Adopting a child means not only will you be sharing your love and home with a child in need, but you’ll be giving them a fresh new start and an opportunity to be a part of your family and create a beautiful new life together.
However, going through the adoption process and welcoming a new child into your family can also bring with it unique challenges, especially when it comes to your child’s ability to express their feelings.
Adopted children can often struggle with their sense of identity and belonging, due to loss, separation, neglect, or abuse that many adopted children have faced early in their lives. One of the ways you can offer support for children is to help them with their communication skills, as effective communication is one of the cornerstones of building secure attachments.
In this article, we’ll explore some strategies and tips to help you support your child in effectively communicating their emotions.
Why Are Communication Skills Important?
Effective communication is a vital skill for children to develop as it influences every aspect of their lives, from forming relationships to succeeding in school. Many adoptive parents want to love their children enough to help them heal from their past traumas, but despite giving them all the love, care, and attention they can, they might still struggle to help if their child cannot communicate effectively with their adoptive parents.
Sadly, many adopted children have lost their voice due to their struggles with neglect, abuse, or loss early in life. They might find it hard to believe that adults truly care about them and will love them consistently.
Effective communication is key to building healthy relationships, attachments, personal growth, self-esteem, academic success, and success in life. It’s how we express our thoughts, feelings, and needs while also understanding those of others. For children, the development of communication skills is especially important as it lays the foundation for their emotional and social well-being.
While communication is vital for all children, adopted children may face unique challenges that require extra support and attention. Some of these challenges include:
- Trauma and loss – adoption often comes after a past of loss and trauma, which can make it challenging for children to express their emotions. If these feelings are left unresolved, it can hinder their communication.
- Identity – adopted children may struggle with questions about their identity and their birth family, causing complex emotions that can be hard to communicate. This can ultimately lead them to feel confused and isolated.
- Attachment issues – because of disruptions in their early relationships, many adopted children struggle to form secure attachments, which can result in difficulties trusting and opening up to their new family.
- Language barriers – if a child comes from a different cultural background, language differences can pose challenges to communication.
Tips for Supporting Your Child in CommunicatingTheir Feelings
By recognising the importance of communication in your child’s development and offering them the support and understanding they need, you can help them build the foundation for a fulfilling and happy life within your family. Below are some strategies that could help you support your adopted child develop their communication skills.
Establish Trust and Safety
A child’s sense of security and trust is the foundation for open communication, as trust is a powerful force that builds loyalty, increases credibility, and gives the belief that they will be heard, understood, and believed. When your child feels comfortable that they are in a secure and trusting environment, it helps them to feel heard, validated and understood. This in turn can help you all build trust, respect, and a sense of mutual understanding that can enhance your relationship.
Your adopted child needs to know that they are in a safe and loving space. You can help by creating a secure atmosphere where your child feels safe expressing their thoughts and emotions without fear of judgement.
Let your child know that you are always there for them whenever they want to talk but don’t force them to talk. Communication goes both ways, so make sure you are always open and honest with your feelings and gently encourage them to share with you when you can see they are feeling closed up. If they don’t feel comfortable talking, see if they would prefer to write down how they are feeling. They can then choose to share it with you when they are feeling more trusting.
Normalise All Feelings
We all experience a range of positive and negative feelings daily, and it’s important for these to be normalised. Not all feelings have to be happy, so it’s important as a parent to normalise the range of emotions your child might experience by expressing them yourself.
Expressing emotions is a natural and healthy part of life, and having open and honest conversations about them is essential to help develop communication skills.
Being unable to express feelings – good or bad – can be one of the causes of challenging behaviour, but teaching your child about emotions and encouraging them to express their feelings can have a positive impact on their behaviour, as it gives them the words to talk about how they feel. It can take time but remember, you are their role model as well as their coach and you can demonstrate different emotions and reactions, teach coping strategies, and help them to practise saying their thoughts out loud.
Some ways you can do this include:
- Role-playing different emotions – come up with a scenario and ask them to guess what you’re feeling. You can then work together to find a way of dealing with it.
- Labelling emotions – help them label their feelings until they can do it themselves. Create a link between the feeling and the word and talk about it together.
- Use art – your child might struggle with words so they might benefit from drawing what they think their emotions look like. This can help them normalise their feelings and help you understand how they’re feeling.
- Be open – express to your child when you’re feeling different emotions so they can see that everyone experiences them.
Practice Active Listening
Active listening isn’t just about hearing words but truly understanding your child’s thoughts, feelings, and needs. Active listening helps build trust, strengthens the parent-child bond, and encourages open communication.
When your child wants to talk, put away all distractions such as your phone or the TV, and make eye contact with them so they can see you’re fully present. When your child starts talking, don’t interrupt with questions or comments but use non-verbal cues such as nodding and smiling, and don’t rush them. Let them talk at their own pace.
Ensure that you validate your child’s emotions, even if you don’t agree, and show empathy and understanding. Once they have finished speaking, reflect back. Summarise what you have heard to show that you are actively engaged and have understood what they have said.
Active listening can not only strengthen your relationship with your child but also teach them the value of respectful and empathetic communication.
Encourage Journalling
If your adopted child is old enough to write, encourage them to write their feelings down in a journal. Journalling allows children to develop their communication skills and the way they express themselves.
For children who struggle to communicate their feelings verbally, keeping a journal of their thoughts is a great way to process and share their emotions, if they choose to. You can take them to the shops or go online and let them choose their own journal, then tell them whenever they’re having big feelings to write them down.
Let them know that while this is their property, if they ever want to share it with you, or if they choose to write down what they want to say instead of saying it directly to you, then you’ll be there to read it and always without judgment.
Supporting You and Your Child Every Step of the Way
As an adoptive parent, you play a crucial role in helping your child develop strong communication skills. At Adopters for Adoption, we offer lifelong support as well as free comprehensive training to our adopters, so you never have to face challenges alone.
If you’d like to know more about adopting a child with us, and discover how we support our amazing adoptive parents, speak to our friendly team today. We’d love to answer any questions you might have and work with you on your adoption journey.
