Ok friends, I am going to start a series of posts this week to help you understand what life is going to look like for a while once Ryah comes home. We are literally weeks away from bringing her home forever and we are so excited!! Seriously- can't believe it! We put her carseat together yesterday, it feels so surreal!! All we are waiting on at this point is clearance from the Embassy telling us to come get her! It could happen any day! Yay!! So here are a few things that will be important to how we help our girl adjust. The rest of this post was written by my friend Rebekah over at Saying Yes to Adoption. She did a great job putting all of this into words and gave me permission to use on my blog(I tweaked a few things to make it appropriate for Ryah), so huge thanks to her for that! Make sure you check out her blog before you leave!
Attachment
Adoption Parenting defines attachment as "a close, trusting tie between two people; or in particular, as the reciprocal relationship between an infant and her primary caregiver... Healthy attachment occurs when the infant experiences her caregiver as consistently providing emotional essentials such as touch, movement, eye contact and smiles, as well as the basic necessities such as food and shelter." (p.43).
Attachment, which is a big buzz word in the adoption community, is the connection that the child has with the parent- in which the child completely trusts the parents and allows the parents to meet the needs of the child. This is typically a natural process for biological children, but for adopted children (even a child adopted at day 1 in the hospital) have already experienced some major losses that can interfere with the attachment process.
Loss
If you've had a biological child, think about it this way: from the moment you found out you were pregnant, you (probably) had positive emotional feelings towards your child. For 40-ish weeks of pregnancy, you took extra care of your body, talked to the baby, anticipated his arrival, etc. When the baby was born, you took care of his needs immediately- feeding, changing, bathing. Every time the baby cried you were probably there to meet its needs. From the beginning (conception) the baby knew that you loved it and even after birth, you met the needs the baby had.
Now let's think about (in general) institutionalized (orphanage-setting) children. Please note all of this is generalization, nothing is specific to Ryah's story or meant to say that every institutionalized child comes from this background. In some cases, the events of conception could be traumatic (rape, etc) or the discovery of pregnancy could result in shame, abuse, and fear. The 40ish weeks of pregnancy could be very traumatic instead of peaceful and joy-filling. The birth could occur in a dangerous or unsafe setting, and the child's needs could be unmet by abandonment or malnourishment. Perhaps the child is moved to an orphanage, and then to another orphanage or foster home. Each time the child is moved to a new place, the child loses the connection with the previous one: loss of birth mother, loss of home, loss of familiarity. There is not one person consistently meeting needs.
Identifying these losses will not only allow us to be compassionate towards our kids, but understand why we have to rebuild trust. Our daughter has been in an orphanage almost her entire life. She has been passed around between nannies, and although she is being very well fed and cared for, she does not have a primary caregiver like she would if she was in our home. Her special mothers always care for multiple children at a time, and her needs may not be met immediately, like if she was in our home. Even when we do finally bring Ryah home, there will be a huge loss for her- the culture of Ethiopia, the sound of Amharic speaking, the sights of brown skinned caregivers, the smells of the care center. Everything will be completely new. She won't automatically know or trust us, even though we did spend five days with her in July.
How Loss Affects Attachment
Institutionalized adopted children can deal with several emotions, all that lead to reactions. In Adoption Parenting, these emotions are listed as loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, mastery/control, identity and intimacy (p.7). If these emotions are not processed correctly (with the caregivers) then internal reactions occur. The way the parents help the children heal and meet the child's needs affects the attachment that they have.
In the same book, pages 55-56 describe types of attachment:
Secure- able to engage with mom, and others. Upset when mom leaves but is happy when reunited. Able to develop trust, self-regulation, and self-reliance, healthy and meaningful relationships and coping skills for stress and frustration.
Anxious/Ambivalent- inconsolable when mom is gone, reunions with mom are resentful; resistant when mom initiates attention; afraid to explore surroundings or meet new people.
Insecure/Avoidant- avoids and ignores mom; treats mom same as strangers, doesn't express emotions and doesn't explore environment, finds ways to self-care and won't ask for help or show needs.
Insecure/Disorganized- scared of caregivers; acts rejected, alarmed; hurts others with little remorse.
Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)- little conscience or fear of consequence, will hurt, life and steal without remorse, will not respond normally to nurturing or discipline.
The Big Deal
Karen Purvis wrote in The Connected Child: "Children raised in an impoverished orphanage setting without any primary caretaker at all can lack attachment skills entirely. These children may not have the basic moral compass that tells them not to hurt other people because they never got closely connected with another person." (p28).
At Created for Care, Amy Monroe said something beautiful: "The past affects the future but does not determine it." Just because Ryah, and other institutionalized children, have had inconsistent settings from the beginning, and may currently have some attachment issues, the LORD can overcome their grief and heal their hearts. *We have already seen huge strides in our girl over the past few months as we have seen how attached she is to her nanny. This is great news because we know that she will eventually attach to us and that she is capable of forming that bond- but it will also make bringing her home a very difficult transition for her as we take her away from all she knows.
Congrats if you made it through to the end of this post! Come back next time for a post on HOW to heal their hearts! (*All of this was based on Rebekah's research and experience from other adoptive families before her son came home. She has done several follow up posts after he came home that back up the things discussed here and how they have worked for their family) Thanks again Rebekah!
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