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Take an infant or an older child? How will his heredity be manifested? Should I tell him that he is not his own child? Family psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya explains several parental biases.
There are more and more adoptive parents. Only in Moscow in 2010 the number of foster families increased by 15 times. According to the Department of Family and Youth Policy of the city of Moscow, more than 2000 children ended up in families – they were adopted, taken under guardianship, in foster care or in a foster family. What motives prompt the decision to take one, and sometimes several children?
“Of course, childless couples thus get the opportunity to become parents, but for many the main motive is to take the child from the orphanage, to become a family for him,” explains psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya. “More and more adults decide to adopt a foster child because they understand that they have the strength, health and resources to change the childhood of this child and be responsible for his fate.”
Adoption is a difficult and long process. It requires such energy that parents often endure only because their heart is warmed by the ideal image of a long-awaited child. But, as with the appearance of their own children, they inevitably face the fact that their ideas about the child to one degree or another do not correspond to reality.
The more future adoptive parents know, the less illusions they have, the less disappointments they will have.
“It is dangerous to load children with your expectations of what they should be,” the psychologist warns. “Too often it ends in parent disappointment and child protest. After all, it is important for him, like any person, to be loved without conditions, simply because he is.
When an adopted child enters a family, then everyone – both he and his new parents – needs time to orient and build a new order. And he won’t always act like the one his adoptive parents dreamed of. The more prepared adults are for this meeting, the less illusions they have about the unborn child, the less disappointment they will have.
1. It is better to adopt a baby
A baby is not a blank page at all, it already has its own history. Those who believe that they can completely “rewrite” it and forget that the child is adopted are mistaken. Until he is six months old (and sometimes more), it is difficult to assess the risk that before or after birth he could suffer any diseases or injuries.
“Not all parents can cope with this level of uncertainty, and not everyone is ready to mess with a baby,” emphasizes Lyudmila Petranovskaya. “But for the baby himself, it is undoubtedly important that he be taken from the orphanage as early as possible – every day that he spends here slows down his development.”
Of course, more can be found out about the physical and mental development of older children. And it is easier for adoptive parents to make an informed decision. In addition, children with the experience of family life with biological parents – even if it was not the best experience, but they were loved and cared for at least occasionally – adapt faster in a foster family, they develop sincere affection earlier.
“Such a child knows what it means to be a child in a family, he is oriented towards adults, ready to listen to them, trust them,” the psychologist continues. – He, in a sense, shares the adoption process … and he himself also “takes into the family” new parents. And for those who do not have experience of close relationships with adults, it is more difficult to believe that they are loved, such children simply do not know what it means to love. Therefore, they are easier for adults to cope with, for whom this is not the first or not the first adopted child.
“I immediately had the feeling that this is my child”
Seven years ago, 45-year-old Inna, an executive in the hotel business, decided to adopt a child. Now, together with a common-law husband, they are already raising three adopted children.
“I grew up with siblings and always dreamed of a big family. But for a long time it didn’t work. When, after several years of infertility treatment, the doctors suggested that I do IVF, I decided that it was enough to mock my own body. And refused. But the desire to have children remained – I thought about adoption. To better understand what it is and how it all happens, I graduated from the school of foster parents. However, I did not apply for adoption right away: it took me another six months to make a final decision and prepare for the birth of a child.
The common-law husband has a child from his first marriage, so I was the main “ideologist” of adoption. My husband always supports me, he has a wonderful relationship with children. I saw a photograph of a month-old Marusya on one of the forums where adoptive parents communicate. There were three children in the picture, but for some reason it was her face with touching eyebrows that hooked me. I realized that I wanted to meet the girl, and called the guardianship authorities.
When Marusya was brought to the hospital, I immediately had the feeling that this was my child. Such a natural feeling, as if in the morning I took her to the nursery, and now I came to pick it up … So the first daughter appeared in my family. Similar feelings arose when I met Makarushka and Irisha. Each of these meetings was associated with a chain of accidents and coincidences. And at the same time, I understand: they would hardly have happened if I had not had a sense of purpose, some pressure and a very strong desire to have children.
2. He must look like foster parents
The similarity of appearance or character does not matter for family relationships. Any child, as soon as he has an attachment to new parents, becomes like them. “He involuntarily begins to copy their facial expressions, gestures,” says Lyudmila Petranovskaya. — I often see such cases. The behavior of children does not depend on their nationality or race. So, in a loving family with two adopted children, after some time they, representatives of completely different nationalities, were taken by others for twins.
And yet, it is more difficult for children with Asian appearance to find a family. This is due to the prejudices of potential parents.
“The inability to accept representatives of a different culture, fear of people of a different nationality, religion means that they are also not ready to tolerate any discrepancy with their own views and family traditions,” the psychologist continues. – And this is a serious contraindication to foster parenthood. Xenophobia is rarely limited to intolerance only towards one or another nationality. And this means that parents will be just as biased towards everything in the child that differs from the stereotype they are used to.
When we say that we love a child, it means that we accept him unconditionally, we love him simply for what he is.
Parents are overweight, and the child is thin, parents are active, and the child is slow and unhurried – you can’t predict in advance where rejection may arise. The more traits and qualities parents reject in a child, the worse the relationship between them. Intolerant parents have less margin of safety against possible difficulties.
3. We must love him like our own.
When we say that we love a child, it means that we accept him unconditionally, we love him simply for the fact that he is and he is our child. Sometimes parents, especially if they have the experience of “blood” parenthood, worry that they “do not manage to love the adopted child as their own.” How to be then?
“Emotionally, people are very different from each other,” says Lyudmila Petranovskaya. – Someone manages to fall in love easily and quickly, while for someone the process of attachment is extended over time. We cannot control feelings. It remains to wait … and love actively: take care of the child, listen to him, delve into the details of his life outside the home, try to understand and accept, rejoice at his success.
Sometimes rejection arises at the bodily level: in order to take a child in his arms, an adult needs to make an effort. “Usually, such rejection first arises at the moment of acquaintance,” says Lyudmila Petranovskaya. “You shouldn’t fight with yourself: no one is to blame, and it’s better to let the child feel welcome in another family, with other parents.”
4. It is better for a child not to know that he is adopted.
Cheating distorts relationships. “Ask yourself,” suggests Lyudmila Petranovskaya, “would you like your loved ones to hide something very important from you? It is difficult to find a person who would like to remain in the dark … And information about adoption is an important part of the personal history, and therefore the personality of the child.
Trying to circumvent this fact, foster parents deny what happened to the child, deprive him of the opportunity to organically build this event into knowledge about himself. Sometimes adults explain their behavior by not wanting to hurt their son or daughter.
“This happens only if the parents themselves see adoption as a problem,” Lyudmila Petranovskaya objects. – The child does not know the real picture of the world, he is focused on how adults relate to what is happening. In addition, by hiding the truth from the child, adults make themselves hostages of chance: a “benevolent” remark of a neighbor, found documents, a mismatch in blood type … Sooner or later, the secret becomes clear. And it is difficult to predict what the reaction of a grown child may be when he finds out that the closest people lied to him.
5. He will have a bad heredity
The biggest fear of parents is that their adopted child will inherit some kind of disease or some kind of “life trouble”: he will drink, walk, will not study … “Indeed, there are diseases that are inherited,” states Lyudmila Petranovskaya. “In the case of an adopted child, potential parents are primarily afraid of the unknown.”
The very fact of adoption is an important part of the personal history, and hence the personality of the child. You need to talk to him about this.
In Russia, it is difficult to find a family in which there is not and has not been at least one drinking person. Many people in our country have a predisposition to alcohol addiction. But this does not mean that each of them becomes an alcoholic. “There is a predisposition, and what a person does with it, in what atmosphere he grows up,” continues the psychologist. “It is very important that parents not only support the child, but also be able to limit, warn of danger.”
6. He wants to find his biological parents
“Such a desire often arises in adolescence, at a time when the child is trying to understand, to truly know himself in order to become an adult,” says Lyudmila Petranovskaya. – It can be of a different nature, from passive (“it would be nice to know”) to very active actions. Sometimes it is enough for a child to simply learn something about his parents, sometimes it is important for him to see them, to meet them. In this case, it is worth helping him find relatives. There is nothing dangerous in this desire for foster parents – children value the relationships that they have.
Someone has fantasies that their real parents are famous people, movie or show business stars who dream of reuniting with them … Adult support is needed to survive the disappointment that can arise after meeting with biological parents. At the same time, teenagers tend to be very grateful to adoptive parents if this topic is discussed in the family, and even more so if adults are ready to help them find their story.
Distance courses of school of adoptive parents – here you can get training for everyone who wants to become a competent parent.