Providing counseling to children who have been through or are facing adoption requires awareness of the many factors that predict how difficult it will be for that individual to build a restored sense of self and family. A counselors role is to always seek to enhance the strengths and attend to the areas of risk, helping the family to navigate what can feel more like a scavenger hunt than a straight line at times.
Prenatal Experiences:
Even for babies adopted at birth, the depth of prenatal experience on outcomes might be surprising. Factors such as the mothers nutrition and stress-levels can impact cognitive functioning, learning capabilities, and create risk factors for a child’s own anxiety and depression through life.
Premature birth, especially combined with other life stressors, is highly predictive of childhood behavioral issues—which essentially means poorer mental health. Exposure to toxic substances like drugs and alcohol create neurological damage. Even in vitro exposure to marijuana, now legal in several US states, contributes to hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention problems, learning and memory deficits and externalizing behaviors (Goldschmidt, Day, & Richardson, 2000; Richardson, Ryan, Willford, Day, & Goldschmidt, 2002).
High stress during pregnancy for the mother is connected with a higher level of risk for long-term neurodevelopmental disorders. The dump of cortisol into the blood stream can create maladaptive social patterns, ADHD, sleep disturbances and mood disorders. In the long-run, maternal anxiety and depression and sterss also correlate with their child’s potential for anxiety, depression and substance abuse tendencies across the lifespan (Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar, & Helm, 2009).
Age at Adoption:
Children who are adopted at later ages are also at higher risk for difficult adjustments and behavior problems. While each person is different, studies generally agree that adoption after age two creates more challenges with healthy attachment and potential mental health and behavioral challenges.
Deprivation and Neglect:
No matter the age of a child, a lack of physical and emotional nurturing have one of the highest risks for complications. Institutionalization in orphanages, lack of interaction, instruction or encouragement—these have a cascade impact on all aspects of a child’s health.
From language development issues, cognitive impairments, difficulty with attachment and sensory integration issues to name a few. Severe neglect can show in neuroendocrine imbalances where the adrenal glands over or under produce cortisol. Neglect is not only equal in impact to abuse, sometimes the effects are even more severe and long-lasting.
Abuse and Trauma:
A child’s experience with physical, emotional or sexual abuse or other traumas are often the source of externalizing behaviors, often mislabeled as Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional-Defiant Disorder (ODD) or anti-social behaviors. These ways of coping with life are entrenched in the nuerobiology of trauma as well as attempts to maintain attachment in toxic and destructive caregiving relationships. Often these stories are unknown, suspected but left in the shadows and memories of the child. It can take care to unearth the impact of these events on the child’s daily experiences.
Placement History:
Also challenging an individuals ability to experience safety and attachment are the number of moves or caregivers that a child has been placed with prior to adoption. The more moves the more likely a child or adolescent will find adjusting to their adoptive home difficult. This results from the natural challenge to a healthy parent-child attachment. Strangely, children with a healthy attachment can show more difficulty adjusting than those who had poor models and then find a supportive caregiver. Viewed through the lense of loss and grieving, this makes a lot of sense.
One of the greatest areas of support needed in adoption counseling is around the extensive losses, both physical and emotional. Individuals facing adoption have lost much of what defined their home, their family and ultimately are often confused about their own identity. Often these losses emerge during school years which can be confusing for families who adopted their child at an early age. This process of identifying self and one’s history is a lifelong grieving that can re-appear many times throughout a person’s life.
Protective Factors for Adoption:
While counseling can support challenges in the areas of risk, it can also help families and individuals going through adoption to build on their strengths. Research finds some characteristics and values to predict and support greater adjustment for families.
Gender and Temperament
Being born female and with an “easy” temperament seem to help a child both in their abilites to cope and also how the world responds to their needs. Easy-going children are less likely to encounter harsh discipline and may gain more needed affection and support.
Attachment Capability
Essentially some children who have experienced quality care can maintain openness and ability for emotional connection with new caregivers and parents. This can also contribute to adoptive parents willingness to attach. Children who are closed off or struggle with vulnerability are often met with resistance from adoptive parents who may misunderstand or interpret their difficulty as a rejection of the caregivers efforts. Supporting the adoptive parents and children in navigating the subtlety of attachment styles, emotional love-languages and patience and practice can be important. Just like in marriage relationships, we can often assume that we should just “know” how to do something. Adoptive parenting is learning yourself and the child just as much as it might be in developing a healthy marriage.
Adoptive Parents Expectations and Resources
From knowledge about adoption processes, their own childhood experiences and current parenting styles, adoptive parents responses are crucial to helping a child adapt. While it is not the fault of adoptive parents when behaviors and emotions emerge, there are skills and supports that can help adoptive parents to navigate challenges in a way that creates safe attachment and less stress for themselves and the child. Counseling, education, support groups are just a start. Setting an expectation that help is valuable, acceptable and needed can free adoptive parents from feeling that they are failing or alone in the process.
If you are interested in more information and support, check out the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E) and search for Adoption Competent Counselors in your area.
