So, I’m at the support group, and I’m listening to all of the stories, and the whole time I’m thinking… “My daughter has done that”, “Yep, my daughter has done that too”, “Oh, my other daughter pulled that one…”, and I find myself wondering…
Are these stories really indicative of an *adopted* child? Are these behaviors really characteristic of traumatized children? Because my children have done that… and that… and that… and that.
These are my biological children I am referring to.
I love my children, and I am not saying that they have been all that terrible. Everything they do, everything we go through, I see it as normal for raising teenagers. They all have these issues to some degree. Growing up, trying to find your place in the world, where you fit in and belong. The hormones get going, and there’s confusion, frustration, emotion, and they get… well… difficult.
So in the last meeting I actually brought this up. I pointed out that I sit there listening to all the stories and I can’t help but notice that I’ve gone through all of this myself with my own children, and I wonder if these behaviors are really just normal childhood behaviors rather than “adopted child” behaviors, or if I just got particularly difficult children.
They were surprised that I was experiencing these behaviors from my biological children, and they said I just wound up with difficult ones.
I don’t think that’s the case, though. I think back to my own childhood, and I remember me and my siblings doing some of the same things, if not all of them. And I look at my children’s friends, and I see them exhibiting the same, and sometimes much worse, behaviors. I have always thought, and I have always said, that we do pretty well as parents because our children seem to be turning out pretty okay. Maybe I’m just biased, but I think they’re decent kids, and I remind myself often that it could be much worse.
I wonder if when your child is adopted you’re just likely to attribute any and all behavioral problems to that fact, rather than just chalking it up to being just a part of childhood and growing up. Of course, I think that many people feel as though any problems their children have point to failure on their part as the parents, but when your child is adopted you can point to that as the source of the problems and it takes the blame off of you. So maybe it’s just easier to talk about those problems when you have an explanation to point to, and to grab a hold of that explanation so that you don’t feel as though you are to blame?
I do understand that there are some behaviors that are a result of adopted children’s difficult beginnings, and there are some problems that can certainly be attributed to that; I just don’t think that the adoption can be blamed for everything.