Looking to adopt, but not sure whether you’re emotionally prepared for it? Is your marriage ready to weather some of the difficulties that come with introducing a new family member to the equation?  Are you and your partner getting restless while you wait to meet your adopted child?

Coaching to Impact guides families through their adoption journey, preparing them for success every step of the way. While adoption can bring joy and love into a household, it doesn’t come without challenges: strained relationships or expectations shattered.

That’s why preparedness is essential. In the words of a renowned racecar driver, Bobby Unser: “Success is where opportunity and preparation meet.”

There are several reasons why parents might turn to adoption: infertility, helping a family member who’s not in a position to raise a child, fear of passing on genetic disorders. The list goes on. Deciding to adopt a child isn’t always easy, though even more complex can be the challenges that lie ahead: the waiting and anticipation of meeting the adopted child, the strain on your relationship. That’s where we can help.

 

Coaching to Impact helps brace couples for any challenges they might face in the adoption process. They work to ensure that children are entering into a stable and healthy household. Parents have the tools necessary to create a loving environment where their children can flourish.

 

In the adoption preparation course, couples will get a chance to:

• Explore areas where they can strengthen and grow.
• Work on communications skills.
• Identify and manage some of the most significant stressors.
• Address conflicts with the help of the Ten Step Model.
• Promote a more balanced relationship with Couple Family Maps.
• Understand personality differences and learn how to work as a team.

Each individual and couple will receive an assessment and access to individualized assistance to get the most out of the coaching experience. This offering helps get to know the relationship’s underlying dynamics, so couples become equipped to foster or adopt a child.

As important as getting to know who the adoptive parents are, is knowing what their expectations are. What are couples’ assumptions about bringing a child into their home? Are they aware of the challenges or how they can alter their relationship?

Using the information gathered from these assessments and general insight into families who’ve had success in the “adoption journey,” couples are given the opportunity for healthy dialogue around bringing an adopted child into their home.

Through coaching, parents can become more aware of their capacity to be present and their limitations. And based on their parenting styles, they’ll be given strategies to maximize cooperation within the family unit.

Adopting a child can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. Still, parents should go into the adoption process with both eyes open, knowing what complications might come up and how to address them. Work with an adoption coach — whose expert insight comes not only from her years of training and ICF certification but from her journey as an adoptee — to grow your family and maintain a happy, healthy home.

 

Sharon Obazee is a life coach, adoptee, and CEO/Founder of Coaching to Impact. Sharon’s life experience provides empathy and awareness of the challenges within adoption. She has parented three biological children and one bonus child and accomplished a search to locate my birth family. She achieved a Certified Professional Life Coach, Strengths Champion, Prepare/Enrich Facilitator, and Incredible Family Facilitator. She utilizes these tools to facilitate self-awareness within adoptive families. Her in-depth knowledge of adoption informs her ability to coach and consult adoptive parents because She has experienced adoption’s complications. Sharon believes every adoptee needs an advocate, someone who can see life from their perspective.