Various Essays

Bonding Story

A/N: Child Development;  520 Words, 6 Paragraphs, 32 Lines. Hope you enjoy! Vote and Comment if you did. -Cigolavon

Kaitlyn was 9 years old the first time she thought she was going to get adopted. The family had said they wanted her. They filled out the paperwork and they waited. Everything was looking good until one of the home visits didn't go well. Her to be adoptive parents were fighting. Kaitlyn tried to calm them down and they started yelling at her. They said their lives were better before Kaitlyn came to live with them. Kaitlyn's Social Worker heard it all. She felt like placing Kaitlyn in that home wouldn't have been a healthy fit so she was removed and the process of finding a family started all over again. Kaitlyn was devastated believing what her last foster parents said to her. She thought she would only make someone's life worse if she was adopted.

Kaitlyn bounced around from home to home. She had a hard time finding adults she felt comfortable with. None of them every tried to bond with her. In the end none of them were looking to adopt an older child. They all wanted babies or younger children if they were going to adopt. All of Kaitlyn's homes became temporary because she was too difficult of a child to handle.

Kaitlyn was 13 when another couple decided they wanted to adopt her. They had a son who was a few years older who'd just left for college. They had the room in their house and they didn't want the full time responsibility that comes with raising a baby or a young child. Kaitlyn was hesitant because she had never found a home before and the last time she'd come close it had all fallen apart right in the end.

This time was different however. This couple new how to understand a teenager and they were able to explain to Kaitlyn that what happened with the last adoption wasn't her fault. It was the fault of the parents who were deemed unfit to adopt her. They told her how lucky they were to include her in their family. They talked about how happy they are to have a new daughter.

Kaitlyn had never felt like a daughter before but being included in family dinners with her foster parents, and when he was home from school, her foster brother. Kaitlyn bonded with her new parents slowly over time. They did a lot of things she never got to do with any other family. She went clothes shopping with new mom and her mom's sister, her new aunt. Her dad took her fishing with her cousins who were 8, 11, and 15. She helped her oldest cousin look after the younger two while her dad and uncle would clean the fish. Kaitlyn began to believe that she was important to this family.

It took two years for her family to formally adopt her but Kaitlyn felt like part of the family half a year in. When her adoption was formalized at 15, her parents and her brother, aunts, uncles, and cousins all through a huge party to celebrate their daughter, sister, niece and cousin into the family officially.