever we can do, to reach out because that’s what Jesus did, and He’s our model.

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: We started a conversation yesterday with Dr. Gary Chapman, “Mr. Five Love Languages,” and another doctor, Dr. Laurel Shaler, who’s sitting back in our studio.

We’re going to apply this “Five Love Languages” concept to adopted families. What’s the title of the book? Loving Adopted Children Well.

I loved our conversation yesterday. I think it was really helpful. If you missed it, go back and listen to it. One of the things you get into in the book, hallway through, is not just how to apply these love languages, but when there are struggles in adoption or in adopted families. I don’t know that. We haven’t adopted. We have a son who has two adopted kids, but we’ve heard stories and stories of struggles with adopted kids.

Ann: Well, especially in the teen years, some of those struggles come out. That can be whether they’ve come into adoption at a later age or, maybe, they were adopted at birth. Can there be struggles at any stage of their adoption process?

Laurel: Yes, I would say there can be struggles that come about at any point because the children are still learning their story, and they’re still processing their story. They’re going to get different pieces of information at different stages in their life. It really does depend on the child.

My seven-year-old daughter knows that she is adopted, and she understands what adoption is. She will ask questions about her adoption story. My four-year-old son, even though it’s a part of his story, and we tell him that he’s adopted, and we talk a little bit about that, he doesn’t understand it yet at all. There will come a point when he does.

But even though they don’t yet necessarily know the full story of their adoption, that doesn’t mean that the adoption doesn't impact them. It doesn’t mean their exposures, the prenatal exposures, doesn’t impact them, because it does. The things that they experience while their biological mothers were pregnant with them are going to impact them now and potentially in the future.

Ann: I’ve heard that before, that term “in utero.” Even when they’re within the mother, in her pregnancy, they can still experience trauma.

Laurel: Yes, absolutely.

Ann: Any baby can, I guess.

Laurel: Right. Any baby can, definitely, but not all women who choose to place their children for adoption are using drugs or alcohol or tobacco; but they’re all in some sort of difficult circumstance, or they wouldn’t choose to place their child for adoption, or they wouldn’t have their child removed at birth.

In the case of our children, they were both removed from their biological mothers for various reasons. One of them was born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome; so, the biological mother had used drugs while she was pregnant. As a result of that, this kiddo was born going through withdrawals [and] had to go through treatment for that. It’s very difficult. That can have an impact far beyond just those first few weeks of life.

Dave: You both are doctors, so I’m guessing you’re both experts on this question: does every adopted child go through some struggle at some point wanting to know their biological parents? I guess I shouldn’t say “every,” but is it common?

Laurel: I think it’s very common. I, of course, have been in this adoption world now for over a decade if you include the time prior to us adopting our first child. I’ve certainly met some adoptees who are so incredibly grateful for their parents—the ones who adopted them, who became their parents. Not everybody is all tied up in knots about their history or wanting to know their biological parents, but I think that there is still a natural curiosity about “Who am I?”

Sometimes, the question becomes “Where do I belong? Where do I fit in?” I remember meeting a woman at a conference who had several biological children, and they had adopted one child. The struggle for that child was that very question: “How do I fit in here? I’m different. I’m the only one that’s been adopted.” The mom tried and tried to show the child love and really struggled.

That’s when we began talking about: “How does that child best receive love? Have you talked with her about what makes her feel loved? Have you gone through some of these questions where you can compare something that would be attached to words of affirmation versus something that’s attached to physical touch to see, ‘What does she lean towards?’”

It really got the mom thinking about, “Okay, I know I love this child. I know I treat her the same as my other children. But maybe there is a reason to treat her differently in the sense that maybe her love language is not the same as these other children.”

I think that it’s important for us to be able to evaluate that and determine what’s going to speak the best to each individual child.

Dave: Gary, do you think there’s any difference in the way an adopted child feels loved by their parents than a biological child, or are they pretty much the same?

Gary: I think that, at the root of all of it, it would be pretty much the same.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: But I do think there’s a vast difference, because that child has gone through a number of things in their life before they were adopted to these present parents, and they’ve got all of these thoughts and feelings and experiences inside of them. Maybe they’ve been told by other people: “I love you, I love you,” and then, they were abused in certain ways and all of that—

Dave: —or abandoned, yes.

Gary: It’s dealing with a lot of stuff. That’s why there is a sense in which, the older a child is when they are adopted, the more history they’ve had. That history can be positive, or that history can be negative, so parents need to be fully aware, as much and they can, about what this child has been through.

You don’t always know because you don’t always have the full information. That’s why building conversations with that child and having open, honest conversations with that child are really, really important to find out the things they’ve been exposed to since before they came to you.

Dave: Yes, yes.

Ann: What do the two of you do when you’re talking to parents who are in the midst of struggling with one of their adoptive children? They’re at their wits’ end. They love them. They want the best for them. How do you give them encouragement?

Laurel: The first thing that comes to mind is, as a professor, I’ve had students that are completing their internships, so they’re working with individuals or couples or families. More and more, I’ve had students who have had families in these situations, especially with adolescents or teenagers who are struggling.

One of the things that I tell them not to encourage the parents is to just give them anything that they want and expect that that’s going to compensate for what they’ve lost. There’s no way to make up for what they’ve lost. You have to help them feel a sense of belonging and trust and safety and connection now. That takes time.

Ann: Would you add anything to that, Gary?

Gary: I think with those adoptive children, as well, spending time with them and getting to know them is so much a part of the process.

Ann: Even if they’re acting like they don’t like you or want to be with you?

Gary: Absolutely, and when they’re angry, it’s letting them talk and asking them questions to clarify what they’re saying, rather than saying, “Don’t talk to me that way, da, da, da, da, da.” No; keep asking questions and let them tell you about why they feel the way they feel and why they’re behaving the way they’re behaving; because this is one of the ways you build connection with them. They sense that: “They really hear me. They’re listening to me. They are trying to understand me.”

I think being big listeners, especially to older children who are able to talk; listening to them and identifying with them, and saying, “I can see how you would feel that way. I am so sorry even to realize what you’ve been through. We want to make the future different. In our family, we want to make the future different.”

They’ll come to see that you are really making efforts to make things different, but if you try to stop their anger movements and that kind of thing and say, “Don’t do that!” and “Da, da, da,” and preach to them, you’re just like somebody else that doesn’t like them.

Listening is a huge part of the process.

Dave: Do you encourage, if you have biological children and adopted one or two, taking the adoptive child away on a trip, just for them for them, to feel special or [would you say], “No, don’t do that. Don’t treat them differently than your bio kids”?

Laurel: I think having special time with each child is very important. It goes back to quality time. I think that’s a time that you don’t want to take away regardless of how the child has been behaving.

Let’s say you have a kid who loves to play basketball, and they want you to play basketball with them every night after dinner. It may be the house rule is: “It doesn’t matter what kind of day you’ve had, good, bad or indifferent. We’re still going to go out and play basketball after dinner, because that’s our time to connect. That’s my time to hear from you.” I think it takes the pressure off. It’s kind of like play therapy. There’s not as much pressure. “You don’t have to sit, look me in the eye, and tell me everything. We’re just going to have a conversation and chat as we’re playing basketball.”

So, I think, in more direct response to your question, it’s not that you shouldn’t take them away. I think you could have special time with each child, and I think it would be meaningful to do that.

Ann: Do you ever tell the parents—because I would say this to myself, and then to my friends that were parenting teens: “Don’t take it personally.” [Laughter] Do you ever say that to the parents? “Sometimes, it’s not about you.”

Gary: Yes.

Ann: They’re just figuring things out, and, hormonally, everything is shifting.

Laurel: Yes.

Ann: But as a parent, we get our feelings hurt. I think it’s really easy to pull back when our feelings get hurt instead of, as you’re both saying, “Pursue them, pursue them. Hear their story, and don’t let their anger push you away.”

Gary: Yes, yes.

Ann: I was talking to my son a few weeks ago. He was in the car with one of his sons who happened to be adopted. I said, “Hi, guys. Where are you going?”

He said, “Oh, we’re just going to therapy.”

Ann: I said, “I didn’t know you were doing that.”

He said, “Yes, we both are.” He said, “We’ve been doing this with our son since he was four years old,” which I thought was so wise. He said, “Yes, it’s good just to have other voices that are talking to him about his adoption; who he is, where he belongs. We tell him that all the time, but sometimes it’s good to have another person processing that with him.”

Gary: Yes.

Ann: Would you recommend that, too, even if the child seems like they’re fine, because he seems like he’s great?

Gary: I think it’s always helpful. Listen, almost all of us could use counseling. [Laughter]

Ann: Yes, that’s what I told him. I should be going. I wish I were in the car with you.

Gary: Another whole issue that we do discuss in the book is when you adopt a child from another culture—

Ann: —oh, yes.

Gary: —and sometimes another language, as well as that.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: That can be even more of a challenge, I think, at times, because of the difference in the cultures.

Ann: Talk about that, Laurel.

Laurel: Absolutely. I was thinking about a family I know. They’ve adopted two children from Russia, and they’ve had to overcome those language barriers, because they met these children when they were young, but they had already learned the Russian language because they weren’t infants. They had to, then, learn English in addition to coming to a new country and experiencing a whole new culture.

I’ve learned from several friends who were involved in transracial adoptions, or transcultural adoptions, that you really want to take the time and energy to invest in learning about the culture of your child or children, because we don’t want to take them away from that and just say, “Now you’re part of my family and my culture, so we’re going to let all of your own past go.”

No; instead, that brings more richness to your own family. You can learn about that culture and that heritage and integrate that into the family. I think that counseling can go a long way, especially if you can find a counselor that has some background knowledge, even if it’s just that they’ve worked with other families in a similar situation.

You want to look for counselors that have expertise in adoption, have expertise in trauma, in play therapy, in art therapy. You want to be cautious about who you go see, but definitely, seek out somebody.

Ann: Do you have any stories of families that have integrated that saying, “We do want to learn about your culture”?

Laurel: For sure! Sometimes, the child themself is not able to teach you, because maybe they’re too young, maybe they don’t remember, or maybe they don’t know. So, it’s really on us to learn.

I have a friend who adopted; she’s white, and she adopted an African American child. She has sought out other black mamas to help her with her daughter’s hair. Even if it’s something that sounds as simple as that, but it makes a difference, because you want to use the right hair products, the right hair styles. Again, that’s a way she shows her daughter: “I see you for who you are, and I’m not trying to make you look like me, and I’m not trying to make you look like the other daughters in my family. But I want you to be you, so I’m going to learn for your benefit.”

Dave: Talk about your last chapter, called “Faith Matters.” Where does our walk with God, our faith, come into this whole thing, especially, I’m guessing, when trauma starts to happen? But even without it, where is God in this in your opinion?

Gary: I think, for many people, their relationship with God is what led them to adopt in the first place.

Dave: Yes.

Ann: Yes.

Gary: Because they know God cares for the orphans and the widows. We don’t normally adopt widows, [Laughter] but we can orphans. That often is the case. I think, as we do adopt, whether Christians or not, Christians have an asset, because we have a relationship with God, and we can say to God, “Okay, Lord, I’m having trouble here. I need wisdom.” The Bible says, “If you ask for wisdom, I’ll give you wisdom.” [James 1:5, Paraphrased]

Dave: Right.

Gary: Sometimes, He gives wisdom through other people, whether it is counselors or friends or somebody else who has an adopted child. 

But I think our relationship with God is so important when we’re working with adopted children, because God is the one who gives us patience, and we need patience. [Laughter] He’s the One who gives us a listening ear because He has a listening ear.

I think maintaining our walk with God as we seek to parent them—this is true of biological parents, too—I remember when my wife said—when our son was a teenager, she said one day: “He’s your son. You take over now.” [Laughter] We all get exasperated at times, you know?

Ann: Yes.

Gary: Our relationship with God is extremely important as we raise adopted children.

Laurel: Yes, I think it all starts with prayer. You have to be super prayerful about pursuing adoption, and don’t move forward with adoption unless you know God has called you to adoption, because it is a hard journey, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Sometimes, one partner in a marriage, usually the wife, really wants to adopt and, sometimes, the other partner doesn’t. If your husband doesn’t want to adopt, you can’t force his hand here. It’s not wise for your marriage; it’s not wise for the children.

You want to make sure that you’re both on the same page, that you feel God’s call to adopt, and that you pursue that seeking Him first. Like Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of heaven.” We want to seek God’s will for our lives and His will for the lives of the children we might bring into our home.

Dave: Right now, Nick, your husband, is literally taking care of three kids.

Laurel: That’s right, yes.

Dave: Who knows what’s happening in that room right now?

Laurel: I don’t know. [Laughter]

Dave: Two of them are on his face or head.

Laurel: Hopefully they don’t have any markers in there. The green room might not be green anymore. [Laughter]

Dave: Yes. I don’t know where they are. We had one guy come in here with his kids [and] knocked the ceiling panels out of the drop ceiling. We said, “What happened?”

Laurel: Oh, no!

Dave: It was awesome. [Laughter] But when you guys were considering the adoption process, what did that conversation look like? Was it, “We’re both in” immediately, or was it a longer journey?

Laurel: That’s a great question. I’ve always felt a burden for children in need of homes, since I was a teenager; but I felt this sense, even though I’m assertive and speak up plenty, I knew that wasn’t something I could force Nick into [and] that it had to be a matter of prayer. If the Lord placed it on his heart, then He placed it on his heart.

I remember, we’d been married nine years, and my husband came to me one day and said, “I think we should adopt.” I said, “Me, too. Let’s go for it. I’m ready! I’ve been ready for a long time.” Then we began pursuing that.

Dave: Even that, in the way you told that story, it’s like you were trusting God, saying, “I’m not going to force this on him.” It sounds like you hardly even brought it up.

Laurel: That is the truth of that. That is the honest truth.

Dave: What happened in you that you were thinking about this as a teenage girl?

Laurel: I remember meeting a young lady who had been a foster child. From that point on, I thought, “Yes, we need to do that. We need to take people in who have a need for a home.” We haven’t pursued foster care yet, but I believe that probably will be a part of our journey in the future once our other kiddos are a little bit older.

Ann: Gary, when you’ve been on before, you’ve talked about the ministry that you had with kids on the street who really had a rough background. You poured into them, and discipled them, and loved them, and mentored them.

Laurel, I’m hearing you, and you have this heart for families and kids and the adoptive kids. I would love for you guys—I always love hearing families that are passionate, because this is God’s heart for those who don’t have homes, don’t have a mom and dad, that are the orphan, that are alone—that’s in you, that part of you. For you, Gary, even saying, “I want to be a part of this book, because this matters.”

Gary: Yes, yes.

Ann: Speak up for those little lives who don’t have families. Not to put a guilt trip on any of us but talk about the need that’s out there.

Laurel: There really is a great need. Again, I believe it all starts with prayer; but even if the Lord does not call somebody to foster or adopt, He is calling us all to do something.

I remember a friend of mine telling me that when they received a foster child, their Sunday school class just showed up with diapers and clothes and meals. She said, “One of the ladies in our Sunday school class would literally come in, and not only bring a meal, but she would wait and then clean up the kitchen after [the family] ate.”

What can you do? Another lady that I know stepped in and plays an “aunt” role to a girl who was adopted after a traumatic experience happened in her biological family. She’s even taken this young lady on trips to Ireland and England. She has really embraced her and become an aunt to her.

It may not be that God calls everybody to adopt or to foster, but He’s calling us all to do something to be in the lives of the families that have been called.

Ann: That’s good.

Gary: The Apostle Peter said this about Jesus: “He went about doing good.” [Acts 10:38, Paraphrased] If you want a one-sentence summary of the lifestyle of Jesus, that’s it: “He went about doing good.” We’re His children, and we’re called to be about doing good.

As you said, if we don’t adopt, help the people who are. Do special things for them and for their children. There are lots of ways that we can help, and there are many organizations, of course, that work with children who are not yet adopted, and they’re caring for them in orphanages and those kinds of places.

Whatever we can do to reach out, because that’s what Jesus did, and He’s our model.

Dave: Yes; and when you think of what it means to be a Christ follower, it means to love Him and love others and to follow His call on your life. I’m guessing there are some people today who didn’t even know it before they heard this broadcast, they’re being called to do what you’ve done, Laurel. They’re being called to literally adopt someone.

They’ve been—we’ve been—adopted. We are children of God because He adopted us into His family that we don’t deserve to be adopted into. That’s the gospel. That’s grace! Yet, when there’s a young one that has no future parent that wants them and we become that parent, my gosh, we’re being Jesus. You’re being Jesus to those little kids who we saw running around that lunchroom. [Laughter]

That’s so beautiful to think that you were God’s choice, you and Nick, to say, “I’m going to be Jesus through these parents who see you and adopt you and give you a future.” Who knows what that’s going to look like for them?

Ann: I like that it all started with prayer, saying, “Lord, is this something You have for me? Is this something You have for our family?” Then, you didn’t go and pressure— because I could probably have done that: “I feel like God is calling us to do this. We are doing this!” [Laughter]

Laurel: Yes.

Ann: Because that puts them [on] the spot. You can make them feel super guilty.

Laurel: Absolutely.

Ann: We could guilt them into it. I like that you’re saying, “It’s a calling.”

Dave: Yes, and I would just add, as grandparents of two adoptive kids, it’s one of the most beautiful things.

Ann: All of them are. They are no different. It’s a joy.

Dave: They are our family. There’s no difference. They’re the Wilsons.

Ann: They’re the Wilsons.

Shelby: I’m Shelby Abbott. You’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Dr. Gary Chapman and Dr. Laurel Shaler on FamilyLife Today.

Dr. Shaler and Dr. Chapman have written a book called Loving Adopted Children Well: A Five Love Languages Approach. This is a book based on Dr. Chapman’s best-selling Five Love Languages. [It’s] a specialized resource for intentional love for families with adoptive children.

You can get your copy right now by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com, or you can find it in our show notes. Call at 800-358-6329 to request your copy; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” 

We’ve been talking about healthy families and how there are lots of obstacles in the way to healthy families. One of those obstacles is perfectionism; perfectionism that we require of ourselves as parents and consequently that we require of our kids. It can be difficult, for not only us, but our kids.

Early this week, we had on a guest, Faith Chang, who wrote a book called Peace Over Perfection: Enjoying a Good God When You Feel You’re Never Good Enough. This really helps believers who are struggling with perfectionism and guilt in their Christian walk. This book is going to be our gift to you when you give to the ministry of FamilyLife.

You can get your copy right now with any donation by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com and clicking on the “Donate Now” button at the top of the page. Or just give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” Or feel free to drop us something in the mail if you’d like. Our address is FamilyLife, 100 Lake Hart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832.

Now, coming up next week we have one of our favorites, Nana Dulce. Nana is going to be back in studio to chat and focus on stories of women in the Bible from Eve to Mary. We’re going to dive into themes of redemption, obedience, and God’s providence, using specifically the story of Esther. That’s coming up next week. We hope you’ll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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