Most children benefit from the predictability, familiarity and security that family rituals and traditions provide, especially during the December holiday season. Traditions connect families to their past, help them enjoy the present, and create lasting memories for the future. For adoptive families, rituals and traditions at holiday time can present some significant challenges in a number of ways.

For children adopted at older ages, holiday time can conjure up important memories and associations. Whether having lived with birth families, in foster care (perhaps multiple homes), or in orphanages, children with positive or negative memories of what happened during this season - of how holidays were celebrated or not, are likely to experience powerful emotions related to their memories. There may be a resurgence of feelings of loss and grief, anxiety related memories of traumatic events, etc. The smells, the food, the music, the lights, the trees, the routines - everything may trigger behavior that is puzzling to parents.

Especially for children who are in their adoptive placements for the first holiday season, just learning how to be part of a family or part of this new family-- can be overwhelming, let alone with all of the added stress related to expectations of holiday celebration and family gatherings. "For parents who are eagerly anticipating sharing their holiday traditions with their children, there can be a real disconnect between their expectations and the children's responses," according to Madeleine Krebs, Clinical Coordinator at C.A.S.E. Ms. Krebs has helped many confused adoptive parents make sense of their children's experience of sadness at this supposed to be joyful time. "And kids may not tell you they are feeling sad or angry. They are more likely to demonstrate it through difficult behaviors - increased opposition, hyperactivity, etc."

Ms. Krebs suggests that parents help their children remember the people whom they have lost. "Light a candle, say a prayer, encourage the child to share stories." When children have contact with birth parents and/or siblings, parents need to be especially sensitive to the feelings that may surface as a result of visits during this time.

Parents can also learn about the traditions their children experienced in the past, and if they were positive and meaningful, find ways to incorporate those traditions into their holiday celebrations. One family found recipes to cook some of the foods that were part of the holiday meal that was served in their daughter's previous home. Of course, incorporating traditions can certainly be more complicated if the religion celebrated is different from the adoptive family's. However, many families do decide to incorporate aspects of the different religion to honor their child's past if they believe it is significant for their child. Each family situation is unique, of course, and each family will decide what is best.

Daphne Saunders-Houston, C.A.S.E. therapist notes that sometimes it is not just memories of holiday time that are important to adopted children, but also their desires and fantasies of what holiday time should be like. She says, "It is important to ask your child how they would like to celebrate." She describes a little boy who had never been to church on the holidays and who very much wanted to go. She also suggests that parents help their children to appreciate the commonalities between their values and the child's related to the holidays.

Families who adopt children who are from another country may also decide to use holiday time to celebrate their child's heritage. Since holiday time is a time for spending time with relatives and friends, it can also be a time for creating new traditions that the extended network can participate in. These new family traditions can help to foster the connections between the adopted child and the larger family network.

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