Many waiting children have experienced severe emotional trauma from abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Most have suffered multiple losses of important people in their lives-birth parents, siblings, other relatives, and loving foster families. Therefore, individual and/or family counseling may be helpful-even necessary. Some families will only need short-term counseling to help them get through the initial adjustment period. For others, counseling may be needed long term or on and off as the child goes through different developmental stages, particularly adolescence.