The population of adopted children faces many problems due to their situation in life. They face many adversities early in life, sometimes before even being born. Some children are either given up or taken away because their parent is unable to care for them. This involves difficulties such as their mother being on drugs while pregnant, their mother unable to get the healthcare or basic resources needed, or their mother being under such stress that it affects the child. For any child to be separated from their family, it is a break comparable to a trauma. When a child is developing in the womb, it forms an attachment to its mother, and after being born, infants will show a biological need to be attached to a primary caregiver (Mercer, 2014). When a child does not receive that healthy relationship, or the benefits of the bond with the mother, it is not a predictor of good outcomes. Because of the separation, Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is:
“one of the top five health problems with children who are adopted internationally. Many children who are adopted internationally may have spent time in an institution- style orphanage with an abundance of children in need of care with a serious shortage of available caregivers. These children may have lacked the opportunity to bond with a primary caregiver or may have experienced a disruption in their bonding that comes with a frequent change in caregivers.” (Mercer, J., 2014)
Children with RAD are unable to show appropriate attachment, have difficulty reciprocating or regulating emotions, and not have a good understanding of when and how to seek help. There are two main subtypes of RAD. One involves a child with little to no attachment behavior, a lack of social engagement, difficulty expressing emotion, and a habit of not seeking out a caregiver, even when in significant distress. A child with the second type of RAD may be indiscriminate in their social engagements. They may not show reserve in the presence of unknown adults, may seek affection from complete strangers, and present disinhibited emotions. Later in life, RAD causes difficulty being comforted, unusual eating patterns, lack of impulse control, mood swings, inattentiveness, and in extreme cases, criminal behaviors with no remorse (Mercer, 2014). Research has indicated:
“… between 38–40% of toddlers who experienced poor care giving and were removed from their parents’ home show signs of RAD. This suggests that with the growing number of children in the foster care system and the growing number of children who are adopted internationally from subpar orphanage care, we may see a rise in the frequency of this diagnosis.” (Mercer, 2014)
RAD is not the only result of disrupted parental attachment. Children, either in foster systems, orphanages, or already adopted, may struggle with grief for their family. Children who are waiting in the foster system “… have to deal with inconsistent parents who promise to be better, have sporadic visits at best, and then vanish, leaving them with the unfulfilled hope of getting to be with their birth parents (Fineran, 2012).” Fineran (2012) suggests that the grief of these children is a nonfinite loss, as the grief and the anticipated grief over the loss of family compound. Fineran (2012) explains that the grief is not only for the parents, but for the loss of community, schools, and other connections made through their family. Some children are not worried about the termination of their birth parents’ rights, while others do not remember their parents and instead grieve the lack of that knowledge (Fineran, 2012). Every experience of grief is different, and every child will handle it differently.
Children who experience multiple changes in caregivers, frequent neglect, and abuse may have difficulty feeling secure in relationships (Carnes-Holt, 2012). On top of that, Carnes-Holt (2012), claims that trauma can create a disordered and fragmented memory. The circumstances that lead up to the adoption process do not generally have a positive impact on a developing child. According to Ingley-Cook and Dobel-Ober (2013), research literature suggests that adopted children or children in care go through many difficulties, resulting from both pre-care and care experiences. “Children in care are five times more likely to have a mental health difficulty (Ingley-Cook & Dobel-Ober, 2013).” Institutional care is often low quality, with few caregivers and resources. For example, Romanian adoptees who had severe deprivation when they were adopted continued to be affected by it into early adolescence (Tan, Rice, & Mahoney, 2015). Tan, Rice, & Mahoney (2015) found that 6 years after being adopted, their motor development was still delayed. The longer the children were in institutionalization, the longer it took their development to catch up to that of other children (Tan, Rice, & Mahoney, 2015). Institutionalization involves a variety of adversities for developing kids.
Moral Exclusion
“Since they’re not my blood child I don’t need to treat them as such”
Impact of Oppression
Intervention Strategies
There are a few types of intervention strategies for the struggles faces by adopted children. One type of institutional help would be improving the quality of care facilities for those waiting to be adopted. This would reduce some of the potential problems the population generally faces. In many orphanages or transitional facilities for infants and toddlers, skin to skin contact and socialization are rare commodities. Due to financial difficulties, the food is not always sufficient, either in quality or quantity. These institutions are not healthy places for children to be developing. Tan, Rice, & Mahoney (2015) claim that “improving the quality of institutional care is critical for adopted children’s long-term outcomes.” The laws and regulations for all different types of adoption can be complex and take a long time to fulfill, so children spend more time in those institutions. Those laws are difficult to fulfill, because they always change. For example:
Due to governmental decisions and cultural trends, the adoption landscape is constantly changing; for example, the privatization of foster care in the United States and Russia’s closure of adoptions to families in the United States are just two examples of events that have impacted the direction of adoption. These changes bring awareness to new obstacles and new opportunities, but attention can shift to the emerging developments in the adoption world and take the focus away from the needs of adoptive x families. (Lyles & Homeyer, 2015)
The process is ever-changing, and complex, but it can still be beneficial by weeding out poor adoption candidates. However, improvements could possibly be made in that area, as well as that of institutional care. If institutional care for both orphaned children and those in foster care were improved, the long-term health of adoptees would be vastly better.
Another intervention strategy available to assist adoptees in their issues is therapy. Therapy comes in many forms, and each problem the population faces has a different strategy used by therapists to counteract it. One treatment that is more general is group therapy for adoptees. Group therapy sessions for adoptees reduced stigma and provided opportunity for peer discussion on their shared issues, which normalized their experiences in a positive way (Ingley-Cook & Dobel-Ober, 2013). Young adoptees indicated that they would like more activity-based interventions, as opposed to language-based interventions (Ingley-Cook & Dobel-Ober, 2013). Individual therapy remains a viable option, with strategies for helping with family issues, attachment problems, possible traumas, and solidifying identity. Therapy and improved institutional care are good intervention strategies for the long-term health of adoptees.
Treatment and Resource Options
Strengths
The strengths of adoptees are rarely focused on, and yet they exist. In a 2009 study (Rueter, Iacono, & McGue), the researchers used the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale to find that “…adopted adolescents reported more positive communication with their parents than nonadopted adolescents.” and “… adoptive parents reported more supportive parent–child interactions than nonadoptive parents…”. In adoptive families, the parents made the decision to adopt, and often feel a responsibility to work to show their child they are just as loved as a biological child. Adoptive families have been found to have more conflict (Rueter, Iacono, & McGue, 2009), but they also put in the effort to provide support and good communication. This means that adopted children may at times have the benefit of a strong family foundation.
Additionally, adoptees can have the advantage of a firmer sense of self. Adoptees often have difficulty with the issue of identity, but completing the process of working through that leaves them with a well-defined identity. Adoptees have to decide if they want to look for their birth parents, what their definition of family is, who is their family and who they are in relation to their origins. For transracial and international adoptees, discovering their cultural and ethnic heritage and what culture they choose to belong to, or how they choose to treat culture, is another process. Being steadfast in your origin, how it affects you, and who you are is a definite strength.