Loving Adopted Children Well: Gary Chapman and Laurel Shaler

This is a huge thing about parenting, is effectively loving your children. If the child feels loved by the parents, they tend to grow up healthy emotionally.

If they don't feel loved by the parents, they grow up with a lot of internal struggles. And so this is an important part of parenting. Welcome to Family Life 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 Family Life Today. Alright, so one of the greatest moments of my life, and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Because I'm going to say it was one of the greatest moments of my life too, was the day that our son and daughter-in-law adopted two of our grandsons.

Both those days at separate times were really remarkable. A courtroom in Denver became a sacred place for us. And you know, as we just wept.

Yeah. Watching. I think the piece of it too that really struck us was how we have been adopted by Christ into his family. And that, it takes a whole new meaning on and significance when you watch it take place in that courtroom.

I mean, you know, and we're going to talk about this today with two sort of experts in this area, Dr. Gary Chapman's with us, talking about the five love languages applying to an adoption situation with Dr. Laurel Shaler. So you know better than anybody what we're going to talk about. But what hit me in that courtroom so strongly was I know what those little boys don't know. Their entire futures. Absolutely totally different.

And they don't know that at that point. But it hit me that's true of us. Right? So as you come in, first of all, let's say welcome to Family Life today. We're so glad you're here. Laurel, never been here. No, never been here. First time.

So excited to be here. Yeah, you got the veteran right beside you. I know. I count my blessings. Gary, do you know how many times you've been to Family Life?

I don't know how many times, no. But I always enjoy coming because I appreciate what's happening here. And we always love having you two. So how did you two pair up to write this book?

It's Laurel's fault. She reached out to you? She did.

Yeah, I did. I actually met your acquisitions editor, John Hinckley, at a conference. And we were at the Moody table and talking about the five love language books. And I said, you know, I've been thinking that it might be helpful if there were stories for families that have adopted. And he said, hmm, okay, let's keep talking. And so we did continue to talk.

And he approached Dr. Chapman. And then I was able to talk with you. And you agreed that this might be a good idea and a good connection here. And so we pursued writing this book. And I like that because, Gary, you've talked about the five love languages and parenting.

But now we're talking about specifically if it looks different and what it looks like with adopted kids. So Laurel, give us your story. Where did this start from? Well, it reminds me of my own first courtroom experience with adoption. And when the judge banged the gavel and said, it is so ordered. Those were some of my favorite words I've ever heard.

It is so ordered. Our daughter was our daughter forevermore. And it was a real blessing because my father, who has since passed away, he was a federal prosecutor. And our attorney asked the judge if my dad could be co-counsel for the adoption and say my dad was actually co-counsel for our first adoption.

So it was a real sweet moment. But the Lord took us on a really amazing journey. And it certainly did not go the way we expected or planned to begin with. It took us many years before we met our oldest daughter, who is now seven. We went through adoption agencies. We had failed adoptions.

Things just didn't go the way that we expected. And let me ask you this, Laurel. Were you at that time, like you have your doctorate, you're teaching at Liberty as a professor, you're a social worker, a family, and what kind of therapist are you? Yeah, social worker, marriage and family therapist, and licensed professional counselor.

So do you have all those degrees before this whole process? Yes. Okay.

You look pretty amazing. I know. I mean, sitting there at lunch, you've got kids running around. You've got your three children with you. You teach at a college. You just wrote a book.

I'm like, how in the world? Who are you? Well, thank you. So you're an established therapist. You're in this business. But now you're going through this difficulty.

Right. You know, the Lord had called us to adoption. He called us to adoption before we discovered infertility, but we know that that was a part of our story and that this was not God's second best. This was his plan for our lives and for our family. And one Wednesday night at my home church, that little church I grew up in, my former Sunday school teacher came up to me and said that she knew this woman who had custody of a little baby, and it was one of her relatives, and she was looking for an adoptive family. And she said, Laurel, can I give her your phone number? And in my mind, I was like, this is never going to work. I mean, this sounds crazy.

But I said, sure. Give her my phone number. And a couple days later, that lady called me, and it was only two days after that that we met our daughter for the first time. And I'll never forget meeting her and the door opening, and she just placed this little girl in my arms, and I knew in that moment that she would become my daughter. And it was a journey throughout the next several months before we were able to get custody of her, and then we were able to adopt her. So we met her when she was two months, and we adopted her two weeks before her first birthday. It didn't stop there. It did not stop there. That was the first adoption.

We thought maybe that that would be it. But one day, a few years later, actually, it was about four months after my brother had passed away, I got a call from our attorney who had finalized our daughter's adoption, and he said, hey, Laurel, there's a young woman that I know, and she came to see me today, and she's looking to place her child for adoption, and she's eight months along. And he said, and I don't remember if she said she was having a boy or a girl, but are you interested? And I said, yes. And he said, well, do you want to ask your husband?

And I said, he'll say yes. Thankfully, he did. And so we moved forward, and it was a little boy, and we found out that he had been born. He was three days old when we met him, and then we adopted him a few months later. And so that was kind of in a nutshell our second adoption. So as long as the first adoption took the many years of waiting and praying and crying, our second adoption happened so quickly. But you have three kids. But we have three children. And one of them is really young. The date of this recording, she's 10 weeks. She turned 10 weeks old yesterday, and that little girl came to us through embryo adoption. Talk about that. I think most of us don't even know what that is.

Yeah, it's really amazing. And I remember hearing about it years ago and thinking that it just sounded like science fiction, and I thought it was kind of weird, and we had no interest in it at the time. And a couple of years ago, the Lord just laid it on our hearts to consider embryo adoption to find out if that was a possibility for me. So we knew we could not conceive our own biological children, but that I was able to carry a child. So I was able to pursue embryo adoption that way.

Explain what it is. Yeah, so this is when a couple goes through in vitro fertilization, and they have embryos that are frozen. And sometimes for various reasons, they can't pursue having all of those embryos transferred into the mother. And so they're sitting there frozen. There's over one and a half million frozen embryos in America today.

And they're going to stay frozen unless something is done with them. And of course, we are a life affirming family, and so the family that made this donation is as well. And so instead of having these embryos remain frozen or destroyed, they decided to donate an embryo to us. And so we were able to receive that. It's shipped in a freezer container.

It's very much still science fiction as I talk about it. But there is an adoption process. But there is an adoption process. So we had a contract, a legal contract, where we received custody of this embryo.

It's not a legal adoption in the same sense as a traditional adoption. But that's the term that we use that's widely used because that's what we believe it to be. Now are you done? Yes. Yes. But I did say that after the first and the second. But yes, I believe our quiver is full.

It's really full this time. So talk about how you and Gary connected on... I'd love to talk about the five languages, especially hearing Gary's expertise, a perspective on an adopted situation. Is it totally different? Well, I think it is different.

No question about it. Because when you adopt a child, you don't have the emotional attachment that you do when you give biological birth to a child like that. So that's why I was really interested in writing a book with Laurel because she's had that experience. And she used the five love languages in the process of all of that. And I thought, man, if I'm ever going to write a book on this topic, she's the one I want to write it with because she's had experience with this. So that's what motivated me. Because, you know, I'd written a book earlier on blended families with Ron Deal.

And I knew there's a difference there as well. And there's so many adoptions now that I just thought this is going to help a lot of people if we can write this book and they can get the concept of how the love languages can help them effectively communicate love to these children that they do love. So I'm excited about it.

Yeah, I am too. Yeah, real quick as we talk about the five love languages, we've got the guy that wrote the book, we're sitting right here. Can you give us a brief overview for those? I think there might be one person in eight billion that haven't heard of those five love languages. Well, often the people say, oh, I've heard about the five love languages, but they don't know what they are. One of them is words of affirmation. You know, just things that you can comment about the child that you really appreciate, it can be the way they look or their muscles or something they've done, but it's just words of affirmation.

And then one is gifts. It's universal to give gifts as an expression of love. And I don't mean you give the child everything they ask for.

We're the parents. We give them things that we think would be valuable to them at that particular time. But for many children, gifts speak loudly to them. And then there's acts of service, doing something for the child. And this one, when they're little, we have to speak this language because when they're little, they don't know how to do anything. We do it all for them.

But it's doing things later on, like mending the doll's dress and helping them with the bicycle chains and all those sorts of things, acts of service. Then there's quality time, by which I mean you give the child your undivided attention. You're having a conversation with them. You don't answer your cell phone. You give them their undivided attention.

And you're not always talking. Maybe you're playing a game with them, but they have your full attention. And then physical touch. We've long known the emotional power of physical touch. That's why we always, by nature, pick up those little babies and hold them and cuddle them.

And long before they even understand the meaning of love, they're receiving love. So those are the five. And the basic concept is that eventually, at least by four or five years old, you can identify. One of those speaks more deeply to them emotionally than the other four.

All of them are important. And with children, you speak all five languages. But once you know their primary language, you give heavy doses of that language. Otherwise, they will not feel loved, even though you are loving them in your own mind.

Well, even in one of your chapters, it's titled, Why Don't You Feel the Love? So talk about that a little bit, Laurel, of what does that mean and the bonding process with your adopted child and children. Yeah, and of course, every family that goes for adoption, we're all unique, like every family.

And so we all have different experiences. But there's just this recognition that for some parents, they don't necessarily instantly connect with the children that they adopt. I've had the fortune of connecting with each of my children and falling in love with them from the moment that I laid eyes on them. But there's still an intentional process of love, of choosing to love and choosing to show them love.

And some families just don't experience that, whether it's because they've adopted a child that's been through something really difficult or traumatic, and that child is maybe more difficult to love at times, or that child is not able to demonstrate love, doesn't know what love looks like, what love feels like. And in those cases, I just wanted to help those parents know that they're not alone, that there are other parents that are going through the exact same situation, even if every journey is different, that they're still going through something similar where they're struggling to connect, to bond, to attach. And so just helping them, first of all, to know that they're not alone. I think that's so important.

We all want to know that we're not going through our struggles by ourselves and that there's others who can connect or relate with us. You talk about how adoptive mothers found that the adoptive mothers had a comparable level of depressive symptoms. Right.

That was surprising to me. Yeah. So similar to postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety, there are many times when those that have adopted experienced depression or anxiety as well, and it's very similar to what a woman who has given birth has gone through. It doesn't necessarily involve the physical changes to a woman who's given birth. It's not hormonal. No, not hormonal, but there's still the emotional piece.

And sometimes there's external factors that play a role. After we adopted our son or after we brought him home from the hospital, he had some health issues. He had been in the pediatric intensive care unit for a couple of weeks and things were tough for a while. He cried a lot.

And when he was six weeks old, I remember waking up that morning and thinking, okay, he's six weeks old. We're going to make it. We are going to survive.

And later that day, my husband got deployment orders and he had not been deployed in 15 years and he got orders to deploy. Come on. I was like, oh no, we're not going to make it.

We're not going to make it. So you were on your own with how many? Two. With the two kids. And that was during COVID. So we were, and I was still working full time and didn't have any childcare and had the two kids. And yes, yes, it was a challenging time. Yeah. I was shocked even at the beginning of your book how many adopted kids there are.

One out of 50. There are a lot of adopted kiddos and it seems that the church is really stepping up more and more. And that followers of Christ are recognizing the need for these children to have homes. And so we're just seeing more adoptions take place. There's many more churches are having adoption and foster care ministries. There's more conferences available for these families to go to and learn from. So I'm thankful that there's been an awakening of sorts. And scripture is full of talking about, the Bible talking about caring for those that are fatherless or the orphan. And so I like all the scripture that's in that as well. So let's talk five love languages.

Which one of you wants to dive into that? I don't know if anybody here is an expert on this or anything. Well, you know, I say to parents, whether it's biological children or adopted children, we know that one of the deepest emotional needs a child has is the need to feel loved by the parents. And to the parents I say, the question is not, do you love your child? The question is, do the children feel loved? Because just by nature, we love our children. And if you adopt, you had to have a lot of love to adopt in the first place. So you love the child. But are you expressing it in a way that that child is going to feel loved?

And that what I call the emotional love tank in the child is going to be full. And it's difficult in a biological birth to do that if you don't understand the love language concept. Because I've had many parents say to me, you know, we love our child, but we don't understand it.

And we don't understand why they're responding the way they do, you know. And sometimes a teenager will actually say, I feel like my parents don't love me. And I know their parents.

I know they love them, you know. It's just they've never discovered that a child has a primary love language. And you've got to learn the primary love language and give heavy doses of that. And so the same is true with adopted children.

So that's why I think this book is going to help a lot of adopted parents to understand that concept. Now, when they're little and small, you know, you speak all five love languages. Because we want the child eventually to learn how to receive love in all five languages. And then give love all five languages. That's the healthiest adult. But along about four years old, at least, you can discover the child's primary love language.

And that's when you have to give heavy doses of the primary. And then you still speak the other four. And that child's going to feel loved. But if you don't speak the primary language, you can be speaking the others and they still don't feel loved. So this simple concept can really help a parent effectively love an adopted child. Is it any different or any more difficult to discover the love language of a child that's been adopted? I think it can be more difficult.

Yes. Because for the first thing, you know, you don't have that attachment that we were talking about earlier, that emotional attachment with that child yet. And for example, I've had parents say, you know, I knew that their love language is physical touch. And so I thought, man, I'm just going to hug them and hug them and hug them. And I started hugging this adopted child. This is when they adopted later in life. And the child pushes me away.

And so I'm thinking, what's going on here? And I said, well, you know, you don't have the attachment yet for them to receive that. So you might have to do this incrementally. If physical touches their language, you start with fist bumps. And then you pat them on the back for a while and you kind of work your way up. And then they're getting to know you. They're making that emotional attachment with you. Then they're going to receive the hug as an expression of love.

So understanding that concept with an adopted child, I think, is very important. Is there any timeline on that? Is it always different? Could it be a year?

Could it be months? Going back just a little bit, I'm thinking about the connection piece. And even when you meet a child in the hospital, like I said, our son was three days old. We still didn't have that whole pregnancy time, not only for the mom and the baby to bond, but even for a biological father to bond.

So you miss out on that. And there's something called the primal wound, a term that Nancy Berrier uses, that describes the phenomenon of the loss between a child and his or her biological mother. So even if they don't have any recollection, none of my children have remembered their biological mothers. My youngest has never met her biological mother.

The older two, of course, they were born to their biological mothers, but don't remember them. And so there's always some sort of trauma that happens in adoption. Even if the child is adopted at birth. So that's a primary distinction between a child who has been adopted and a child who has not been adopted, is that there's always some type of trauma. I think of adoption as a place where joy and sorrow meet. There's always some sorrow there, even in the midst of the joy that the child brings to the adoptive parents' life.

So how long it takes is really dependent. For us, we have a seven-year-old daughter. I know her love language because she can tell you, she's old enough, she knows. And when I started going through the questions with her, she just shouted words, words, words. She loves words of affirmation. That's what really lifts her up. That's what makes her feel good. She just gets the biggest grin when she feels seen. That is how she knows she is loved. And our four-year-old little rambunctious boy, he still likes all of them. We're still trying to sort through what does he really need the most from us.

So it really is just dependent upon the child. And go back, Gary. Remind us for those that maybe haven't heard this in a while. There's no one that doesn't know.

No, no, no. This is a good reminder. If we have children, what's the best way to find out what their love language is? Well, I think informally, you observe their behavior. How do they typically respond to you or if they're siblings to their siblings or to grandparents? If they're always running up to grandparents and jumping on their lap, physical touch is probably their language. Or if they're always hugging you or running to you or jumping on your lap. So observe their behavior. How are they responding to you and other people that are in their world? That's a clue. I think a second clue is, as they get a little older, is what do they request of you most often? If they're saying, will you rub my back?

Or can we read a story together? Which is quality time. And so the fact that they're requesting that of you. And then the other is what do they complain about most often? I had a mother say to me, my six-year-old son said to me, we don't ever go to the park anymore since the baby came. He used to have his mother's undivided attention, quality time, and he's not getting it now and he's complaining about it. So if you put those three things together, observing their behavior and what do they request and what do they complain about, it begins to surface.

You can see what the primary language is. That's good. I love that third one, especially.

I haven't given that much thought, but that's such a great point. Yeah. The five love languages came out in 1990 what? Two.

Two. I'll never forget the first time I read it. I had been with my family and we were all adults, my siblings. And I remember saying just to the siblings, I just feel like mom and dad didn't love us.

And my brother saying, are you kidding me? They showed us every day. And I said, they never told us.

And they never like spent time, that much time with us individually. And my brother said, but they paid the bills. They took me on my college trip.

My mom cleaned, you know, she cleaned the house and cooked. And it was the first time I connected. It's like, oh, he's an acts of service. Everything they did for him, he saw them as lavishing him with love. Where I needed, they didn't speak words to me and they weren't there very often. So for me, the words part, like I didn't hear it.

So I didn't believe it, even though they were showing me, but I didn't hear it. It was the first time I realized. And then when we had kids, I thought our kids living in this under the same roof could have those same feelings.

They might feel like mom loves, mom loves me. And another could feel like she never showed me because I wasn't speaking that language. And that's pretty common. Yeah, that was a great example.

Thank you for sharing that. It's very, very common that parents love a child and their child doesn't feel loved. And that's where the love language makes an impact because it helps you focus in on which of these languages really does communicate on an emotional level to them. And this is not everything about parenting, but this is a huge thing about parenting is effectively loving your children. If the child feels loved by the parents, they tend to grow up healthy emotionally. If they don't feel loved by the parents, they grow up with a lot of internal struggles emotionally. And sometimes in the teenage years, they like to go looking for love, sometimes in the wrong places. And so this is an important part of parenting. And with children who have been adopted, it helps to establish that trust and safety that they don't come in with an intuitive sense of because they're just getting to know you. And you're just getting to know them and you have to be able to demonstrate to them, hey, I'm somebody that does love you. You can trust me. You are safe.

I'm going to take care of you. So speaking the love language that is unique to each of them is going to help develop that. So let's say you have a 13-year-old that you've just adopted come into your family. Maybe their background has not been easy, so they're coming in with some trauma.

As a parent, what's the best way to approach that, Gary, to discover that love language? Well, I think first of all, you have to recognize that 13-year-old has had 13 years of experience somewhere else. And sometimes many people, sometimes they've been in like four homes for a while that people were taking care of them that didn't adopt them. And some of those were positive.

Some of those were negative. You never know what that child has gone through. So it's going to take time, first of all, just to talk to the child, let them tell you about their past, let them tell you about the fun times they've had in the past, the times where people have hurt them in the past, just conversations with them to learn something about what their experience has been.

Otherwise, you're just shooting in the dark. And then I think to say to them in terms of love, I really feel badly about what happened to you in that experience. And I can see how that would be very, very painful. If I were in your shoes, I'm sure I'd feel exactly like you feel. But I just want you to know, we really do love you.

That's why we adopted you. We really do love you. And we want to show that to you in whatever way is meaningful to you. And in 13, you can actually describe the five love languages to them. It's what the five love languages are. And ask them, is one of those seem to be more important to you than the others? And sometimes they'll say, oh, yes, yes, yes. And sometimes maybe they won't because if they haven't felt loved for all those years, they'll have trouble identifying it even themselves as to which one. And so we'll speak all of them. And in the next year, hopefully you'll see which one is most important to you. But all of them are communicating love to you. Would you add anything to that, Laurel?

Yes. I think that all of that information is really helpful when you think about a child coming in who has had all 13 years so far of other experiences that have likely been very difficult, especially potentially moving from home to home and bringing with them a lot of memories that they're going to have to work through. I think one way that we can show love to a child like that is to get them the resources that they need, in particular counseling services. I think sometimes we might think, oh, if I just show them love here at the house and I'm involved in their school and I take them to whatever sports they want to be involved in and we go to church, that everything will be fine.

But ultimately, there's still a lot of baggage that has come along with that young man or young woman. And so pursuing counseling, not only for the child, but also for the family, because it's not just about a child learning how to change his or her behavior as an example, but how does the parent interact with that child? How is the parent engaging with the child? What kind of role model are we serving as for the child? Like if the child is struggling with aggression, well, are we getting aggressive with the child when we get upset with their behavior?

Or are we demonstrating how we can be calm and patient? Now, we're not going to do that all the time because no parent is perfect. And this is not a book about how to discipline your child.

It's about how to love your child. So there's always room to grow. But that's one of my first thoughts is making sure that we get the child whatever counseling services they might need.

Yeah. And you mentioned earlier trauma. And I'm thinking we're done today, but I'd like to dive into that a little bit tomorrow to say, okay, when the trauma happens and there's the trauma of when they come in, but often we've had friends that say in the teen years or middle school years, things start to come out that maybe weren't there in year one or two. How do you respond? And I'd love to hear you guys talk about that because I think that would really help a lot of our families.

I'm Shelby Abbott. You've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Dr. Gary Chapman and Dr. Laurel Shaler on Family Life 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 bestselling Five Love Languages, a specialized resource for intentional love for families with adopted children. You can get your copy right now by going online to familylifetoday.com or you can find it in our show notes or give us a 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. You know, families are something that's complicated and sometimes parents are the ones that are the most complicated within the family. And earlier this week we had on a guest named Faith Chang and she wrote a book called Peace Over Perfection. Perfectionism is one of those things that can be troublesome for parents. They struggle with it and they expect perfection out of their kids.

But how do you enjoy a good God when you feel like you're never good enough? Faith addresses that in her book that offers a fresh perspective on God's character and provides reassurance and guidance for Christians struggling with the burdens of perfectionism. This book by Faith Chang is going to be our gift to you when you give to the ministry of family life. 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 again, 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 a donation in the mail if you'd like.

Our address is Family Life, 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. Now tomorrow, Dr. Gary Chapman and Laurel Shaler will be back again to talk about the challenges and emotional impact on parents and children. She'll emphasize the need for patience, empathy, and yes, counseling. That's coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.