I recently returned to work outside of the home. (Going Back to Work After Adoption)

I worked outside the home when I had birth kids.
What is different, then, about working outside the home now that I have adopted children?

What can I do to make this a successful experience for all of us?

1) Adjust age level expectations for your child. Your child might be chronologically ten, but emotionally 3. Remember to respond to his fears as you reenter the work force as you might if you had a three year old. For instance, your ten year old may need constant daily reassurances of the daily return, including the part about you returning home. He may consciously understand the routine, but his subconscious, three year old self may need the repetition. This expectation adjustment may be something you do every day, but remember to remember to do those things especially so during this time.

2) Prepare for attachment issues to surface. These can be issues like the one mentioned in #1 above.

The understanding that mom comes home every time she leaves is one that very young children learn. Adopted children often do not have that experience or understanding in their histories. They will be learning this now as older children and need those reassurances.

Return to earlier periods of intensive structure and routine. Perhaps your child no longer needs the intensity of the structure and routine that he once did. However, mom going out to an outside job brings up a lot of feelings of insecurity for a child. Going back to an earlier time of stringent structure and routine can provide a feeling of safety and security.

Along the same principle for increasing feelings of safety and security would be to limit activities that take the family outside the home, at least for a time. Spend more time at home together, taking time to strengthen bonds with family members.

Remember some of the nurturing activities you did when your adopted child first come home. Repeat some of these activities now, as you are making pretty big family changes, to reassure your child and create a bridge over the changes, rather than the feelings of a gap.

3) Family meetings include everyone. Have regular family meetings including all family members of all ages. Allow everyone to express their feelings, concerns, worries, and positive experiences. Discuss ways that the family will change and things that will remain the same. Discuss needs and allow the children an opportunity to step up and do something additional or differently to meet those needs, help out the family and strengthen the family. This can help mom to not feel so stressed. And it can give the child a chance to feel even more a part of this forever family.

4) Recognize that there will be changes. Do not try to return to outside employment and hope that everything else in the home remains the same. Plan for the changes. Let the family, including children, know of some of your concerns. Above family meetings are good places to do this. Express YOUR concerns, as the mom, let the children see you with a limited vulnerability and allow them to help YOU through this. (I do not suggest you express large concerns here that you feel would inappropriately scare or burden the child. However, smaller ones give a great opportunity for family trust building. One example that I shared with my family was that I would not be home until 5:15. Our family traditionally has dinner at 6pm - that is part of our structure and routine expectation for everyone. It has become something that they can count on and they have built some trust around this. I expressed my feeling that it is very important to me that we have this routine and that the kids can keep trusting in it. However, I will not be able to prepare the meal by that time every night and I have worries about this. We brainstormed some ideas about how to solve or help with this problem. The kids came up with some great ideas. What we are trying for now is that the dinner preparations start on time, based on a posted family list on the refrigerator, and that it is the responsibility of everyone home to come together and help at that time. It might not work over time, but it allows the kids to be part of the solutions in our family, instead of always being part of the problems. And, if we keep on with family meetings, we can search for a new solution when the need arises.)

Sandra Hanks Benoiton, on her Older Parent Adoption blog, wrote these great blogs about moms working:
To Work or Not to Work
To Work or Not to Work, Part 2

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