Newsletter #48 for Internationally Adopting Parents
February 15, 2007
PAL Center Inc.

Copyright@2006-2007

Latest Articles
from the
International Adoption Articles Directory

Dr. Wendy Hanevold
Stages of the Adoption Journey
Overview of the six stages of the Adoption Journey for families created through adoption.

Elizabeth Radisson
The Connection between Deep Sleep and Enuresis
The medical community has long considered children aged five or six who are persistent bed-wetters also suffer from a sleep disorder. Recent studies seem to show that this is not always the case and that typically these children sleep deeply and fail to rouse when the brain sends the message that the bladder needs to be emptied.

Mark Lakewood
Defeating the Homework Blues
If you find it difficult getting your child to complete daily homework, this article offers many suggestions and techniques by getting to the heart of the problem by challenging unhealthy beliefs and values.

Dr. Boris Gindis answers
2 most often asked questions of a pre-adoption period:

Q. We are told that we can adopt 2 non-related kids at the same time. We would love to do it since the paperwork ordeal was too long up until now and we don't want to go through it again....We are wondering if we should adopt 2 non-related kids, from an attachment standpoint. Is there any research on adopting non-related kids at the same time or even adopting 2 siblings at the same time? I heard that if we adopt non-related kids, they should be at least 6 months apart in age... so as to avoid 'artificial twinning'.

A. There are several issues here that we need to differentiate.
First one: 2 non-related kids and attachment. Attachment process is very individual and the relatedness of the children has little to do with their personal attachment to each parent. Potential adoptive parents, even with the full understanding of difficulties in making several human beings a loving family, still tend to assume that they are already attached to their new children, and it's only the children who must want to embrace them as parents, but for some reason do not. Yes, the children may have issues, but you do need to begin working on creating your own emotional connections with each young stranger whom you will call your child. Working on these ties with 1, or 2, or even 3 children at a time may change the dynamic or your relations, but it will not change the essence: each parent has to find the way to win each adoptive child over.

The second one: 'artificial twinning' of children. It's not a problem when you do not have biological children in the family and adopt 2 unrelated kids of similar age. Artificial twinning is referred only to situations when a biological and an adopted child are the same or close to the same age. In such scenarios the natural dynamic of relations between 2 siblings is totally skewed: they will be of the same age and with very different language and social skills. It may cause a lot of additional issues in the family. The same may happen it your adopted child will be older than the biological sibling.

Q. We are going to adopt a 12 - 18 month old child from an orphanage in the next few months and need to know if there are any symptoms we may be able to look for to see if the child will have 'Reactive Attachment Disorder'. We know that we will need to seriously address the issue of attachment in general, but just want to know if there are any signs to look for in the child (i.e., lack of eye contact, etc.).

A. It's not possible for a lay person (as well as for a professional) to just look at a child and detect RAD. For example, lack of eye contact, quoted as a definite sign of RAD, is also a symptom of a good dozen of other things, which have absolutely nothing to do with RAD. Attachment disorders can be detected and have their own symptoms, but in most cases it's a matter of time to separate them from the adjustment period difficulties, post-institutional behavior patterns and other causes.

There is no specific research on the attachment and unrelated siblings, but there are a lot of articles about the nature and difficulties of attachment process:

• Arthur Becker-Weidman, Ph.D.
  Reactive Attachment Disorder Checklist
  
• Arthur Becker-Weidman, Ph.D.
  Notes on Attachment
• Linda Busch, PH.D.
  Older Child Adoption: A Psychologist's Story of Love and Attachment
• Boris Gindis, Ph.D.
  Attachment disorder: are we trying to fit square pegs into the round holes?

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