CHILDRENS ADOPTED FROM CHILDREN'S HOME

Children Adopted from Children's Home

Children Adopted from Children's Home

Introduction

The number of children adopted worldwide via intercountry adoption is increasing each year, and the most recent statistics indicate that more than 20,000 children were adopted to the United States alone (U.S. State Department, 2005). These children have lost family, previous caregivers, familiar environments, and language, and many have also experienced some time in institutional care. Such children, with their history of loss and institutionalization, have special needs.

It can be argued that the most serious deprivation of institutionalization is the lack of a consistent and sensitive caregiver whom the child can trust and form a healthy attachment to. Development of a secure attachment normally occurs through interactions in which a primary caregiver meets a child's needs in an appropriate manner resulting in reduction of discomfort and in feelings of relief (Levy & Orlans, 2000). This cycle of need-arousal-gratification-relief-need is ordinarily repeated many thousands of times in the first years of a child's life but is absent or greatly reduced in the experience of children in institutions (Chisholm, 1998; Fisher et al., 1997; Levy & Orlans). Attachment theory is the primary paradigm within which the impact of the absence of a responsive, consistently available caregiver on the behavior of institutionalized children is understood (Gunnar, Bruce, & Grotevant, 2000), and the research presented in this paper has relied upon this framework.

Parenting a newly adopted postinstitutionalized child can be extremely difficult, as along with any issues that may exist as a result of institutionalization, the child may also be grieving and be traumatized by their placement. In addition, friends and healthcare professionals with little understanding of the experience or needs of postinstitutionalized children may deluge new parents with contradictory or inappropriate advice. Determining how to meet the needs of their postinstitutionalized child and assist attachment development is of great concern to adoptive parents, and the care that children receive in the immediate postplacement period can significantly impact long-term outcomes (Gunnar et al., 2000).

This paper will present a hypothesis that a suitable template for care for newly adopted children is to seek to replicate many of the early experiences that physiological measures suggest are expected by infants postbirth. In newborn babies, when this "expected" physiologically congruent care is provided, a physiological interdependence between mother and child is created. This physiological interdependence impacts mother and child in ways that can be viewed as positive for both of them and promotes responsive caregiving and attachment development. While this care is usually provided in the first year of a child's life, it may be that aspects of physiologically congruent care can be applied to the care of older baby to school-aged postinstitutionalized children and may optimize the opportunity for development of the attachment relationship.

Discussion

Biological ties are the hallmark of parent-child relationships, and its absence has caused concern throughout the history of adoption. No less an authority than Jessie Taft, a pioneer in the professionlization of adoption services and herself an adoptive mother, commented on the ...