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Up until July of last year, I was the parent of only one child. One child, who by all accounts (and not just my biased one), is a pretty unique child in terms of behavior and temperament.
Thus, I fell into a trap that I think many new adoptive parents find themselves in: making everything about adoption. What I mean by that is, that every little behavioral “hiccup” had to be due to adoption-related issues (in my mind), rather than just developmental stuff that happens universally with all children.
In talking to close friends with children who were not adopted, I am realizing more and more that the issues I’ve attributed to adoption, or adjustment or trauma, are really issues that all families go through at one time or another.
My oldest was recently diagnosed with epilepsy. I’ve noticed lately that my middle child has been over-dramatizing every scrape, boo-boo, owie, cut and bump possible. Is it because she is adopted? No, I think all children who have chronically ill siblings resent (from time to time) the attention paid to the other sibling. I know this to be the case with my two, because any other time, she is very solicitous of him, and will actually come running into his room when she hears a noise sometimes, thinking that maybe he was having a seizure. She will remind him to take his anti-convulsant medications in the mornings. He got a package yesterday from our local epilepsy group with lots of cool stuff in it and she was genuinely very happy for him (and she normally has great difficulty sharing the spotlight, or gets easily jealous over the neat things others might receive). She even made up a song for him for being so brave with his epilepsy.
I use this one issue as an example, but there are many things over the last several months that I believe, in retrospect, I mistakenly attributed to adoption issues. Because I only had one child, I didn’t really have a lot of experience with sibling issues or how multiple children in families interacted with each other.
If you are in the process of adopting and do not have any children or only one child, you might want to talk to friends who have more than one child or observe the family dynamic, so that when your child(ren) arrive, you have a little more to base your opinions on, and may perhaps avoid falling into the belief, as I did, that everything revolves around your child’s adoptive status.
Photo credit: Stock Xchng
Marie, I did the same thing. After 14 years of adoption and fostering I still wonder sometimes, “Is this behavior age appropriate, or is it adoption related.”