Different aspects of the psychology for adoptive parents
Problems of adolescence in a foster child
As a teenager, every child faces questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? What am I like? Who do I look like? It is clear that in a foster child, these questions are particularly acute and can cause considerable suffering and, as a result, problems in relationships and behavior. Trust and love in the family will be severely tested. The more there was reticence and deceit in the relationship, the deeper the crisis will be. If, on the contrary, parents were honest with the child about both his story and feelings, the easier this period will pass, trust and respect will not be undermined.
The role of hereditary and psychological factors
Foster parents are very concerned about heredity, its negative impact on the development, the character of the child. Nevertheless, the role of genetic factors is overestimated, but the role of psychological factors is underestimated. The role of psychological trauma experienced by a child who is left without parents or has never known them is underestimated, the traumatic role of lack of good care, love in the first days, weeks, months of life is underestimated, the trauma of life in an orphanage, the impact of mental suffering on the development of both mental and physical child is underestimated.
There is a tendency to attribute any displays of “bad” character and behavior to “bad genetics,” but the character and behavior are much more defined by psychological factors, by the influence of the real environment, and it is these factors which can be influenced by psychotherapeutic intervention.
Communication with the biological parents
The child has a right to know his or her history, to know his or her biological parents if he or she so desires. Parents’ fears that the child will love his or her biological parents more are not justified. No, the child loves those who love and care for him or her. Usually older children, teenagers, adults want to meet with their biological parents to understand something about themselves, about their destiny, maybe to understand what and why happened, to express everything they feel and think.
Here is an example of a young woman who decided to meet her biological mother. This woman was abandoned in a maternity home and adopted by a family a few weeks old. From a very young age she has been plagued by the same nightmare she wants to understand: she is alone, standing outside a store, or near a school or somewhere else, waiting. She doesn’t know who or why she is waiting, but she waits and waits, but no one comes. So the woman meets her birth mother, who tearfully tells her story of how she gave birth at the age of 18, without a husband, that she lived in the countryside, she had no job, no money, and no way to raise her daughter, so she decided that it would be better for the girl if someone else would raise her. She left her, but for four weeks the mother visited the girl and the staff allowed her to take the baby in her arms and communicate with her. When she left, the mother always promised her daughter that she would come the next weekend. But one day she couldn’t make it, and when she arrived, the girl had already been taken away… And the girl waited all her life and didn’t understand who and why she was waiting.
Preparation for adoption, help from professionals
Specialist help is needed before and after the adoption, and periodically throughout the adoption process. This help is aimed at ensuring that parents who have decided to adopt a child have sufficient understanding of their conscious and unconscious motives for this extremely responsible decision to reduce the number of disappointments, unjustified hopes. Psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers have the necessary information and knowledge about the legal and social aspects of adoption, the specific psychology of normal children and children with special developmental needs, can help to be sufficiently prepared for this new, challenging, but rich and interesting life. Adoptive parents need to have an understanding of the experiences of an abandoned child, a child who has experienced grief, and be prepared to help him or her overcome it.
Help is needed for the child to reduce the negative impact of the trauma he or she has experienced, to better adapt to his or her new life, and to solve the problems that arise, which are unavoidable.
Periodic consultations with a therapist will help build good, satisfying relationships, and make the child feel like a good enough parent and child.
