After going through two days of homestudy visits, I thought I would share some tips on preparing for your homestudy process (and then I promise I will get back to sharing about our first meetings and early experiences with our adopted children).

The idea of a homestudy is nerve-wracking. Basically, a stranger is coming into your home to evaluate whether or not you are worthy of being given a child. This stranger is going to ask you personal questions and dig deep into your desire to adopt as well as your childhood, family life and relationships, finances, education, marriage strengths and weaknesses, parenting experience, discipline techniques, health history, criminal past (if any), faith, values, morals, etc. etc. etc.

This stranger is going to walk through your home and speak with your children (if you have any). And then, this person is going to take all of the information and impressions that she has gathered, and write up a "book report" on your life, which will be given to adoption agencies, and will hopefully approve you to adopt a child. No wonder people get nervous about it!

And of course, once you made the huge decision to adopt you are often feeling anxious and vulnerable, and it is scary to think that one person has the power to decide if you are able to adopt or not.

So, as a bit of an expert, here are some tips on what you don't need to do (or shouldn' do) to prepare for your homestudy, and in my next post, I will have tips for things that you should do.

Homestudy don'ts:

- Don't go crazy cleaning deep in closets and under beds. For our first homestudy I honestly cleaned every inch of our home. When we were finished with the visit and the social worker was leaving I implored, "Don't you want to look in my closets? They are clean!" And she laughed at me. I have had seven homestudies now, and not once did a social worker look in a closet or under a bed. They do a quick walk through of your home, and do at least glance into every room, but that was as thorough as things have ever gotten. Even this time I probably over-cleaned (and I keep a clean house to begin with). When I was cleaning in the bathroom yesterday, Josh asked, "You don't think the social worker plans on taking a shower while she is here do you?"

- Don't stress yourself out too much. It is a big deal and it is an important step, however, remember that most adoptive parents are approved to adopt, and it would take something significant to cause a social worker to deny your family.

- Don't think that you have to be perfect. If social workers only approved perfect families, no one would ever be approved to adopt. Every family has strengths and weaknesses. Very few people come from "perfect" backgrounds. I have several things in my personal history that I have worried would be a concern to a social worker (such as my mom leaving our family and me being raised by a single dad) but it has never been a bad thing for our homestudies, and in fact some social workers have seen prior challenges in life as strengths instead of weaknesses in our parenting abilities.

Those are my big three "homestudy don'ts". In my next post I will share some tips on things you should do to prepare for your homestudy.