Why is it important to talk about attachment to adopted children?The reality is that there are a number of situations in their early years that can lead to the development of some associated behavioral complications. In general, adopted children do not have a happy past: they have had many disturbing experiences.
This can cause children to behave alarmingly with their adoptive parents and sometimes show exaggerated addictive behaviors. Other times, do you try to distance yourself emotionally from them, why do they act like this?
- “When we belong to a mother.
- A family.
- A language and a culture.
- We build our identity.
- We become someone.
- “? Boris Cyrulnik?.
Adopted children often go through situations that aren’t always easy or age-appropriate, before moving in with their new family. Some experiences play a key role in the development of attachment. On the one hand, it is more difficult for these children to have an emotional connection with their adoptive parents if they have experienced experiences of abuse and/or neglect in their home family or institutions.
In our early years, we need the adults around us to respond effectively to our requests for support and closeness. On the contrary, if they neglect us or respond in an aggressive way, they generate distrust and fear for this character who must transmit security, which will influence our future relationships.
Something similar happens when children spend a lot of time in family accommodation, there are many abandoned children and these centers are not always able to meet their emotional and psychological needs that are so important at this age, so it is a variable that influences the development of attachment in adopted children.
The thing is that, although they are very well cared for physically, there is usually only one caregiver for many children, which makes it very difficult to care for them emotionally with the involvement they need, so we see differences in the development of attachment in children adopted in the first months of life compared to those adopted later.
“What we do with children, they will do with society. “Karl Menninger?
These early experiences are beyond the control of adoptive parents. Can you do anything to help your children develop emotionally and socially properly?Yes of course. In the development of emotional bonding, the behaviors and personalities of parents play a fundamental role.
The phase of adapting the child to a new family can last a long time and be emotionally exhausting, requiring patience, safety and a lot of affection on the part of adults, emotional stability, good tolerance to stress, flexibility and adequate expression of affection are some of the characteristics of parents that favor the good development of attachment in adopted children, that is, , must be mature people, with a safe attachment and who are also able to teach it, both with indications and examples.
Are parents who have sufficient resources to face adversity and regulate negative emotions adaptively, able to ask for help if they consider it necessary, and when they do, do they not feel that this request for help makes them?Better or worse parents? Or it impairs your self-esteem, so they are able to convey to their children the importance of emotional management and performance that can be achieved when we do it properly.
This empathy will put them in a privileged position: they will be able to connect their children with their origin, in this way they will favor a more realistic view of the reasons for their adoption, something very important, because many children in this situation feel guilty and devalued for having been abandoned. All of this is essential for them to have a secure emotional connection. Adoption is a great way to start a new family that must be well cared for by everyone!
“What matters is not the right of anyone to adopt a child, but the child’s right not to be adopted by anyone. “Fernando Savater?
Images courtesy of René Bernal, Larm Rmah and Ben White.