When I was waiting to adopt, I remember reading that adoptive parents should never use abandonment as a form of punishment for an adopted child. Unfortunately, I cannot remember where I read this, but I remember the author saying that an adopted child is more likely to react with a much stronger fear of abandonment than a child who was not adopted. Personally, I cannot imagine threatening to abandon my child, no matter how he joined my family, but I thought this observation was an interesting one.

My six-year-old son is an independent little guy. When I drop him off at school or at one of his morning summer camps, he barely gives me a backward glance. He is very confident in himself, and he loves to interact with other children. However, I notice that he becomes clingy in situations that could be viewed as “abandonment.”

For example, my son loves going to school. He attends a Montessori school, so he had the same teacher for two years in a row. He bonded with her and cares about her very deeply. She and his classmates were a daily presence in his life throughout the school year. School ended for the summer, and then suddenly all of these people were out of his life (for the summer, anyhow).

All of the sudden, my very independent kid was asking to cuddle with me more frequently. During the first couple of weeks of summer, he wanted to be with me wherever I went. This was so unlike how he usually is, so I took notice.

I have also noticed him becoming clingier after we travel. He seems to need to reassure himself repeatedly that I am not going anywhere during the trip as well as the first day or two at home.

I will never know if this clinginess is a byproduct of his adoption or if this is just who he is. I guess it does not really matter, as long as I am aware of his needs and do all I can to meet those needs. I respect that he needs some extra “mom time” after experiencing these kinds of “losses.” As long as I give him that extra love and attention, he bounces back into the independent kid who can conquer the world.

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• Sadness in Adopted Kids