Understanding Attachment: A Family's Journey Through Adoption
Adoption is a journey that encompasses numerous emotional layers, complexities, and challenges. For many adoptees and their families, navigating these dynamics requires reflection, open communication, and deep understanding; and one of those deep understandings? It's attachment issues.
For an adoptee, it's normal to feel alone or disconnected from their adopted family. Whether they are the eldest, middle, or youngest child within the family, there's always a feeling of feeling different, or wanting to push others way to become more of an individualized person.
While not everyone's adoption story is the same, some of adoptees have or had attachment issues in their lives. Attachment, is the state of emotional connectedness with another person, primarily parents; and research shows that adoptees have faced higher levels of attachment insecurity than non-adoptees.
As a parent, it could be difficult to see your child, especially at a young age, go from their bubbly, life of the party self, to being just angry all the time; and sometimes parents miss the cues and clear signs of attachment and labels it as behavioral issues.
It's a difficult and disheartening topic to talk about for both adoptive parents and adopted children, but it's a much needed conversation that needs to be had, especially as the adoptees grow older and begin to process adoption.
A big challenge for adoptees is not only learning that you're adopted but learning things about your biological families that can contribute to their attachment issues; for example, the feeling of loss and rejection. There are only two primary ways in which a child can end up in adoption and that is by force or by choice. So, for an adoptee, learning that their biological family willingly put them up for adoption, will make them feel alone and rejected.
Feeling this sense of being alone and rejected will also lead to more than just attachment issues, but will start to have an impact on the child's mental well being as well. The feelings of disconnection from an adoptee's adoptive family can lead to emotions of depression and self-hate that have a toll on the adoptee's relationship with their family and themselves.
However, as a parent, it's important to provide a secure and open environment as they face these inherent challenges. Although they may feel alone, ensure your child that they are not. As you reflect on your own experiences within your family, embrace these challenges, victories and never underestimate the impact of communication and support.
It will not happen overnight but your constant support and unconditional love to your child, will allow them to form a meaningful relationship between your child and your family that will last a lifetime.