Response to comment
Right — it might not be adoption related but it might be. ‘Cuz the adoption books and the adoption experts say that transitions can be harder for adopted kids than for bio kids. That’s one of the hard part about parenting through adoption — what’s that child’s “normal” and what’s the result of their adoption experiences? Because if it’s adoption related it might take some slightly different handling since it can feel more core-shaking for an adopted child than for a child going through a normal developmental stage.
Amy says below that she was also an out-going child who cried when she started preschool and that she isn’t adopted so maybe this isn’t about adoption. Maybe.
I think Madison’s feelings are typical of a 3.5-year old going to preschool for the first time but I think they’re magnified by her adoption. After all, she did have a mother who went away and didn’t come back.
One of the things I keep hearing from folks who work with adoptees is that new events/new developmental stages bring up those same feelings and the child needs to revisit his or her adoption-related crisis and work through it again. Working through those events makes a child stronger so I think it’s important to be — optimistic, I guess. Encouraging, definitely. Because every new challenge is an opportunity to heal a part of that self that’s suffering from loss. But I think we adoptive parents have to be willing to recognize that loss as we help our kids so that we can help them address it. I’m hoping that if I mention Miss Lisa looking like Jessica that it’ll give Madison the chance to identify any feelings about preschool that have to do with her adoption without saying, “Hey, is this because you’re adopted?” because I also don’t want her to think of herself as someone who’s damaged goods. I want to help her identify her feelings, follow them to the source and work through them.
To tell you the truth, I’m kinda puzzled by people who want to say, “Hey, maybe it isn’t adoption.” I know but maybe it is. In fact, knowing what I know about adoption loss, I’d say it’s unlikely that it isn’t.
Now there’s a difference between saying, “Oh my god, your adoption has just ruined you for life!” and saying, “You know, this could be part of the normative crisis of growing up adopted.” (This is a great article — the one I linked to — and I encourage you all to read it.)
I don’t think it’s necessary to always say to Madison, “I think this is about your adoption” as much as I think it’s necessary to help her identify her feelings, honor her feelings and work through them. (Of course that’s our job for all of our kids.) Understanding that adoption impacts her experience helps me be more sensitive to what’s going on for her. Given Madison’s exuberant love of new experiences I might be totally taken aback and maybe even apt to be a bit dismissive by her preschool reaction. I might have less patience. I might push a little harder. I don’t know because I haven’t had the experience of parenting an exuberant kid before. But since way back when at our adoption training they told us this stuff and since I’ve read all the books on their reading list I did feel prepared although, I’ll admit, a little surprised by the intensity of her reaction.
Cynthia said: Anyway, perhaps all separation has a thread of adoption related loss running through it for an adoptee, and perhaps that’s what you’re saying.
I think that is what I’m saying. (Your comment came in as I was typing this!)
When it comes to adoption stuff, we first have to recognize that there are very real long-term repercussions, or so the experts will tell us. I mean, not just the primal wound extremists but also pretty mainstream types. While not everything is about adoption (as in an if/then relationship with a logical course) but it can still be a result of experiencing adoption loss.
So yes, I think Madison is reacting more strongly because she has a history of loss but I am less sure of how much is identifiably about the adoption. (Thus why I’m going to ask her about Miss Lisa looking like Jessica — just to see if any of that is playing into her experience. I’m not convinced it is but it might be.) I do think she is more afraid of losing us (me specifically) than a child who was not adopted would be. (And I think this is a normal developmental stage that’s exaggerated, too, by our transracial adoption since she is so worried lately about not matching me. Two days ago she was upset because she doesn’t have blue eyes “like a girl” meaning like me.)
Thanks Dawn. And now I feel kind of selfish, because I basically wrote what I did to get you to flush this out more- for me. The kind of attentive but not overreactive thought that you give to this has really inspired me on my path as an adoptive parent. So… thanks again.
No — thank YOU for your comment coming in midway through and saying it so succinctly for me!
“I think Madison’s feelings are typical of a 3.5-year old going to preschool for the first time but I think they’re magnified by her adoption. After all, she did have a mother who went away and didn’t come back.”
I think you hit it on the head here. When I first read the other post, I thought immediately of Miss Ella & how the transition to pre-school was the only transition that brought about tears & clinginess worthy of fabric softener. And her pre-school was in the same building as her daycare!
But the primal wound is there and you made it all make sense. Good luck with Miss Madison. And thanks again for sharing because I’m learning so damn much.
I guess what I was trying to say was the I don’t believe everything HAS to be looked at as adoption related. I also have a 5yo daughter who was adopted at birth. She started kindergarten this year, is outgoing all the time and had absolutely no problem transitioning to a new school and a new world of kindergarten. Did she have hesitation or general fears abut starting school? Sure (we talked about it A LOT and it was mostly that I won’t have friends and that I won’t know where to go). Do I think it was adoption related or even adoption emphasized? Nope - just normal stuff that happens when a kid starts school. Sometimes I think we’re putting the pressure on our kids to feel some sort of “adoption loss” when they might not be feeling it at all. Will they feel it at some point in their lives - maybe. But not every single thing has to be related to their adoption. At least I don’t believe so. Sometimes I think they are just being a normal kid with normal emotions. But then, maybe I’m just wacko and wrong.
I’m sure your daughter has processed things in ways that Madison hasn’t because they’re different kids, they have different adoption stories and they’re growing up in different families.
I’m wondering where you see the pressure on the kids to feel some kind of adoption loss? I haven’t said to Madison, “Hey, there are four of the nine kids in this class crying because their moms have left but I’m pretty sure that adoption loss is at the root of your tears.” But, like I said, I know my kid and so I think that adoption loss magnifies some of the typical issues that every kid faces and I see this magnification in the scope of her reaction, which is pretty out of character for her.
When I talk to Madison about her feelings around preschool we don’t talk about adoption at all. In fact, some of the words are the same words I’ve used in the past with Noah who was, of course, not adopted. “You feel sad when I go away but I come back because I’m your mommy and I always come back.” But in my mind knowing that her out-sized (for her) reaction is probably normal in the context of her adoption story makes me more patient and less bewildered (and less annoyed). If Madison was my born-to-me child with this personality and this is how she handled preschool I wouldn’t know what to think. It would seem like it was coming out of left-field.
And I say this (about it being out-sized for her personality) as a former preschool teacher who watched a lot of kids cry when their moms left.
The routine you described below sounds good, but, regarding the idea of being taken from or left by one’s mother, I’m wondering whether giving Madison some daily control over the separation might help. Having helped you come up with the routine already gives her some control, but in addition there are a variety of ways in which she could be in the position of instructing you each day to leave.
I think that Madison sounds like a normal kid-adopted or not. Everything isn’t adoption related. I have a daughter with several developmental and learning delays and is epileptic who has behavioural issues. I don’t think that everything she does it linked to that-and her problems are hardwired into her brain, a physical part of her, very similar to adoption now being a part of Madison’s life. At some point I think we have to stop asking ourselves “why”. If we keep looking for answers we tend to ignore what made ourselves ask the questions in the first place-in this case our children. We don’t have to worry so much as to why the problem is, we need to focus on solving the problem. The answer to why may never come. It doesn’t have to.
Jennifer, I think you must have neglected to read the entry before this where I say, “Honestly — I don’t think she’d do this if she didn’t have a history of adoption. But then … so what? I mean, would I handle a crying child differently if that child wasn’t adopted? No, I’d handle it the same way.”
And then you must not have read this post very carefully where I also say, “Given Madison’s exuberant love of new experiences I might be totally taken aback and maybe even apt to be a bit dismissive by her preschool reaction. I might have less patience. I might push a little harder. I don’t know because I haven’t had the experience of parenting an exuberant kid before. But since way back when at our adoption training they told us this stuff and since I’ve read all the books on their reading list I did feel prepared … .”
I think there is a difference between saying everything has to be adoption related and acknowledging that adoption is an ongoing factor in a person’s development. The former holds the adoption solely responsible, while the latter understands that it’s always interacting with everything else going on for the person.
That’s why Pavao’s idea of the normative crisis was so helpful for me. Because it made sense to me that my son will go through all the normal developmental stages but will have some extra emotional work to do at each stage due to his adoption experience. Sometimes the extra emotional work will be just an unconscious blip (like perhaps it was for Amy’s daughter in her school transition) and sometimes it will be more significant (like it may be for Madison here). So when faced with situations like this we don’t have to ask whether it’s “normal” or “adoption”–because for our kids they’re kind of the same thing. The adoption is woven into the normal. It’s not like we can single adoption out and say, “Oh, this thing is only about the adoption and this other thing has nothing to do with adoption.” We just have to deal with the whole.
Hm, that made more sense in my head. I think I need to go to bed.
It made A LOT of sense out here on the computer screen! I wish I’d said it as clearly as you did, Heather!!! Thanks!
Wow, I LIKE what Heather said — really sort of what I think but have never been able to express at all. That they’re interwoven together.
One book that Nate’s class just read and he LOVES (and you may already know about) is The Kissing Hand, where the mama kisses the child’s hand just before the child goes off to school and the child can put the hand up to his (her) cheek and remember that the mom always loves him (her). Nate just LOVES that book and the story and the part about the kissing.
I think you made it very clear Dawn - your response to a comment in your last post about how you might think for a (hypothetical) child who had had a hospital stint and later had some separation anxiety, that the separation anxiety might be a bit more intense for her because she had that extra experience of loss to cope with (you explained it much better though) really explained it for me.
Anyway, that’s just my bit…