One of the downfalls that adoptive stepparents are faced with, when coming into an already made family, is that they have missed out on a number of years of the child, or children’s life. Years of the child growing, learning, laughing, and making memories, are only stories to hear, and pictures to see for the adoptive stepparent. The child already has a partial history that was spent without the adoptive stepparent, and now the adoptive stepparent has to somehow merge him or herself into that child’s history.

It is important for the adoptive stepparent to make memories and moments with his or her new child or children, that later will be stories to tell, and pictures to share with others. Establishing a past with the adopted stepchild is an important part of building a strong bond between the adoptive stepparent and the adopted stepchild. The history will be the foundation upon which that the bond is formed. So the faster that the adoptive stepparent can establish him or herself into the child’s life and history, the sooner that the bonding process can begin.

Once the stepparent comes into the child’s life it is important to begin to take pictures of the stepparent and the stepchild, or children together. Even when the family is just hanging around the house, seemingly doing nothing, snap some shots and capture the little everyday moments that the stepparent and stepchild, or children, are together. Seeing the pictures will begin to give the child a new history, one that includes the child’s new parent in it. The child or children begins to focus on the new memories they see and feel as a new history is being made with the adoptive stepparent. As the adoptive stepparent is integrated into the child’s life, building a past with the adopted stepchild, or children, which is reinforced by the photographs, the adopted stepchild, or children, will begin to shift gears towards building a new, and stronger relationship with the adoptive stepparent. The photographs will help the adopted child or children to feel more secure in his or her relationship with the adoptive stepparent. Often filled with fears of abandonment, having photos around gives the adopted child a physical reminder of good times spent with the adoptive stepparent, and that reinforces the bond that is being created between the two. The photos will help to calm the child’s fears of abandonment, giving him or her a constant reminder of the love and time that the adoptive parent has shared with the child.

The more photographs that you take the better it will be for your family. If you have a digital camera, make sure to print out some pictures to give to the children. You can make a CD-ROM slide show for your children to watch, or give them a photo album to flip through and enjoy, and fill up as the months and years go by. Hanging some pictures around the house is a wonderful way to integrate the new parent into the household, as well as into the child’s life. The pictures are a reminder of the time spent with the new parent, integrating him or her into the child’s past.

These pictures will serve as wonderful memories, and keepsakes later on in life, for both the adult children, as well as the adoptive stepparent. For some children the shock of losing one of their birth parents may have been severe, and he or she may have blocked out parts of his or her childhood. The adult child will want to fill in these pieces of missing time from his or her childhood, in order to sort out and deal with his or her past. Having so many pictures to look back on will help the adult child to remember his or her childhood, and help to put all the missing pieces back together for the adult child. The pictures will be able to bring the adult child back to that particular time in his or her life, and to help him or her to deal with the events that he or she blocked out due to being to young to be able to fully handle what had occurred. By being able to go back to the past, through the pictures, the adult child will finally be able to put emotional issues and scars behind him or her, and heal the emotional wounds that he or she has been carrying through life.