Chinadopt: Adopting Children From China
Attachment Disorders
Updated 2000/08/21
I have met lots of children adopted from China, including quite a number of children adopted after they were five years old, up to 13 years old (at 14, a child is no longer eligible for adoption from China). I have spoken with a number of professionals who have been involved in dealing with many children adopted from China. I know of several "disrupted" adoptions involving children from China (that’s what they call it when an adoption falls apart). I have spoken with the subsequent adoptive parents who have taken Chinese children involved in disrupted adoptions. I have heard of adoptions which should be disrupted, and have not been.
In every case I know of, the child has not had a problem. It is the adult who has had the "attachment disorder."
I am by profession a psychiatrist, and I know how to listen to cases second-hand to extract knowledge. I want you to ponder a couple of cases with me: a couple who adopted a child a few years ago, who ended up screaming at the child, hitting the child on the plane to the US; a child rolled in a rug earlier this year to simulate re-birth, telling her adoptive mother that she couldn’t breathe and was dying, and in fact did die. Who had the "attachment disorder" in these cases?
Some people have been more honest with themselves. They go to China, meet their future child, then decline to adopt the child the next day. Cruel to disappoint the child? How much more cruel to take home a child you do not like, to take your anger at yourself for making such a big mistake and projecting it onto the child.
Lots of you should not be adopting a child. If you worry how your child will fit in with your pets, stick with your pets. Children must not take second place to pets.
Children are inconvenient. They balk. They dawdle. They play when you want them to hurry up. Kids are MESSY. If this prospect does not sound appealing to you, forget kids.
In general, having children forces responsible parents to change their lifestyles to make their kids’ needs at least as high a priority as their own. Parents must be flexible.
People have lots of motivations in adopting a child. In our case, I, my wife and our biological daughter all wanted another kid. What would our life be without Meimei? I know a man who saw a picture in a publication and knew "that was my son." I know of people who want to "rescue" poor orphans from China. If rescue is your motivation, let me ask you: would you marry someone to rescue him/her? Doesn’t it demean someone to enter into a relationship to "rescue" her/him? Do you want to demean someone whom you regard as your child?
There are people who bend heaven and earth to produce a baby, then ignore their child as they dive back into their careers. The daycare people see more of their kids than they do. Why, really, do you want a child?
Best to prevent parental attachment disorder before it starts.
Examine your motives for adopting a child. Examine your flexibility, your capacity to include a child in your life. If you are married, how committed is your spouse to adopting a child? If you live with a significant other, what is that person’s acceptance of your adopting a child? I would urge the same self-examination for people who are thinking of having a child biologically as well as those contemplating adoption.
Kids are wonderful, but they are not for everyone.
Ed (2000/08/21)
From: Steve Forslind [mailto:sunny03060@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 8:40 AM
To: ehume@pshrink.com
Subject: Attachment disorder
A few words regarding attachment disorder:
As an adoptive parent many times over, and as an adult who has had untold opportunities to meet other adoptive parents with their biological and adopted children, I feel fairly well qualified to comment on this subject. I know many, many older adopted children, mentally healthy and some having been diagnosed as being not-so-healthy, and I have yet to meet one of these children who exhibits symptoms of 'attachment disorder'. I find it interesting that I am in the process of adopting a wonderful young lady who has been diagnosed as having 'severe attachment disorder', and I can unequivocably state that the diagnosis was dead wrong. She's with us now, and being adopted by us now, as the direct result of 'severe attachment disorder'; but she does not, I repeat not, suffer from it.
Even more interesting is that of the many hundreds of older adopted children I've come to know over the past five or so years, every single one is as happy, well-adjusted, and firmly attached as can be. Not most, not some, but every single one.
I've seen attachment disorder, and I've seen the effects of it. I'm living with the effects of it. Does it affect me? It certainly does. It angers me and frustrates me that so many people, potentially fabulous parents, are afraid to adopt spectacular children, simply because of an overblown, overused phrase. Sure, attachment disorder exists, and it's not easy to deal with, but there are social workers and others regularly advising potential parents to not adopt on the basis of their very rare exposures to the malady.
I know children who simply don't like the people who adopted them. Believe it or not, it happens. It needs to be said however, that not liking the people who adopted you is not attachment disorder. It also needs to be said that most kids who don't like the people who adopted them usually do so (or don't so, as the case may be) for a very short period of time. Come to think of it, there were times I didn't like my own parents, but they kept me anyway. I'll bet there were a lot more times when they didn't like me.....
One of my daughters hated me at first, for about a month; then she barely tolerated me for another month or so. Now, of my six adopted children, she's far and away the most openly affectionate. There are experts who would've diagnosed this sweet young lady as having attachment disorder. Every one of my children loves me, and I love them, and we show our love in many, many different ways. Sometimes we don't show it at all, but we know it's there.
Some people see a glass as being half empty. Others see the the same glass as being half full. Some people see attachment disorder where it doesn't exist. With regard to adoptions from China, I've never seen attachment disorder in any of the children. I have, sadly, seen it in some parents.
Steve Forslind