Newspapers and other news media have been reporting the tragic story of the young Russian boy, age 7, adopted by an American woman. The child was returned to Russia, alone. He had a note to explain that the woman who adopted him, little more than 8 months ago, no longer wished to be his mother because he "has severe psychopathic issues". She further stated that the Russian adoption agency had lied about his condition.
This child had come to the u.S. just last fall. One assumes that he did not speak English and the American community was very, very different from the community he had known. Adopted children come with layers of trauma, some with the trauma of separation from their birth mother, some with prenatal trauma, some with medical trauma, others with histories of abuse and neglect. Children adopted from foreign countries have all of these traumas and more because they are not able to express their thoughts and feelings due to language and cultural differences. In addition, much trauma induced stress is unconscious and unprocessed and looks to adults like just bad behavior.
What is incomprehensible about this situation is that the adoptive parent had not been prepared for parenting a child who was being raised in an orphanage and would be coming to a foreign country; a child whose first seven years of life were most likely steeped in trauma. It is to be expected that a child who has been removed from their birth parents, placed in an institution, and then transported across the globe to a new "family" (and hey, he even got a brand new American name), would act out. The acting out comes from pure fear...fear of the unknown, fear of the unexplained and the stress of the loss of everything familiar that he had ever known. The only way to meet a child, who has come from these circumstances, is from a place of love, patience, and understanding. But first the parent must be prepared to respond rather than react. Adoptive parents really believe they are opening their hearts to the children who come into their lives, what they don't know is that we have to be taught to not react, because our reaction will set off all of the child's fear-based emotions. And that in turn will set off all of our fears and stress.
Elaine Spicer; MSW; LCSW; BCI Certified Instructor
About Me
- Elaine Spicer; LCSW
- I have been a social worker for 31 years. My work has been with families and children first in the area of Child Protective Services and then as a therapist working with the same population. I have worked with divorcing and divorced parents teaching co-parenting techniques, supervised therapists and have been a social worker for emotionally challenged children and adolescents in an inner city school system. About 7 years ago I was introduced to the work of Bryan Post and, as a friend and colleague said at the time...I went Post-al. All of my previous assumptions and indeed my work using behavioral interventions, got pushed aside. And along came the realization that none of the interventions, meant to change behaviors, had anything in common with helping children heal from the trauma they had experienced. My best work these days is as a coach/consultant for parents, other caregivers, and teachers. The services I provide are parent education, coaching, consulting and supervising. I am the mother of five adult children and grandmother to five. I am both a bio mom and an adoptive mom.