Family Unity With Adoption

I remember one of the first prayers I prayed when we decided to adopt was about family unity. I felt a strong desire that we be one family, not split by the biological children and the adopted children, or divided by the Americans and Russians. Growing a family through adoption can mess with a sense of family unity, no doubt! Your biological children (along with extended family and friends) may be on high alert for how you are going to treat the new addition to the family. It can be quite hard for them to understand why you are parenting your new son or daughter differently as they make their adjustments into their new family. And the adopted child will undoubtedly be watching to see if she is being treated like the others. How do we parents handle this delicate situation? Prayer, prayer, prayer-- God is faithful and will work in your family way beyond your parenting abilities. Start and end with believing prayer, asking God to bring true unity into your family. Through the years and many prayers we have felt that our sense of unity in the Templeton family has been strengthened by some practical approaches to parenting.

"It's Not Fair!"
"Mommmmmyyyyy, that's not fair!" Anyone else heard that one before? I often think the old, "If I had a nickel for every time....!" I'd like to suggest that we shouldn't try to make things fair. In our efforts to create unity there is a certain logic to the idea that everyone should get the same thing and be treated the same way. Isn't that the best way to make sure everyone feels equally loved and cared for? If one child gets an ice-cream cone because they finally learned how to swim after a summer of being afraid of the water, then, to be fair, maybe all the siblings should get one too-- to avoid jealousy and complaining. In actuality, I believe that fairness works against family unity, that it should not be our goal as parents at all. We don't want to confuse fairness with unity-- unity does not mean sameness. I find the definition for unity to be fascinating; it is defined as "oneness, especially of what is varied and diverse in its element or part.".....

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