Creating Ceremonies: Innovative Ways to Meet Adoption Challenges

All families, no matter how they are brought together, struggle against enormous odds to thrive. However, for adoptive families, where the history is not a shared one, the rites and traditions commonly relied upon to negotiate transitions and to withstand internal or external stressors do not exist. This is where Creating Ceremonies: Innovative Ways to Meet Adoption Challenges comes in.

The authors, a single mother with two adopted children and a social worker specializing in adoption, have joined forces to create a rich and vital resource to help adoptive families better cope with the day-to-day changes and challenges of life together. Carefully written to reach out to the range of families - two-parent, single-parent, foster-parent, as well as families with gay or lesbian parents and those of multiracial, multiethnic, or multicultural origin - the ceremonies presented here cover the spectrum of life-cycle phases, from preadoptive to moving in, from adjustment to reinforcement and beyond.

Among the ceremonies: "Forever Family," "Getting Ready for a New Person in the Family," "End of the School Year," "There Is a Place for Both of Us," "Rejection and Abandonment," "Monsters and Nightmares," "The Day We Met," "You Are Safe Here." Used verbatim or customized to address a similar situation or a specific interactive style, the scripts will help family members move toward fresh, energized perspectives. They can be used again and again to provide short-term resolutions to particular problems and to reflect a long-term commitment to the family's well-being.

An appropriate way to say "welcome home" -- or to say "goodbye." A means to express painful feelings. A bridge between differing perspectives. A helping hand to a youngster in trouble. A commitment to hope. Another milestone. For the professionals who work with adoptive families - for the families themselves - Creating Ceremonies extends and enriches the vocabulary of caring.