It is National Adoption Awareness Month. Traditionally, it has been a month to promote, even tout adoption; a time of celebration if you will, and an invitation to consider adoption as a way to build a family. Years ago, in the State of Indiana and probably elsewhere there was a weekly column named for the day of the week; e.g. Thursday’s Child. And featured would be a waiting child; a child waiting for a family, a delightful sounding, cute looking child. This was in the Indianapolis Star and ran for quite a few years, as I remember. There was also a book which was informally referred to as The Wish Book (kind of a take off on the Sears and Pennys Christmas catalogs). This book featured all children in Indiana who were available for adoption, categorized as I remember, by sex and age, and perhaps by race. This book was available to people who were considering adoption and had been in contact with their local County Welfare Department (now known, in Indiana, as the Department of Child Services). There were also Adoption Fairs where children were present who were “available” for adoption.
A lot has been learned in the field of brain science in the ensuing years, actually in the past 20 plus years, about trauma and attachment. And most of the professional, and then mainstream knowledge, has been gained and continues to be gaining in the past 10 years. Along with this knowledge has come an understanding that legally, becoming a member of a family does not take away that part of the brain that was activated by the loss of original attachment. And indeed that loss, and subsequent losses, if a child has had a number of placements prior to being placed in an adoptive family, has imposed significant trauma to the brain. We now know, that even an infant placed at birth with an adoptive family, has issues “born” if you will, from losing their original attachment figure. Also, we often have no idea what the experiences in utero were for that infant, physically or emotionally.
The other piece of adoption awareness that is important, is the expectations of the adoptive parents AND their life experiences. The expectations piece is an easy one to define and understand: they expect that they will feel love for their adopted child unconditionally, afterall, this baby, toddler, young child, is THEIRS. This child who was “chosen” by them…AND they will, of course, be loved and respected by this new young family member for giving them a loving, caring, home. And if this baby, toddler, child is NOT loving and respectful and yes, grateful…what isn’t expected by the parents nor predicted for them by the professionals involved in the placements is the reaction that they, the parents, will have to this “ungrateful”, ill behaved, adopted child. An adopted child who acts out, often triggers reactions in the parents that come from their own histories.
I am not suggesting that all of this happens at once, there is afterall, sometimes, a “honeymoon period” so named by professionals who didn’t really understand the depth of where the behaviors, very positive and then, perhaps, unimaginably negative, come from. And again, we look to the brain science of trauma and attachment for the answers.
As we celebrate Adoption Awareness Month, we should include in our celebration the stories of the good and the not so good and with it celebrate what we now know and can help adopting parents and their child understand the challenges they and their child may face. And along with the knowledge and understanding we offer resources to shift much of the old parenting paradigms that were based in consequences models to a the new paradigm of parenting from a place of love and an understanding that uses brain and body based strategies, instead of the fear based strategies that uses adult based interventions and logic that deny children privileges, and interpersonal connections.
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