Speaking Your Adopted Child’s Love Language

So the circumstances were that I had just given my life to Christ after having been a runaway drug abuser, sexually abused, in and out of mental institutions with a single mom and kind of a distant father. Ann's life was a mess.

She didn't know the first thing about how to be a good wife or mother. So focus on the family was like manna to me. Every day I needed wisdom. I needed guidance. I needed the lessons and the teaching that came every day from 11 to 1130 into my kitchen. And I know today that my life has changed because of Focus on the Family.

I'm Jim Daly. Working together, we can give families hope and equip more parents like Ann. And thanks to a special match right now, any gift you send will be doubled.

Call 800-AFAMILY or donate at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash gift. And so my husband and I came up to her house and we drove up this really long driveway. And she opened this big door and this lovely older woman was holding a baby and just put her right in my arms. And it was instant I knew that this little girl was meant to be my daughter. Well adoption is an amazing picture of God's redemptive love that he offers each one of us. Dr. Laurel Shaler joins us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And we'll be exploring unique ways that you can demonstrate love to your children, especially those that you have through adoption. Welcome to the show.

I'm John Fuller. John, this topic is going to be very close to your heart with you and Dina adopting a young man. And then Jean and I of course doing a bit of fostering during our foster care years if you want to call them that. But what an incredible opportunity for the Christian community to get engaged and today we're going to speak to adoption. And of course that applies to foster system as well as adopting from another country or from within the U.S. here. Adoption is part of God's heart.

I mean we think about it. All of us are adopted into his family right. And so I think adoption has clear spiritual connotations along with practical connotations how children need to be loved etc. We have about four hundred thousand children in the foster care system today and about a quarter of those about a hundred hundred and ten thousand are available for adoption because parental rights have been terminated. And yet it takes a not a special foster parent to do this. It just takes commitment takes patience kind of takes the fruit of the spirit to engage with these children and help them get back to a place of healthiness. And we're going to talk today with a very special guest about how to do it.

Yeah. And Dr. Laurel Schaller is with us as I said she's a counselor author and professor at Liberty University. Probably more importantly she's married to Nick and they have three children through adoption. Dr. Schaller has written a terrific book with Dr. Gary Chapman about how to demonstrate love to your children. It's called Loving Adopted Children Well A Five Love Languages Approach. And you can learn more about this book our guest and other resources at our website.

The link is in the show notes. Laurel welcome for the first time to focus on the family. Yes thank you so much for having me.

So good to have you. Now your background you have a PhD in education I believe correct? Yeah counselor education and supervision to be exact. Okay so the average mom and dad listening are going oh okay so she went to school for all these years she has a PhD in how to handle children how to counsel children. Most people aren't going to get that education to go along with it so I just need to hear that disclaimer from you that you don't need a PhD. Absolutely you don't need a PhD and it might actually be a disservice because I think I deal with a lot more mom guilt as a result I think I know better I should do better. I think you know let's park there for a minute because I think with when Jean and I did foster care we had those and she specifically had more of that guilt as a Christian mom I should have better patience than I'm showing.

Speak to that issue of how to give yourself a little slack because it's a it's a demanding environment. It really can be and I think we definitely have to give ourselves grace. We want to talk about extending grace to the kiddos that come into our home but we also have to give ourselves grace and understanding that we're still human we're not going to be able to do it all right all the time and if we focus more on our hang-ups the times that we have messed up then we're not going to be any real service to our spouses or the kiddos in our homes. You know what's so true about the Christian walk is we want to be as close to the heart of God as we could possibly be that's our sole desire and then we realize either through marriage or through having natural children or adopting children or adopting children from foster care you see your own boundaries so much more clearly your own inability to love the way you felt you could love to have the patience you thought you could have it I guess it shows you your own shortcomings I guess. Yes it does that that window is is open you start to see what you didn't see before and you don't always like what you see. No that's good and that idea of moving on the continuum is really what you're after and you may be far short in some area of the fruit of the spirit that's okay God just wants you to keep moving toward him and develop that I'm telling you adoption is a good way to develop your fruit of the spirit. That's right it's a sanctifying process. John you and Deena know that too. Absolutely.

It happens. Okay let's let's talk about you and Nick you get married about 14 years go by tell us a little bit of insight there were you delaying having children or could you not have children what was happening? Yeah so I'll back up a little bit ever since I was a teenager I've always had an interest in foster care and adoption and although I can be pretty assertive with my husband and what I what I want for us to do.

I just heard all the women say that too. This was an area that I knew that I could not dictate you know he had to have adoption and placed on his heart as well and so we moved through our marriage and some people would say when are you gonna have kids and we'd say well we don't know maybe five to ten years but then that that time started to pass and we never conceived and we didn't know that we couldn't conceive and in one day when we've been married about nine years my husband came to me and said I think we should adopt and I said great I've got the paperwork already. So it took a few more years before the Lord brought a child into our family and after we had already started to pursue adoption then we did discover that natural conception was not gonna be God's path for us and then we were able to move into adoption. Let me ask you this you have three adopted children let's just quickly give the audience an idea of how that happened and how old they are. Sure so we had been working with a number of agencies and we had some failed placements we never had any child coming to our home that then left but we did have some failed placements and one night it was a Wednesday night and I was at my childhood church eating supper Wednesday night supper you know we do that a lot in the south. That's right.

Dinner's lunch. Yeah that's right that's right and my childhood Sunday school teacher came up to me and she said Laurel I know somebody who just got custody of one of their relatives and she's looking for an adoptive family would y'all be interested and my first thought was there is no way this is gonna work out like this just doesn't seem logical but I said sure give her my number I'd been in some interesting situations already with the adoption pursuit and I thought what could it hurt to talk to this lady but a couple of days later this lovely woman did call me and she explained the situation that she had a little girl who was two months old that was related to her and that she was felt like she was too old to care for the child and she was looking to place the child for adoption. Now that's not the way things normally work because she only had temporary custody it wasn't even up to her to place the child for adoption but for whatever reason she felt like she was supposed to be seeking an adoptive family and I still was really on the fence about whether or not that could ever work out and I told her that I would talk with we had a caseworker through the Department of Social Services I said I would talk with them the next week I would call her attorney and I would talk through some options and I would call her back. Well on Sunday two days later I really felt like the Lord was telling us to go and visit this child and I was driving home from somewhere and I did call my husband and I said are you willing to go and meet this baby and he said yes. So we called their home and they said you can come and so my husband and I came up to her house and we drove up this really long driveway and she opened this big door and this lovely older woman was holding a baby and just put her right in my arms and it was instant I knew that this little girl was meant to be my daughter. Was that the situation where the judge had the declaration or was that one of the other children? What did that judge say that made such an impact on you? He said it is so ordered when we finalized her adoption he banged his gavel and he said it is so ordered and I've always remembered those words and they even check me up now that she would forevermore be our daughter. You wonder if that's the same declaration in heaven. It is so ordered coming off the lips of the Lord that you are this baby's mother.

I mean that's a great thought to think about. Now quickly if I could you kind of had unique experiences in all three adoptions. Describe the other two. Yeah so we adopted our first daughter a little less than a year after we met her so she was two months old when we met her and she was not quite a year when we finalized her adoption and a few years later we got a call from the attorney that had finalized that adoption and he said I've had a young lady come to me who is eight months pregnant and I don't know if she's having a boy or girl and she wants to place this child for adoption and I was wondering if y'all would be interested and I said yes and he asked me if I needed to check with my husband and I said he'll say yes and thankfully he did. I knew that we were on the same page and that if the Lord opened up another opportunity we wanted to adopt again and so a little over a month later we met a little boy and we were able to adopt him. He went to the pediatric intensive care unit for a couple of weeks and then we were able to take him home and adopt him a few months later. Wow and then the third child.

The third baby came to us through embryo adoption that was something that I'd heard about many many years ago and when I first heard about it I thought it was crazy and that I would never ever do that and out of the blue. Never use the word never. Never. You should never use the word never.

That's for sure. And a couple of years ago the Lord revealed to my heart that we had one other bedroom and it was a guest room and I said but Lord I like my guest room and I don't know about this and he said but you need to have one more child. And we really didn't know how that child would come to us. We thought maybe we would foster and have a temporary space for children in need. Maybe we would adopt another infant but then it was revealed to my heart that we should go through embryo adoption and when I tell you we weren't even looking it up online.

Nobody talked to me about it. It was literally just like a message downloaded into my brain from heaven that we needed to pursue embryo adoption. Yeah. Let me let me ask you about the son that you adopted coming out of NICU. I mean there were difficulties. He had some physical issues. He cried pretty constantly according to your comments in the book and that kind of frayed you right.

I mean it was hard to manage that. It is so difficult to deal with incessant crying and I'm sure a lot of moms of newborns can relate but this was a bit different because he had neonatal abstinence syndrome and so he was just so uncomfortable. Always. Always and so we really credit the wonderful hospital staff and also the training we received and how to take care of him as to even what got us through those difficult weeks and months. One of the things I wanted to highlight was that kind of training. Most of these kids especially that are coming from foster care have debilitating starts emotionally. I mean they have attachment disorder.

Many have fetal alcohol syndrome, maybe drug abuse by the mother, whatever it might be. These are difficult environments so these children have a lot to overcome so when you engage in the foster area particularly you need that extra dose of love and care because they're going to test you. It really has to be a calling. When somebody asks me you know whether or not I think they should foster or adopt sick has the Lord called you to this because if he hasn't then there's just then you shouldn't.

There are other ways to support foster and adoptive families outside. But don't be afraid to stretch. I mean once you're in it if when you have a bad day hang in there. Yeah when you're going through it keep going. Yeah because I think some people might give up if they're feeling okay I'm not well suited for this.

That may be true but I would encourage you to keep pressing. Absolutely. Laurel this is a good point to bring up the five love languages. Gary Chapman who originally wrote the book The Five Love Languages is a great friend to focus and he's here often.

And I'm intrigued how you applied this together to the adoption effort. And I'll mention quickly and maybe you can come back and just highlight one or two but acts of service is one of those love languages. Gifts, receiving gifts or giving gifts I'm not sure covers both. Physical touch that's Troy my young son's language he loves physical touch. As a four-year-old he said that's mine daddy physical touch.

I mean he just knew it. Quality time spending quality time together and then finally words of affirmation. So how do we apply those in the adoption context?

Is it any different? Yeah so I think the first thing that we want to recognize is that we should apply all five love languages with all children. We don't want to forsake any of them but in time we can start to recognize that a child is going to lean towards one maybe two more than the others and we want to really pour into them through that specific love language. And the best way to say that is Gary Chapman would say is you just don't connect with that so when the person's giving that love language to you you're going oh thanks it just doesn't make the same difference as your primary love language. Absolutely and we can really start to tell sometimes children will tell us my daughter not much older than your son. She said that words were her love language. Words of affirmation? Yeah she just shouted words words are mine.

It's amazing how they know it those that do know it at a young age. Yes absolutely. You in fact gave your daughter I think a porcelain doll.

Yes. It must have been beautiful but did it connect or not connect? Well I thought that it was going to connect until she connected the hands of the doll and they broke and I realized that showing her love through that gift was probably more about me and my desire to please her rather than what would really be best for her at that age. Tell me about mind body and soul time. I don't think I've heard that concept as clearly. Yeah and so that term actually came from a parenting program called Positive Parenting Solutions and so we've reframed that in our household to be bestie time and deedie time and buddy time and we have all these terms but basically it's when a parent spends time with their child even if it's just 10 or 20 minutes and you really kind of get in that child ego state so whatever the child wants to do within boundaries of course you're willing to do and it really helps them to know that you're focused on them the phones are put aside the computers are put aside the TV's turned off and you just really spending that quality time with them. That's so good I remember a colleague here at Focus Clark Miller said to me one time they just resonate he said you know what when I when I'm with my kids it's more about yes than no. Yeah that's a real simple way to look at it. Try to say yes more often to your kids or dad can you play catch with me yeah give me a minute I'll be right out there whatever it might be more so than you say no. Filling up the yes bucket.

Yeah that's right I think it's good. It's really important so your husband Nick was deployed shortly after your son was adopted that must have added heaps of pressure on your parenting how did you navigate all that? Yeah that was a real challenging time it was also in the midst of COVID so we had very limited child care and I was working and I thankfully work from home but it was a real it was a real challenging time and actually that was about the time that I really started to focus in on different ways that I can parent better I started reading books and listening to programs and podcasts and trying to figure out how can I do this better because what I'm doing is is not measuring up so I would say that that's really how I started the pursuit of becoming a better mom.

How important is it for you to ask for help in those situations? I think it's critical we really can't do this without the support of others I remember contacting a friend of mine and saying you know you always seem so patient with your kids what's your secret to being patient and trying to learn from others and also it was helpful to when that friend replied and said I'm not always patient I try and here's how I try but I'm not always patient I said okay so there is some grace for that it's easy to parent kids that are easy it's harder when the kids going through a challenge and when you're going through a challenge and when those things butt up against each other you have a recipe for disaster. In a less serious way that's so funny because how many times have we walked through a grocery store before we have children and we see the out of control toddler and we look at each other and say when we have kids they will never behave like that until they do. I would never let my child behave that way I remember a mom sharing on Facebook once that she thought she was an amazing mother until she had her second child. Right that's part of it you might have two or three great ones and then that one comes along that challenges you.

The temperament personality make a difference. You know support for the adopted family is so critical and that's one of the things I'm so grateful for here at Focus on the Family with Wait No More Dr. Sharon Ford and her team do a wonderful job equipping churches and helping adoptive parents out of foster care to tap resources that are typically available sometimes couples don't know about it. In fact in that regard we've learned a lot we've been able to work with a variety of states with their adoption efforts and Florida stands out as kind of one of the better ones that I've seen and why in my mind they achieve that high goal is that the churches there really do a great job wrapping around these adoptive families and you do need that concentrated effort from the leadership of the church to say okay you know Jim and Jean Daley have adopted this child we really need to wrap around them do we have a few volunteer families that can help them over the next two to three years and it's doing laundry maybe doing some shopping for them maybe a little relief that the kids can go with them so mom and dad can get a break whatever it might be but speak to that deep question of the need for support because if they don't have that support it makes the risk of failure so much higher. Absolutely and actually I'm involved in some ongoing research right now just getting started and looking at the benefits of these wraparound services and how that helps with with longevity specifically with foster families but even families who have adopted can sometimes feel forgotten about after the adoption is said and done and the child is is now theirs sometimes there's still a need because the child still may be struggling maybe they did come into their home as a victim of trauma maybe they have reactive attachment disorder fetal alcohol syndrome maybe they have some other challenges like ADHD or other neurodivergent issues and they just really need other people to not turn away from them but to turn towards them lean lean towards their family and help them during those challenging times and I think the respite piece is so important just having folks that you can trust because we can't trust everybody and not everybody is well equipped to handle a child that might have a challenge so having people that we can trust to come in and walk alongside us is invaluable. Sure yeah two things real quick Jim I just want to do a shout out to my colleagues here at FOCUS who 20 plus years ago took some time and effort to show kindness to us we we had five children we had already gotten rid of everything related to infants and we were adopting an infant so it felt really weird but we had a baby shower thrown by colleagues here at FOCUS I think you and Jean were there in fact and so that that was a very practical way to get behind us there were financial donations which helped immensely because it's not cheap to adopt and then our church was a place of grace I just so appreciated the kindness of the people at our church there was one time when my son was really having a meltdown and I was just holding him kind of keeping him contained if you will and people did not shower judgment on me they just were like oh John's got a tough thing going on we're not gonna make a big deal of it we're gonna move along and the grace and acceptance for us to navigate some of those expressions those behaviors has still remained in my heart because that was unconditional love the kind of love that an adoptive parent needs when a hard time comes. Absolutely and I've seen the same I remember just recently a few weeks ago one of my kiddos having a tough time at church and the next next Sunday I came in and one of her Sunday school teachers just gave me a hug and said it's gonna be okay and it was so welcome and so calm reassuring it was reassuring well it's like anything even in parenting your bio kids I mean they're gonna hit things most likely that are gonna really cause some concern for you and it's nice to have somebody come along and say you know what the long view they'll be okay that's right it's so good to remember right at the end here just a couple last questions one sibling rivalry how did you manage with your two older children you're now nine-month-old yeah into the family and you know when you're pregnant as a couple you can talk about the baby and the child can see mommy's tummy and you know it kind of begins to connect and then they come home from the hospital and oh here's your brother here's your sister but how do you set up that on-ramp if I could call it that that sibling acceptance so that we're not vying for mom's attention and who are you right well so interestingly enough my older two are the ones that still struggle with each other in fact even this morning I was doing a little FaceTime with them and hearing some stories and I'm like oh please keep your hands to yourself but they were very accepting of the baby so they each love the baby but they struggle with each other and there is that rivalry for mom's attention you know I remember one time both of them kind of going back and forth with each other saying she's my mom no she's my mom and I'm like no I'm mama to both of you so we try and help them to see that we love them equally even the other day my oldest asked me mom I know you love all of us but who do you love the best I'm like I love all of you the best I love all of you equally so just that constant reminder to them that they are loved they were wanted and that they're each individually a blessing to our family it's so good okay right at the end I mean so I'm a you know a couple out listening to this going you know we've talked a few years about doing this maybe we should go and engage this do the encouragement is it worth it it is absolutely worth it it is just I can't even think of my children really without getting teary-eyed at how much we've been blessed by them they're a wonderful addition to our family while we know that God's intention is not for families to ever be broken that no biological family should be broken but that this is a redemption story and adoption is a place where joy and sorrow meet but I definitely encourage folks if the Lord calls you to it he will sustain you and he will provide what you need to get through that spiritual layer though I don't want to miss that either what that couple does for that child because eventually if everything goes naturally they're gonna die and pass away and go to heaven and and then that child who's now an adult is in charge of their life basically and hopefully they've drawn closer to the Lord committed their life to the Lord so the eternal consequences of that expression of love that you and your husband Nick have done for those three kids that could have ended up in a different place no parents struggling the rest of their lives with deficits emotionally that contribution can't be understated spiritually absolutely and I'll say that for our youngest we're very grateful that her biological parents are Christ followers and intentionally chose to place her for adoption so that she would not that she is an embryo would not be destroyed but with our other children we don't know what their path they came from pretty difficult circumstances and so we're we're pray we pray for their biological parents and we want to continue to stand in the gap for as long as the Lord has us to be there for them it's so good Laurel this has been great I thank you for being here and you've tracked all the way from South Carolina we so appreciate that commitment and for you if this is something you and your spouse have been talking about let's go we're here ready to help you think it through and to provide the resources that will provide the I think the right questions and the right information for you to consider it certainly Laurel's book loving adopted children well a five love languages approach is a great resource to get started it's here available for you if you can make a gift of any amount we'll send you a copy of the book as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry a one-time gift monthly gift whatever you can manage if you're not able to afford that just call and ask us for the book we'll send it to you and trust others will cover the cost of that yeah thank you for watching and listening and thank you for donating generously here to focus on the family our number is 800 the letter a in the word family and you can donate and get this great resource when you stop by the website the link is in the show notes in fact John right now we have a matching gift opportunity so some friends of the ministry are trying to be fun in getting the funding that we need for the year so they're gonna match your gift dollar for dollar at this time of year so you make a gift of $25 it becomes $50 and it's meant only to encourage giving that's it I know some people sometimes go I don't know if I like that it's just a fun way to spur on giving to the ministry so that we can do more in the coming year yeah help us give families hope when you donate generously again our number 800 the letter a in the word family the other thing John is wait no more is here for you we have a staff that can answer questions can provide more resources so if adopting out of foster care is something you're considering ask the questions call us we'll be in touch with you and we'll be able to answer many of those questions and encourage you to consider it that's why we're here and we hope you'll reach out today and on behalf of the entire team thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. 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