Adoption Adjustment

Back to info from our classes in Omaha. The social worker took us through a chart called "A Lifelong Model of Adoption Adjustment" that basically went through different ages and highlighted what the different concerns and developmental questions that the child will have and also the adoption specific parental roles in each life stage. I will write a little about each stage. Much of it was not surprising to me, but some of the information in the later ages did surprise me and I hope will also cause you to think.

From birth to 1 yr the main concern with adopted children (and any child actually) is attachment. The primary concerns of the child are - will i be fed, am i safe, am i nurtured? What we must do is be as purposeful as we can to ease that attachment to us as parents while remembering that we are literally complete strangers to them at first. The social worker talked a bit about how the primary component of attachment is not love, like you might expect, but is actually trust. If the baby has a need, cries, and is responded to by having his/her needs met then the child learns to respond to this healthy cycle be developing a trust that his/her needs will be met. In a less than ideal care environment, the child has a need, cries, and his/her needs are not consistently met (due to lack of enough care workers, negligent care, etc.) the child does not learn to trust and will learn that there is no benefit to expressing his/her needs. Obviously, the longer an unhealthy cycle occurs, the more difficult it is for the child to learn to trust. Since the main component of this attachment cycle seems to be trust, we find that if the baby has had caregivers that respond to the child's needs and he/she has learned to trust a caregiver, that it is not as hard as you might think for the child to transfer this trust to a new caregiver (us!). Holt understands that attachment is a big concern for the well-being of the adopted child and they actually have their own care centers in most of the countries that they adopt out of so that they can ensure that they children within their centers are getting care that fosters healthy attachment. In the countries that they do not have their own centers to care for orphans, they send workers to educate local staff on how to facilitate building trust, for example, having the same worker in the same rooms daily instead of switching all around to different rooms. That way the child can identify a routine or one person to begin to trust. Once we get the child the social worker encouraged us strongly that feeding time is mega-bonding time. We are not to let anyone but parents feed the child until it is obvious that they are learning we are the primary caregivers for them. We are also to have a predictable routine which won't be hard at all since i stay at home :) Every day is complete with a bland, yet wonderful, routine of stories, snacks, and imaginary games! I love it!