How to help your adopted child grow up secure

bygo2girl365

278 followers

11 years ago

Now that you have taken that massive step and adopted a toddler. Life is probably beginning to settle down. You may notice your thoughts moving to the future. When shall I tell my child that s/he is adopted? how will she/he feel concerning it? at what point will she/he need more information? what will she/he need to know from me? how am I able to help my child feel comfortable concerning being adopted?

Whether children are adopted as infants or when they are older, their adoption is certain to influence their development.

The developmental stages of children who are adopted will differ from that of biological children. the problems of separation, loss, anger, grief, and identity once your child has been adopted are big issues for such a young person to face so early in life, however they have to be addressed. In these pages, I will examine how these feelings are expressed or not expressed as your adopted child grows up. A number of these problems are going to be obvious in all stages of development; others surface at specific times. The more we understand how an adopted child feels the more seemingly we are able to help she/he grow into confident, loving adults.

The primary task of a baby is to develop a sense of trust within the world and come to look at it as a place that is predictable and reliable. Throughout their early months, children have an inborn capacity to "bond" to ensure their survival. These pleasant interactions and the parent's consistent attention form the parent-child bond and the foundation for a child's sense of trust.

During this period, a consistently nurturing and tension-free environment makes a child feel secure. The most valuable factor you can do is to show, through attention and heart, that you love your child and that your child can rely upon you.

Many specialists in child development view early childhood as a series of alternating attachment and separation phases that establish the child as an independent person who can relate happily to family members and friends, and be capable of having intimate relationships with others.

By the time, a toddler is 2 they learn to inform you the way they feel by reaching their arms out to you and protesting vigorously when you must leave them. Anxiety concerning separating from you heightens, and that they could begin to express anger. This is often the stage when you become a "no" sayer. It's not surprising that your child becomes annoyed and shows you in new ways. Your child could exhibit aggressive behavior like throwing things, hitting, pushing, biting and pinching. Adoptive parents typically worry that an unknown genetic trait is surfacing. Keep in mind that even at this age your child will feel your tension and acts accordingly.

In the 1st first years, the stages of attachment, the beginnings of separation, and also the expression of anger and aggressiveness most likely are the same whether or not your child is adopted. Even in homes where the word "adoption" has been used frequently and the child can pronounce it or even say, "I'm Tracy, I was adopted from Chicago," the words have very little meaning. What's particularly necessary is that your adopted child has the chance to pass through the attachment and early separation stages in the same method as a child born to you.

When older babies or children are adopted, their capacity to create relationships may have been disturbed. A series of caretakers and broken attachments through the primary months of a child's life will complicate adjustment and compromise the ability to develop trust. You will need to work much harder to let your child know that you care and that you'll forever be there. Even if your baby received nurturing care before joining your family, s/he will still have the benefit of your understanding the significance of attachment and also the importance of loving interaction.

Between the ages of two to six, this is often when parents begin to feel pressure to explain adoption to their children. It's also when children's ears are wide open to adult conversation and that they soak up everything that is said. Therefore be careful what's said in and around your children. They also build new friends outside their family, and their interests broaden.

All children mimic attachment and separation behaviors. typically a girl will tell you that a new baby is her baby which daddy is that the father. A little boy may say that he's planning to "marry mommy." If you listen, you'll see that your kid is attempting to make sense of the relationships within the family and to search out how to express the strong emotions of love, hate, and jealousy.

There is also an aggressive, competitive side to this stage. You will notice behavior that's difficult, stubborn, and argumentative, sometimes directed toward the same-sex parent. Girls argue with their mothers concerning what to wear, what toys to leave at home. Boys want to talk about what they're going to do once they grow up, and even within the most peaceful of families, they're going to turn all sorts of things into weapons that they yearn to use on the draperies, and, infrequent moments of frustration and anger, on You.

Gradually, the intensity of those feelings abates. Children's love for his or her parents allows them to reconcile these feelings by eventually exchanging the want to marry the parent of the opposite sex for the more realistic desire to grow up to be just like the parent of the same sex.

Children who have been traumatized or abused might not show the sort of behavior described here.For more information on this subject childwelfare.gov could be a good place to begin.

During the preschool years, you will need to respond to your child with humor and tactfully explain that once your child grows up, s/he will find somebody a bit like mommy or daddy. Adopted children inevitably wonder to which mommy and daddy you're referring. Some researchers believe that this is not the suitable time to stress a child's birth family (Wieder, Schecter). It's troublesome enough for children to search out their place within the family (as the youngest child, the oldest, etc.) and to come to terms with their gender without having to ponder the meaning of birth parents. It most likely isn't even possible for a child this age to understand this concept yet.

Most 3- to 6-year-olds begin to raise questions on fascinating subjects. Though parents traditionally are nervous about discussing the facts of life with young children, the children usually are curious, unashamed, and eager for information. This is often an ideal chance to introduce the topic of where babies come from, how they get here, and the way families are shaped. This information could be a valuable stepping stone in helping your child perceive the concept of adoption.

Many adoption workers advise parents to introduce the word "adoption" as early as possible so it becomes a comfortable part of a child's vocabulary. Waiting till adolescence to reveal a child's adoption to him or her isn't recommended. "Disclosure at that point can be devastating to children's self-esteem," says Dr. Nickman,"and to their faith in their parents."

If your adopted child is of a different race or has very different physical features from your family, you need to be cognizant of signs that s/he is aware of the distinction. Your child could have noticed it, or some other person could have commented on it. You'll need to explain to your child that the birth process is the same for everybody however acknowledge that individuals in several cultures have distinctive physical features and their own rich heritage. Typically children who look completely different from the remainder of their family need to be assured that their parents love them and will keep them.

In any case, it takes years of periodic returns to the topic of adoption before your child can absolutely grasp its meaning. Meanwhile, it's necessary that you provide an environment that encourages questions on learning important family issues, such as love and aggression, hate and jealousy, sex and marriage, illness and death. At least two studies (Kirk, Hoopes and Stein) suggest that adopted adolescents were better adjusted if they came from families where all emotional issues including adoption were discussed among family members beginning in early childhood.

To help make your children feel connected and a vital a part of the family, share with them the thrill that you felt once you received the telephone call about them, the frantic trip to pick them up, and how excited everybody within the family was to meet them. As time goes on and bonds of trust build, your children are going to be able to make sense of their unique adoption stories.

Adoption studies of children in their middle years stage of life are contradictory. Whereas some say that adopted children experience no more psychological issues than nonadopted children (Hoopes and Stein), others find that teachers and parents report more personality and behavior issues and notice adopted children to be more dependent, tense, fearful, and hostile (Lindholm and Touliatos, Brodzinsky).

This more worrisome serious period of secondary school age is usually experienced in children's inner lives, their want to belong outside of the family circle, to have attributes that make others admire them and seek them out, and their contrasting fears that they're dumb, ugly, mean, forgotten, and useless. At the same time, their horizons are expanding and they are ready to learn from school, friends and other adventures outside of their homes. They search everything and everybody for signs that they are loved and acceptable.

It is no wonder that in such a state, even without contemporary pressures resulting from divorce or different family disruptions, that emotional and behavioral problems often beset elementary school-aged children. Common issues include hyperactivity, poor school performance, low self-esteem, aggression, defiance, stubbornness, troubled relationships with brothers and sisters, friends, and parents, lack of confidence, fearfulness, sadness, depression, and loneliness. Adoptive parents wonder whether and how much these problems are caused or influenced by adoption or a history of faulty attachment.

Loss is a feeling that runs through the lives of children who have been adopted. The complete emotional impact of that loss comes to children, usually between the ages of seven and twelve. It's particularly troublesome at this time to decide what to do or say to children who don't inquire about their birth parents. In any case, your willingness to "connect" with your children concerning their adoptions and not to deny the difference between being adopted and being born into a family will help them grieve this necessary loss. Do not, however, place undue emphasis on the adoption, as this is often likely to make children feel painfully self-conscious about it.

Once they have understood the biological facts of life, and something concerning the social and cultural aspects of family life in their community, children of grade school age begin to imagine things concerning their birth parents. Older children discover reality that their birth mother relinquished them for adoption and ask why. Older children try and reconcile their own theories with the available facts. What they learn produces a gamut of emotions starting from doubtfulness to sadness, disappointment, anger, and guilt. Children might not express these feelings, however they need to be acknowledged,

Some children feel that they were given up because there was something wrong with them or because they were bad. Some become fearful that if they hurt their adoptive parents' feelings or make them angry they're going to be given away once more.

Some researchers think that children must grieve for the loss of the birth parents, much in the same way, that infertile couples grieve for the loss of a biological baby.

A common scenario in children of this age, which you may recall from your own grade school days, is imagining that they'd been adopted or kidnapped from another set of parents who were sometimes better in every way than their own. The fantasy world of the adopted child is complicated by the existence of the birth parents and is influenced by whatever information is available about them. Typically the facts make it more difficult for children to idealize their birth parents or put pressure on them to "choose" to "be just like" or "totally unlike" one or the other set of parents.

During the elementary school-age years, children's identity comes from a combination of their genetic heritage, their experience with their families, and what happens to them as they try to find their place within the wider world.

During the grade school years, children learn about heredity, genes, and "blood relationships." At this time, the adopted child realizes at the highest cognitive and emotional level to this point, the differences between biological and adoptive relationships. Reactions to this information are most likely as varied as the children and include feelings of relief, a sense of enlightenment, heightened interest in learning more about birth parents, denial of any interest, or feelings of loss and grief.

Remember that all adopted children have feelings concerning their adoption, which over and over in their development they're going to struggle with. The more open the family discussions are from the start, the more likely it is that communication can continue no matter how intense or advanced the topic becomes.

Since these are the years when kids appear to seriously confront the "sad side" of relinquishment and adoption, opportunities to meet with and discuss with other adopted individuals their age, as well as with adolescent and adult adopted people, are helpful. It helps children see a bit into their own futures.

Adolescents' behavior is in transition and not fixed; their feelings concerning the world and their place in it are tentative and changeable. If normal adolescence involves a crisis in identity, it stands to reason that adopted teenagers will face additional complications.

Although all adopted adolescents have to struggle to integrate their fantasies and future goals with their actual potential and realities, they also have additional challenges. They may suffer more from what Erik Erikson calls "identity diffusion," i.e., feelings of purposelessness, fragmentation, or alienation. They may appear outwardly more angry at adoptive parents and more critical of what their parents did or didn't do to assist them adjust to their adoptive status. They'll withdraw more into themselves, or conversely feel they need to "set off to see the world" in hopes of finding their true identity.

Current adoption practice has mixed opinions about whether, when, how, and with whose help, adopted people should look for more information about or try and initiate a reunion with birth parents. Information on this process is available through childwelfare.gov. This topic surfaces throughout the years and it's hard to know what the right thing to do for your child is. All I will say is listen to your adolescent and you'll know.

As adolescents move toward greater autonomy, a parent's most troublesome task is to create a delicate balance of "to love and let go." This often means a period of estrangement, lessened communication, or outright strife. You will need to pay attention and discuss with your friends who have weathered adolescence with their biological children to notice the similarities, and as you have tried to do all along, to understand the differences, acknowledge them, and try to work on them along with your child.

How do you know you need Help?
I think this is super important for any family to know so I have copied this section word for word with consent from childwelfare.gov

Usually, a parent notices that something is wrong, either in the family atmosphere or in a family member. If you have educated yourself about normal child behavior at different ages, chances are you will find yourself questioning behavior in your child that seems out of the ordinary. Sometimes, a teacher, relative, or friend asks if you have noticed a problem. Perhaps your child seems unduly sad or anxious, unable to concentrate, is angry or flies off the handle for no obvious reason. You may see behavior that is unusual or not characteristic of your child; sometimes it is the increasing degree of a certain behavior that is troubling.

Perhaps there has been an upsetting event or change, such as a move or loss of job for you or your spouse. children react to any parental problems that threaten their security. Elementary school-aged children tend to have problems around school; often that is the setting where problems are noticed. Adolescents tend to have identity concerns and authority struggles with their parents or other adults.

All of these possibilities can occur in any family. The adoptive family has the added concern of trying to decide whether or not it is an adoption issue that is troubling the child. If the child is over 6 years of age, it's usually impossible to distinguish adoption from other psychological, social, and educational issues. Treatment must evaluate the child and family and should consider his or her stage of development and the nature of the child's relationship with you (and sometimes with his or her birth parents).

Because it's so difficult to disentangle adoptive issues from those of normal development, especially once the child has reached elementary school-age, the adoptive family can benefit from professional helpers who have experience working with adoptive families. There are many varieties of therapy and advantages and disadvantages to each. Sometimes the whole family needs to be involved in therapy. Sometimes your adopted child needs to deal with problems alone.

And Finally:

No matter how much you wanted to be parents, there are many times during the years of child rearing when you might ask, sometimes in humor, and sometimes in sadness, "Why did I ever sign up for this job?" Sometimes you can only reply feebly, "Well, it sure makes life interesting." But finally, you must have faith that the bonding that occurred in the early years between you and your child, the trust that has built as s/he grew up, and the communication that you have established, will come full circle and provide rich and rewarding relationships for you and your adult children.

For more information please contact Child Welfare Information Gateway at 1.800.394.3366 or the National Adoption Center at 1.800.TO.ADOPT or 215.735.9988 in Pennsylvania.There are also State and local organizations and programs sponsored by adoption agencies that provide parenting education and other "post adoption" services. Workshops, conferences, and seminars keep parents current with knowledge in the field. There are also support and self-help groups that offer educational and social activities.

This article has be researched and written By Tracy Collamore

Websites researched where
personal experience
http://childwelfare.gov
http://thenotsosecretlifeofanadoptee.com
http://adopting.org