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Naively self-confident, my husband and I adopted a young child who had experienced severe neglect and many disruptions in his first year-and-a-half of life. After all, we reasoned, we both had extensive experience working with people who have a wide variety of special needs; I had worked in the field of child development and education for years, and we were already experienced parents. Our self- confidence evaporated within hours of Gustavo's arrival. Six years later, we are still learning, but what we have learned from our own experience and from other toddler adoptive parents could fill a book. In fact, it has.*

Toddlerhood is a well-defined and distinct stage of human development. Yet, the available adoption literature talks primarily about infants and older children. Therefore, many prospective adoptive parents assume that a toddler is little more than an infant, eagerly awaiting parents with whom to bond. And as such, the child is unencumbered by conscious memories of other parents and unaffected by months or years of neglect or other abuse. Many hope that toddler adoption will help them avoid the demanding baby stage, or that a toddler will become an immediate playmate for older children. Parents and professionals alike often happily embrace the popular theory that with proper love and good behavior management, the toddler can quickly overcome previous trauma and attach to the family. While some do quickly adjust to their adoptive families, many parents have found that their toddlers display intense anger and grief, aggressively reject their adoptive parents, are hypersensitive to stress, and quickly revert to their own hard-earned survival tactics-even after they're firmly attached to their new parents.

Challenges and Rewards

Toddler adoption presents unique rewards and unusual challenges. It's time that parents and professionals acknowledge that specific preparation techniques, transition strategies, and special parenting approaches are needed to help toddlers adjust to their new families.

Most toddlers have acquired a sense of humor and rudimentary communication skills. The developmentally normal toddler displays an emerging sense of autonomy and has acquired an impressive array of physical skills. However, many also arrive with an array of challenging behaviors caused by early neglect, abuse, or multiple disruptions in caregivers. But unlike older children, toddlers are unable to participate in the preparation, transition, and therapeutic strategies typically used with older, more advanced children.

Toddlers are a bundle of contradictions. Many keep their adoptive parents at bay through their anger, grief, and natural urge toward independence. Encouraging a newly adopted toddler's dependence and trust while supporting his emerging independence is a confounding task for both the child and parent. Communication skills often suffer a setback, and may be forever affected by changes in a child's primary language. Even domestically adopted toddlers must adjust to different communication styles and expectations. Comfortable routines, all-important to the toddler's sense of security, often disappear with an adoption. More devastating than a change in routine, many toddlers are unceremoniously and abruptly moved from one setting to another. Not surprisingly, they conclude that they are powerless to prevent caregivers from magically appearing or disappearing at will, they resist attaching to new caregivers.

Parents who make a deliberate and informed decision to adopt a toddler are generally better prepared to respond to their child's special needs. Also, the most satisfied toddler adopters believe in the rightness of their adoption. Parents who carefully prepare their home, head, and heart for a new toddler feel more entitled to parent their child.Important groundwork includes toddler-proofing the home, enlisting the support of family, friends, and other adoptive parents, and preparing siblings.

Planning for Transition

A planned transition helps resolve grief, allows for transference of attachment, and assists development of healthy attachment toward the permanent parent(s). In the ideal situation, toddlers are introduced to their new parents via pictures, letters, conversations, and pre-placement visits that allow a gradual transfer of care from the former caregiver(s) to the adoptive parent(s). Toddlers need to witness the former caregiver's permission and support for the role their new parents are assuming to shift their love and loyalty without feeling guilt.

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