Different aspects of the psychology of adoption
The Drama of the Abandoned Child
An adopted child is a child who has experienced the most severe trauma, a child who is abandoned. Even if he has lost his parents in an accident or otherwise, it is an abandonment situation for him. Any child left without parents experiences it as being abandoned. He is left without the most important thing, the love, the care, the real presence of his parents, who up to a certain point are the whole world to him. It is a drama that has no parallel. But it is a drama that is silent, that is very little spoken about, that one prefers not to notice. But we must remember that this trauma will always leave a significant imprint on the child’s psyche, he will always be more vulnerable, sensitive, prone to depression, difficulties with social adjustment and behavior. But it is possible to help such a child. The most important thing for him or her is the presence of a stable, loving, reliable environment.
Qualities Desirable for Foster Parents
In addition to social stability, a strong desire, and other mandatory requirements, there are a number of qualities that are very important for parents who want to adopt a child:
- It is important to be able to adapt to unforeseen changes, situations
- Be physically and mentally healthy and active enough
- To have optimism, patience, a sense of humor
- have strong self-confidence, be able to resist the opinion of others
- be able to control anger, impulsiveness
- be physically ready to feed, touch, care for, caress a baby who came out of another’s womb, with different skin and hair
- Be able to live under the gaze of others and help your child live under that gaze, too
- To be able to love and give, but also be able to take care of yourself
- have a deep, personal desire to be a parent
- have a desire to teach the child, but also to learn from the child
- have a positive outlook on differences
- be able to be gentle, soft, but also firm in the parenting role
- Be open to talking with your child about his or her background
- Be able to soothe stress
- Know your strengths and weaknesses, be able to name them and make jokes about them
- know the stages of a child’s normal psychological development
- have a good understanding of the emotions associated with grief
Challenges for foster parents
After a period of euphoria comes a period of sobering up, when parents and child come face to face with reality. And reality, besides the good points, has some unexpected sides. It turns out that this child, who seemed like such an angel, the embodiment of all the parents’ expectations, is not just an ordinary child, but a child with his own characteristics, problems that require understanding, acceptance, help. It turns out that being a parent – it’s not just a holiday, and for the most part, everyday life with its own requirements, responsibilities, challenges that must be constantly coped with.
Paradoxically, but in addition to the great feeling of gratitude that the child feels, he or she may also feel anger, resentment toward the adoptive parents, he or she may have a fantasy that he or she has been “deprived” of the birth parents, “taken away” from them, that he or she has been “bought”. Besides, the anger related to the native parents, to those who left him/her, is transferred to the adoptive parents, but they are far away, nothing can be said to them, but there are adoptive parents nearby, who, besides, feel great pity and even unconscious guilt before this child, they are ready to tolerate a lot from him/her. Feeling of guilt in parents can be connected, among other things, with the irritation they feel, which they often dare not express, but which can manifest itself in latent aggression, in rejection of the child. The truth is that adoptive parents can have all kinds of feelings about a child and it is much better to try to understand them than to ignore them but react in reality.
An abandoned child has a very deep distrust of the world around him, he thinks he is bad and unworthy of love, so he will test his new surroundings in every way he can, to test their love. He will provoke bad attitudes, punishments. Here it is very important to understand the inner reasons for sometimes horrible behavior in order to help the child and yourself.
