The reader I mentioned a few days ago was concerned by "boot camp" approaches to integrating adoptive children into their new families. I'm concerned about those coercive approaches too, and I think many adoptive parents would reject them-- were it not for certain expectations and dreams that guide their choices. It's sad, but true, that some of the wishes some adoptive parents may have are just never going to come to pass, even though there are plenty of other good things to anticipate. Understanding that fact can be the key to the formation of a secure adoptive family.
Here are some thoughts that I wish adoptive-parents-to-be would consider carefully. (They don't mean "don't adopt".)
1. If you adopt a child under a year of age (maybe even 18 months), your child is probably soon going to display the clear behaviors that you may think of as "attachment". He or she will want to sit in your lap, sleep in your bed at times, and rely on you for safety and nurturance. These behaviors are characteristic of infants and young toddlers who have consistent caregivers. They are not so characteristic of older toddlers or preschoolers, much less of school-age children. Older children have their own ways of showing attachment, but they are not the ways of infants. (As an example of how this changes with age: you may love your mother, but you probably don't long to sit in her lap, and might find sharing a bed with her very awkward.) Adoptive parents may have dreamed of a cuddly attachment relationship like those adults have with babies, but if they adopt older children they should consider how they see non-adopted children of that age act with their parents. The longing to have an older child act the way babies act can cause a lot of trouble and lead adoptive parents into accepting coercive practices.
2. Toddlers and preschoolers want to be cared for and nurtured but their personality development has begun to emphasize autonomy or independence as a pressing need. Adopted children of this age also need to practice autonomy and do things for themselves. Some of the "boot camp" approaches advise that adopted children should not be permitted to make any decisions for themselves or to help themselves to food or water-- even to use the toilet without having asked permission first. Such rules fly in the face of the children's normal developmental pathway. (As I commented in a previous post, the child's emotional development has not stopped at the time of some traumatic experience, and he or she should not be treated like a much younger child.)
3. Of course adoptive parents would love to do with their newly-adopted child all the things that they think of as belonging to a happy family life. They've imagined going to family holiday events with a nicely-dressed child, or sitting down in their church pew as a whole family, to the admiration of everyone else. But those goals really have nothing to do with the child's adjustment and development, and they may be much too challenging for him or her in the early months with a new family. There are two big problems about these occasions: one is that there are so many unfamiliar people present in an unfamiliar place, and the other is that the adoptive parents themselves are likely to be tense and anxious about how they are perceived on these social occasions. It's better to wait before putting yourselves and the child through these experiences, and to be prepared to leave if it isn't going well when you try it.
4. Young children really thrive on consistency and familiarity. They much prefer experiences with those qualities to the finest of unfamiliar things. In the United States, we tend to think that having a bedroom to yourself is almost a necessity, but how do you think that "luxurious" experience feels to a young child who has always shared a room, or even a bed, with others? We think hamburgers are delicious, but how do they seem to a child whose diet has not included meat? We depend on our flush toilets and toilet paper, but are those welcome to children who have learned to use more primitive facilities? We want our children to have nice new clothes, but how do those clothes feel relative to the soft, loose, worn-out clothing the child is accustomed to? I don't mean to suggest that adoptive parents need to turn their homes into imitations of Third World orphanages, but it's wise to realize that a child's rejection of what we see as excellent gifts is rejection of too much unfamiliarity.
5. The best-developed, best-cared-for child in the world is still very hard to get along with at times, and at some ages those times happen every day. Times of disobedience, sulking, aloofness, and downright meanness are not necessarily symptoms of emotional disturbance; they are characteristic of young human beings, and all parents spend a lot of time and energy trying to smooth out these rough spots in the child's personality. I don't mean to dismiss the possibility that any child may have some serious emotional problems, simply to point out that every little difficulty should not be interpreted to mean that heavy psychological treatment is required. In fact, research on adopted children suggests that by adolescence they have no more troubles than non-adopted children.
6. I was about to stop, but one more point comes to mind. This has to do with the size of adopted families. There is an old-fashioned charm to the idea of a huge family, but adopting many children, or several children at the same time, is putting barriers in the way of good development. I realize that this is a problematic view when it comes to trying to keep siblings together, but it deserves consideration in most cases. Each child needs a period of serious interest and attention from highly-motivated adult caregivers. As someone has said, what every child (adopted or not) needs is for someone to be crazy about him, and it's hard to be crazy about more than one person at a time.
