Looking before the leap part II

Being overwhelmed as an adoptive parent can happen easily, even in the best of circumstances. With an older institutionalized child, parents can find themselves facing behaviors that may be completely alien to them which in turn can cause serious damage to the entire family.

Here are a few more things that prospective adoptive parents should be aware of when making the decision to adopt an older institutionalized child.


Issues around food

 Mealtime routines vary from institution to institution but you can be guaranteed that large groups of kids eating together at long tables is a common scene.  Sadly, in some homes there is not enough food, and the children leave the dining room unsatisfied. As you can see, the way in which children actually eat is a social and learned behavior.  Their routine in a number of areas may have changed many times, with changing care providers, each with their own set of rules of behavior and expectations to which the child must conform. Their experience was not that of children in nuclear American families.  Because of a sense of uncertainty with the most basic of life sustainment, some children develop food issues as an attempt at control their lives or a way to feel safe.

This may include food hoarding such as taking extra food and secretly storing it away—like under their bed—as a way to feel safe and be certain that there will be food tomorrow. For many families, this is a really confusing behavior because there is plenty of food, but an institutionalized child may find this to be a difficult concept.  And, on the subject of food, these kids may gobble their food and eat in a way that I’ve heard families say “he eats like an animal” and you have to remember the survival environment from which they come in a child institution.

Impact on other children in the home

Families are systems and introducing another children to your home will have an impact—you can count on that. Birth order can be shuffled—that is an older child may displace another child in the family in terms of order of siblings. There are immediate effects on other children and this must be a consideration for your family—for example: are you willing to displace your oldest child? Or displacing your youngest child—making him or her a middle child? And, while adopting a 7 year old child who is a year older than your six year old may not seem to be significant now, but you have to remember that the 15 year old and 14 year old in years to come may come into conflict later at a different developmental stage.

Also, if room sharing is a possibility, one must think through issues about sharing and ideas of “space” and sibling attachment. Jealousy can be an issue. Or, if a child exhibits violent behaviors, ordinary parenting skills are challenged—and you my find yourself putting a sibling in a position of risk. These are all considerations.

Also, we know that institutionalized children are delayed in their development. As such, the family system must adjust. Everyone in the family becomes aware of a delayed child’s development and that he or she is “behind” and sometimes this becomes stressful for the other children. And, unfortunately this becomes more complicated when an adopted child is actually functioning at a lower level of IQ than his or her new siblings—this requires flexibility on the part of all family members and often it requires different parenting strategies for the adopted child. So, that means that a parent may have been doing very well with parenting their biological child and then after an adoption things change—and ordinary parenting skills are challenged. A parent may suddenly feel inadequate and need to quickly learn some new strategies for behavior management. This can be overwhelming and quite disruptive to the other children in the family too.
On this subject, the ideas of attachment are again relevant. Parenting an attachment disordered child is different. If a mom yells at an appropriately attached child because she loses her temper, the child will feel upset to have disappointed her mother but her anxiety level stays relatively normal. Both mom and child can make up later and understand that the relationship is still loving and things are okay within the family system. However,  an attachment disordered child will possibly be very pleased that she stirred up a response in mom and even play this out over and over again in attention seeking behaviors. This builds tension in the family and only reinforces the child’s perception of self as being a negative or unloveable person. This child may be lumping the parent into a category of others who have hurt and disappointed her in the past which translates into the issues of trust we talked about earlier. And, while all of this is playing out, the Attachment Disordered child has heightened anxiety and the “coming back together” or making up is difficult if not ineffective.  This is a combination of physiological responses to stress and behaviors in the entire family system and it requires a great deal of patience which may take years to truly heal with the help of professional intervention.

Observations from a child's home director:
 I have observed that children in orphanages develop a unique relationship with other children.  As caregivers change, but the core group of children stays more constant, the children identify and bond with each other in a separate social construct.  In many homes there are two ruling systems; the formal one with the adults, and a separate, very real one among the children.  There can develop a distinct society of “us vs them”, wherein the children work collectively, and very effectively to control their environment, including the ruling group of caregivers.  The children learn a complex behavior with other children that includes both collaboration, and competition.   They will have a code of silent solidarity, but then also use threats and cajoling to control other children’s interaction with adults. 

NEXT: Sexually Reactive Children