Grief, Attachment and Other Scary Adoption Words

There is nothing I want more than for my kids to be healthy and happy and generally okay. I will move heaven and earth (if it’s possible) to make sure my children have the things they need to grow and thrive in this world. Because I’m a mom. And because I love those four kids more than life itself.

So now I’m delving into the world of counseling, specifically caring for children who have been adopted; many of whom have experienced significant trauma at some point in their lives. And with this knowledge comes some topics that totally freak me out. Like grief. And attachment disorders. And trauma related to their adoption or the circumstances that brought them to their forever family.

With all my heart I would like to say that none of those things affect my children. I would love to say that once you adopt and bring home your child, once you start loving on them every single day, all the bad and hard things that happened to them before they came into your home are a distant memory that no longer affects their well being. But that’s just not true. The grief they feel over lost relationships whether the relationship was with biological family members or previous care givers, is real and matters to them. The trauma they faced when their family life was a wreck because biological mom was an alcoholic or bio dad never showed them affection is real and matters to them. The struggle to attach because no one has ever held them consistently or lovingly is real and matters.

But I know there is hope for learning to live in and around the grief, trauma and attachment issues. In my heart of hearts, I know that exploring these concepts will be good for my children. It will be good for me. It will be good for my family.

When your child is sick, you don’t think to yourself, “that raging fever, it probably doesn’t mean anything. I’ll just keep on doing things like normal and it will go away. Eventually.” No, as parents, we take our children to the doctor. We read up on WebMD to figure out just what our child’s suffering from. We try to find out how to help our child so that he or she will feel better. We should treat the issues of grief, trauma and attachment the same way we do fevers and stomach bugs.

Because healthy, whole, happy, children is the ultimate goal and I believe with some work and new knowledge, we are one step closer to reaching our happy ending.