Questions and answers- Age and Attacment in Adoption

June asked, “Here’s my question – now that you have adopted children at many different ages, what are your thoughts on the differences in adjustment and/or attachment, based on the age of the child when he/she comes home?”

This is a great question. First let me say that we have adopted two infants (one newborn, one 3 months old), two toddlers (one 23 months old, one 35 months old) and three older children (two six year olds and one nine year old). We have adopted healthy kids and special needs kids. We have adopted single kids and one sibling group of two.

We have been very blessed in that none of our kids have had very challenging adjustments. Like I have said, our two older girls were coming from a very difficult situation, and their age and history and the huge level of change in their lives made it inevitable for there to be some challenges, but they did SO much better than we expected, and even on the days when we had our struggles, the good still far out-weighed the bad.

I would have to say that “based on the age of the child when he/she comes home” is just not a good predictor of how the kids will adjust and attach. It is easier to say younger=better=easier, and sometimes that it true, but it is not always the case.

For example, our son Benjamin came home from Ethiopia at age 5 ½, and he adjusted much easier and bonded much more quickly than our daughter Amanda did when she came home from Korea at 23 months.

More important than the child’s age as a determining factor in how they will adjust and attach, is their personality, their resiliency and their previous life experiences.

Obviously, a child who has been loved and cared for, is going to attach more easily than a child who has been abused and/or neglected. Most children in a foster care setting will do better than most children in an orphanage setting. Children who know love at a young age, and learn that they can depend on others to meet their needs and have been able to bond to someone, usually will more easily accept love from new parents, learn to depend on new parents and be able to bond with new parents.

And yet, personality, and even more importantly, resiliency, play a HUGE part in all of this. Some kids just handle change a lot more easily than others. Some kids really struggle with even small changes in their life, and obviously an adoption is a huge upheaval.

A good example of this is the China adoption program. You can look at 20 baby girls, all adopted at roughly the same age from the same Chinese orphanage…all of which were abandoned in their first few weeks of life, and lived the same amount of early months in that setting.

Some of those babies will attach easily to their new parents. Some of those babies will go through the “normal” sleep struggles, crying jags, etc. and then start to settle in, bond and adjust. And maybe one or two of those babies will have significant attachment issues, making adjusting and bonding more difficult. Each baby’s unique personality and resiliency have the most to do with how they will attach and bond after spending months in an orphanage.

Another example of this is that occasionally, young babies with no glaring “risk factors” in their history will have some level of attachment difficulty/disorder, while many older children come home and bond easily to their new families, even with difficult lives and histories prior to the adoption.

So, I can generalize, but there are no absolutes. Babies are “typically” easier to bond and attach with because they are so young. Older children can be more difficult, especially when there is a language barrier, but then again their level of “understanding” of what is going on can often make things easier as well.

Toddlers are often difficult because they are old enough to understand what is going on, too young to truly communicate all that they are feeling and are already at an age where tantrums are common, and they are trying to find some independence and control over their little worlds.

And yet…

We expected Belane, as a toddler with a difficult background, to have a challenging adjustment and attachment with us. But it has been almost a month since she was back in my arms, and she is doing beautifully! She is sleeping well and eating well, she is loving and affectionate with me, her Dad and siblings, she is not overly friendly with strangers, she is not having big tantrums or meltdowns… She is still somewhat “anxiously” attached to me and I would not leave her yet at this point, but overall she has been a dream. We expected her to be more difficult, and she has been one of the easiest.

Sorry this isn’t more informative…but I have found through our adoptions and those of friends and acquaintances that it is just too difficult to predict which kids will be “easy” and which kids will be more challenging. And like I said, in my opinion, I think age has less to do with it than most people think.

I do know that whether kids are “easy” or “challenging” when it comes to their adjustment and attachment, they are worth it.

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