bonding and attachment

Refers to the mutual affectionate connection that is cemented between a child and a parent, whether the child is a biological child or an adopted child. The process of establishing this connection includes a growing feeling of ENTITLEMENT to family life, love, responsibility and a variety of other emotions normally experienced by a parent and child. "Bonding" is the process and "attachment" is the result.

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Some people extend the "bonding and attachment" concept to apply to any two individuals who fit certain parameters. For example, psychologist Tiffany Field defines attachment as "a relationship between two beings which integrates their physiological and behavioral systems."

Some experts believe the terms "bonding" and "attachment" are far too loosely used. Said Jean Nelson-Erichsen, LSW, M.A., codirector of adoption at Los Ninos International Adoption Center in The Woodlands, Texas, in Is Adoption For You? The Information You Need to Make the Right Choice (John Wiley & Sons, 1998) "this overused word 'bonding' sometimes drives me wild. You don't usually just fall in love with people and become all warm and cuddly in days! And a lot of people whose babies are born to them don't immediately love their babies. The way you bond with children is to hold them and play with them and read to them. All the holding and caring things are important."

Most adoptive parents and adoption experts are concerned about the timing of bonding in relation to the age of the child who is adopted, whether the child is six months old or six years old.

Psychiatrist Michael Rutter provides some information on this point. Rutter found that the idea that there are "sensitive periods" when environmental factors are critical does have some validity although the upper age limits of the sensitive periods may be at an older age than originally postulated by scientists. His study showed that children who were adopted before the age of four bonded well with their parents while children who were over age four experienced many of the same problems as children who remained in an institution.

Yet Rutter also supported the idea that even children adopted after the age of four years could bond with adoptive parents. He concluded that the "sensitive period" was either wrong or the timing occurred at a later age than previously thought.

The First Meeting

The first meeting with the child is a very dramatic moment for most parents, be they biological parents or adoptive parents. If they are adopting an older child, the parents

usually will have seen photographs or a VIDEOTAPE of the child and will also have received information about the child as well.

Many adoptive parents have reported that they bonded to the child based on his or her picture alone, especially in the case of an INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION, when the decision to adopt was based solely on the photo, a sketchy description or a videotape or Internet web site introduction. In fact, when such an adoption has fallen through for some reason, adoptive parents actually experience a grieving process, even though they have never met the child.

If the child is an infant, the adoptive parents will have virtually no idea what the child will look like until they first see her or him, although they will know his or her racial and ethnic background and have general information about the birthparents' appearance.

The time when they first view the baby or older child is very important and unforgettable to most adoptive parents, as if it were imprinted in their brains along with other important scenes of their lives. Both adopting parents should be present at the first meeting along with older children and, if possible, the rest of the family.

The Bonding Process

Part of bonding is physical touch, and because infants require much touching in the course of their care, most adoptive parents bond more rapidly to infants than to older children. Some research indicates that when parents are adopting siblings, they appear to bond more rapidly with the younger child, probably because of the greater amount of care needed by that child.

Parents bond to older children by teaching them how to cook, taking them shopping and performing other similar activities with them as a parent and a child.

Some older children do not respond to affection at first and, if they have been abused, may shrink from hugs and kisses. Adopting parents learn to "go slow" until the child is ready to accept love.

Studies indicate that parents seem to bond the most quickly and with the most lasting bond when they perceive the adopted child is similar to them in physical appearance, intelligence, temperament or some other aspect. As a result, adoptive parents will see "Uncle Bob's nose" and "Mom's smile" in an infant, even though they realize the child is genetically or even ethnically unrelated to them.

Strangers may point out apparent similarities, and the adoptive parent may respond with embarrassment, confusion, pride or a mix of all of these emotions.

Bonding is not always instantaneous, even when the child is a newborn baby (nor is bonding always instantaneous between a biological mother and her child) and rarely occurs immediately when a child is an older child.

Often the bonding process is a slow evolution of a myriad of tiny events in the course of days, weeks or months, for example, the older child's first visit, the time when he comes to stay, registering him for school, taking him to the doctor.

Many parents of older adopted children report the first time they really knew they were parents was when they felt someone had threatened their child by speaking harshly to him or pushing him. The rush of parental anger and protectiveness is a clearcut sign that this parent has bonded to this child.

The support of the extended family is very important to the bonding process and helps legitimize the feeling of closeness the adoptive parents are developing with their child.

Unfortunately, sometimes extended families are distant or negative about the adoption, which causes considerable anxiety and may affect the bonding process. Adoptive parent support group members can help such families with their need for a feeling of importance and belonging.

Negative societal attitudes about bonding can sometimes make adoptive parents feel inferior. Author Patricia Johnston writes, "A romantic mysticism has developed around the physical process of motherhood and the mother/child relationship that has confused and upset many people . . . [who] are allowed and encouraged to feel guilty, disappointed and painfully second rate."

Others agree that the inability to parent a child in the first days of infancy (because the child is in the hospital, a foster home or someplace other than where the adoptive parents are) should not make adoptive parents feel they are less valid parents. Certainly professionals hardly claim that early contact at birth is essential to attachment.

Author Ellen Galinksy points out, "The idea that early contact is important for bonding has been incorporated into the mainstream of images of parenthood. And those parents who have a less than ecstatic first meeting or who have to miss that early time with their child because of the circumstances of their birth usually feel as if they have failed, feel that they are already remiss in their relationship with the baby."

Galinsky further states that fears and concerns about bonding can contribute more to a problem with bonding than does the actual timing of the placement.

Johnston identifies certain "claiming" behaviors common to both biological and adoptive parents that lead to bonding with the child, such as stroking the body of the infant, kissing the child, counting toes and others.

In a study of infant bonding that compared adoptive mothers to nonadoptive mothers, researchers Leslie M. Singer, David M. Brodzinsky, Douglas Ramsay, Mary Steir and Everett Waters studied infants ages 13 to 18 months. Some of the parents had adopted children of another race.

According to the researchers, they found "no differences in mother-infant attachment between nonadopted and intraracial adopted subjects or between intraracial and interracial adopted subjects." They did, however, find a greater incidence of "insecure attachment" in the interracial mother-infant groups compared to the nonadoptive groups. In addition, they reported that mothers who had adopted transracially were less willing to allow other people to care for their children.

The researchers also said they found no relationship between "quality of mother-infant attachment and either perceived social support, infant development quotient, infant temperament, number of foster homes experienced by the infant, or infant's age at the time of placement."

Researchers Leon J. Yarrow and Robert P. Klein studied the effect of moving an infant from a foster home to an adoptive home. They reported that "change per se in the environment is less important than change associated with less adequate care. Infants who experience a marked deterioration in quality of the environment following adoptive placement show disturbances in adaptation, whereas infants who are moved to an environment where there is a significant improvement in maternal care are less likely to show significant disturbances following the move."

One aspect that can seriously impair the bonding process is if the adopted child is very different from the type of child the parent dreamed of, for example, if behavioral problems far exceed what the parent is ready to cope with or physical problems are more severe than what the parent said she or he could handle.

Consequently, it is very important for social workers to share as much nonidentifying information as possible about a child with prospective parents before a placement occurs.

Attachment Disorders

Some infants and older children have difficulty relating to or accepting a parental figure. This problem is more common in older children and in foster children who are adopted than in children who were adopted as infants.

Author and physician Vera Fahlberg says the most apparent trait of a child with an attachment disorder is the psychological and physical distancing from adults. In addition, the child may see himself or herself as an unworthy person. In most cases, the child is either overly dependent or greatly independent. Learning problems are common.

A related problem could be that instead of never having developed an attachment, the child may have suffered an "interrupted attachment" or experienced "unresolved separation issues."

A foster child with an attachment disorder may have been placed in many different homes or may not have received affection or love from any person at an early age. Severely neglected children are at the most risk for suffering an attachment disorder.

Children who have been less severely neglected or emotionally or physically abused are more likely to have a damaged sense of attachment.

The "unattached" child could act out because of the lack of love and sociability in their own lives. They may appear manipulative, insincere and without a conscience. They may be distrustful and do their best to keep others at a distance, by either aggressive actions or withdrawal. The child may also be nondiscriminating in showing affection.

Indiscriminate affection probably deserves some explanation since it is not intuitively obvious why this could be a problem, especially in a young child. But when a child runs up to a total stranger and hugs him and says such things as "I love you," that is indiscriminate affection and may indicate an attachment problem, particularly if the child would normally be in the developmental stage where he or she would evince a fear of strangers. Although strangers may respond to such behavior in a very positive way and consider it charming, it is symptomatic of a problem.

Says Fahlberg, "It is difficult for foster or adoptive parents to feel close to a child who is acting close to everyone else. In addition, children who are willing to go with strangers pose real supervision problems for their parents."

Help for Attachment

Attachment can be encouraged, for example, a child's temper tantrums could be used to encourage attachment. After a tantrum, a child is usually exhausted, relaxes and is open to bonding with the parent.

Some positive interactions include such behaviors as telling the child "I love you," teaching the child a family sport such as skiing, reading to the child, or helping the child understand family jokes and other activities. Special trips or teaching the child skills such as cooking can create a favorable environment for creating an attachment between the parent and the child.

Initiating "claiming behaviors" is another technique. This encourages a child to claim a family as his own. For example, the family might send out adoption announcements, hold a religious or other ceremony that welcomes the child into the family, add a middle name of family significance or take the child to visit relatives. All such activities encourage a child to feel he belongs to the new family.

Christine Adamec, Is Adoption for You? The Information You Need to Make the Right Choice (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998).

Loren Coleman, Karen Tilbor, Helaine Hornby and Carol Boggis, ed., Working with Older Adoptees: A Sourcebook of Innovative Models (Portland, Me: University of Southern Maine, Human Services Development Institute, 1988).

Vera Fahlberg, M.D., Attachment and Separation: Putting the Pieces Together (Chelsea, Mich.: National Resource Center for Special Needs Adoption, 1979).

---, ed., Residential Treatment: A Tapestry of Many Therapies (Indianapolis: Perspectives Press, 1990).

Tiffany Field "Attachment and Separation in Young Children," Annual Review of Psychology 47 (1996): 541-561.

Ellen Galinsky, The Six Stages of Parenthood (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1987).

Patricia Irwin Johnston, An Adoptor's Advocate (Indianapolis: Perspectives Press, 1984).

Michael Rutter, "Family and School Influences on Behavioural Development," Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 26:3 (1985), 349-368.

Leslie M. Singer, David M. Brodzinsky, Douglas Ramsay, Mary Steir and Everett Waters, "Mother-Infant Attachment in Adoptive Families," Child Development, 56 (1985): 1543-1551.

Leon J. Yarrow and Robert P. Klein, "Environmental Discontinuity Associated with Transition from Foster to Adoptive Homes," International Journal of Behavioral Development 3 (1980): 311-322.

entitlement

The term is usually used to describe the feeling of the adoptive parents that they deserve their adopted child and can truly bond to him or her. But this term can also be used to describe such feelings of anyone in the adoptive family.

Authors Jerome Smith and Franklin Miroff write in their book, You're Our Child,

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The sense of entitlement of the parents to child, of child to parents, and siblings to each other is a task unique to adoption. This is a relatively easy procedure in having a biological child and usually occurs at an unconscious level. For adoptive parents, however, there is this extra psychological step involved.

Author Patricia Johnston maintains that entitlement is not always an immediate feeling. "Developing a sense of entitlement is an ongoing process of growth rather than a single task identifiably completable, and the success of an adoption is related to the degree to which this sense of entitlement has been acquired by each family member rather than to its being seen as achieved or not achieved."

Some adoption experts believe infertile couples continually struggle over feelings of entitlement to their adopted child. Other researchers believe societal attitudes inhibit or enhance the feeling of entitlement. Charlene Miall studied how adoptive parents perceived community attitudes and found those she interviewed were dismayed by the attitudes and behavior of people they knew.

Miall observed that the absence of entitlement in some infertile adoptive parents was probably caused more by a knowledge of the attitudes of the surrounding society than by a failure to adequately deal with the infertility. She said the focus on bloodties in much social work literature relegates adoption to a second-rate position. (See also ATTITUDES ABOUT ADOPTION.)

Critics of OPEN ADOPTION state that when an adoptive family and the birthfamily know each other's identity and periodically exchange information, it may be difficult for the adoptive family to feel an entitlement to the child. (And visits with the child are becoming increasingly more common in open adoptions.) As a result, they will feel the child is really the birthfamily's child and not their own.

Proponents of open adoption as well as proponents of meetings between birthfamilies and adopting families hypothesize that when adoptive families believe they were actually selected by the birthfamily, they feel more of an entitlement than when they were simply selected from an adoption agency waiting list.

Patricia Irwin Johnston, An Adoptor's Advocate (Indianapolis: Perspectives Press, 1984).

Charlene E. Miall, "The Stigma of Adoptive Parent Status: Perceptions of Community Attitudes Toward Adoption and the Experience of Informal Social Sanctioning," Family Relations 36 (January 1987): 34-39.

Jerome Smith, Ph.D., and Franklin I. Miroff, You're Our Child: The Adoption Experience (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1987).

For several years I've had the interesting experience of participating in Internet newsgroups and commercial on-line usegroups discussing adoption. The culture on the Net is different from that of local support groups or conferences or magazines. Protected by anonymity and by the facelessness of those to whom they are "talking," Net folks often feel less constrained by conventional "rules" to coat their anger or their angst in politeness. Net groups are dominated by an outspoken few. Many other subscribers merely lurk, reading over the shoulders of other posters, afraid to chime in with their own opinions for fear of being blasted. Conversation is up front, "flaming" is commonplace.

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While those engaged in Net dialogues or diatribes are frequently reminded that they cannot and should not speak for others, there's a lot of generalizing on the Net, but the bottom line concerns are really little different than they turn out to be after months of getting to know somebody in your local parent group: Adoption can be wonderful, but it's scary, too. It brings with it a blend of gain and loss, happiness and pain. Some people on all sides of the triad go through periods (sometimes lifetimes) of feeling powerless and victimized by the experience. Pain expressed in any forum tends to create defensive attitudes on the part of other members of the triad. The fear is nearly palpable. These wounded souls are in constant search of their "real" selves... whatever that means.

As a young parent (it seems a long time ago now that my children are 17, 20 and 26) I remember worrying that the babies I was fiercely loving might not see me as their "real" mother, or that their grandparents, who were loving them, too, might not be "really" seeing them as grandchildren. I came to understand that many of those concerns were a result of my own self esteem questions--questions that were brought to the surface once again by infertility and by adoption, but which were not created by it. I suspect that's true for many others.

I began to read omnivorously about adoption. One of the most mind-opening things I read was social work professor and adoptive parent Jerome Smith's now somewhat dated (1980) book You're Our Child. It introduced me to the concept that adoptive parents need to build a sense of entitlement to their children--coming to feel that their children are theirs to parent and that they are deserving of the parenting role.

Building a sense of entitlement is related to attachment, but it isn't the same as attachment. One can be firmly attached but not feel entitled. One can feel quite entitled to a child who is not attaching well.

Over the years in the workshops I frequently do for professionals and people touched personally by adoption I've expanded a lot on Jerry Smith's concept. It seemed to me early on, for example, that entitlement was not just a task for the infertile adopters about whom Smith wrote, but that preferential adopters had issues to deal with, too. Though Smith didn't say so, it seemed clear to me that entitlement was a two way street, and that children being raised in adoption needed to build their own senses of entitlement to their parents and families. Still later I saw that, depending on the closeness of the family, it is likely that not just parents and children need to work on this entitlement building stuff, but that grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, too, need to build a sense of entitlement about those joined to them by adoption. The result of a healthy entitlement building process is that the members of a family come to believe that they all belong together and are deserving of one another. When entitlement building is ignored, the fact that "something is missing" is clear from both inside and out.

Smith says (and I include some of my own expansions here, too) that building a sense of entitlement involves three steps. A first step is in being honest with oneself about the motivating factors that brought you to adoption... for adoptive parents that means dealing with infertility or honestly acknowledging the good and the bad about other motivations for adopting; for adoptees this step involves understanding and accepting why a birthparent chose adoption rather than parenting; a grandparent may need to embrace his child's philosophical drive to make the world a better place or to mourn the loss of his genetic connection to this particular grandchild. The second step is coming to understand and deal positively with a concept first discussed by sociologist H. David Kirk: that adoption is different from being related by birth in significant and unavoidable ways. The third step in building a sense of entitlement is to learn to deal straightforwardly with society's widely held and broadly spread conviction that adoption is a second best alternative for everybody involved.

In my husband's and my family, adoption has been central to two generations of family building. My in-laws and their brothers and sisters were not a very fertile bunch. Of five siblings between the two sides of Dave's parents' generation, two gave birth to only children and the other three (including Dave's mother and his father) adopted children. So of Dave's generation of six cousins, only two were born to the family and four were adopted into it. In the next generation, Dave and I are parenting three children thanks to adoption.

I've often shared in speaking and writing some of our multi-generational adoption-expanded family's defining moments in "getting" the concept of entitlement, which we believe is central to successful adoptive family life. I use our personal stories in trying to help families exploring adoption understand the importance of all members of an adoption-expanded family coming to feel a sense of entitlement to one another and to their respective interactive places in the family. I encourage these families to begin before

arrival to bring their families on board, and to expect that issues surrounding what brought them all to adoption may resurface later and need to be dealt with on a variety of levels over time. Accepting that this is so, I tell families, will allow them to be less defensive about their own pain, and the result of that lack of defensiveness will be that they will be more open to listening to growing children's processing of adoption's gains and losses in their lives.

Perhaps if I share one particularly poignant anecdote here, you'll understand why we believe that the done or undone tasks of entitlement-building have a powerful impact on all who are touched by adoption...

My husband Dave was adopted at age six months by his parents, Perry and Helen. His parents were particularly "advanced" in their adoption thinking for their time, and Dave does not remember ever not knowing that he and his younger sister had been adopted. His questions were answered openly and honestly. The Johnstons were intensely involved parents--volunteering at school and in scouts, baking cookies and building projects. His parents and extended family embraced Dave and Mary into the family fold without apparent reservation, and the gang of six citified cousins growing up in Chicago and the New Jersey suburbs were a close and rowdy bunch when gathered at the family's homeplace in Central Illinois.

During his growing up years, Dave received a number of family heirloom gifts from his father: the Civil War sword and camp stool carried by a Johnston ancestor who was a Union soldier; the pocket watch with which a Johnston grandfather had clocked a long career with the Chicago and Elgin railroad; a late-1800s-published book, The Johnstons of Salisbury, which traced the family from New England in the 1600s as it branched out and extended through the South and the West (and into the back of which his grandfather and then his father had carefully printed the updated information available for their own generations of cousins and children and grandchildren.) These things came into our marriage and found places of honor--along with the Chinese lacquer box my own great grandmother had brought home from her days as a missionary, the medical texts from my great-great-grandfather's country medical practice and the law books from his son's Illinois State Supreme Court offices, and the beautiful landscape painting by my housepainter great-grandfather--in the home we established as our own for the family which was to come to us through our adoption of three children.

When our son was about nine, our middle daughter three and our youngest girl just a baby, Dave's parents moved from the house they had lived in for nearly 50 years to a retirement community. In the process of weeding out all those years' accumulation, the senior Johnstons asked us during one Sunday afternoon phone call if there were particular things we would like from their home. Mary's list had been long: china, crystal, this chair and those lamps, handmade quilts, etc. But Dave, a less acquisitive person already dealing with a confirmed pack rat wife, had fewer wishes.

Two items from his parents home came to mind that day--items whose stories I already knew. The first was a rickety table from the dining room. I shuddered to think how long it

would stand in our house with active youngsters. But the table had come to Central Illinois over 100 years before in a covered wagon driven by his mother's people, who were migrating from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The second item was a string of sleigh bells belonging to that same covered-wagon family. The bells had hung on a leather strap in the front hall of his parents' home for as long as Dave could remember. Dave's interest in those bells had little to do with their heirloom status, but instead involved a custom begun by his own dad-- one that Dave was following (albeit with modern adaptations and a single garage sale purchased bell) with our children.

Every Christmas Eve during the 23 years Dave lived with his parents, Perry Johnston had waited until his children were asleep and then ventured out into a Chicago winter with those sleigh bells in hand. He put a ladder against the side of the house and climbed to the porch roof; from there he made his way in the windy Chicago night onto the usually icy roof to a spot above his children's rooms, where he stomped his feet, rang those bells, and shouted out a hearty "HO, HO, HO!" What a memory!

When Dave expressed interest in those two items, his mother blurted out, "Oh, I'm sorry, Dave, I've already promised those things to my nephew, Bob. He's my only living relative."

We mumbled a few more awkward words, said our goodbyes and hung up. I dashed downstairs from the bedroom extension to where my husband had been using the kitchen phone. He was leaning against the counter, softly crying.

Her only living relative? For over 40 years the son Helen loved with all her heart (we don't doubt it for a minute!) had felt no questions about who he was or where he "belonged." But in that moment, 40 years were nearly shattered. For in that single conversation, Helen Johnston revealed a carefully hidden piece of her own unresolved pain: parenting her cherished children had not been enough to heal the anguish of her infertility and the loss of earlier children to miscarriage and neonatal death. Though her children had felt entitled to her, an important piece of herself had been held in reserve for the genetic children she never had on behalf of her family of origin.

That afternoon Dave and I wandered from room to room in our house, turning over keepsake items and family mementos and applying pieces of masking tape bearing our children's names to the bottom of them. We were determined to protect our children from ever having to feel pain in adoption. (How naive we were to think we could do that!)

And, yet, that single moment taught us more as adoptive parents than any book we could have read, any class we could have taken, any counseling or preparation we had had. The greatest gift we give our children is our own determination to do the personal work necessary to build our own senses of entitlement as parents in adoption and to bring our family and friends firmly on board with us, so that all of us, together, can help the children believe in and feel entitled to our familiness.

Since this article was first written, the story above has come full circle. A couple of years

ago Dave and I were invited to the wedding of his cousin's daughter--the first wedding in this next generation of the family. We were delighted to be there and were pleased to be seated in what seemed to be a place of honor behind the family of the bride and then to find ourselves at the bride's parents' table at the reception. As introductions began, we listened as Bob's wife introduced her large extended family of many brothers and sisters and their children, her nieces and nephews. Then Bob rose, and looking around the room, he chuckled that his family introductions would be shorter. He had been an only child, and his parents had been dead for many years. He put his arm around Dave's shoulder, tears welled in his eyes, and he said, "I'd like you to meet my cousin, Dave Johnston, and this is his wife, Pat. Dave and his sister Mary Jane are my only living relatives."

Bob never knew--still does not know--the story of Dave's request for the sleigh bells and the table which were bequeathed to him instead. But Bob feeling of family entitlement is secure. He, like his cousin, is buoyed by the family he has loved his whole life--no matter how those connections began.

"What is real?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit in Margery Williams' classic children's book of the same name. And the skin horse who was the nursery's philosopher responded by reminding the rabbit that, yes, becoming real does sometimes hurt, and that it usually doesn't happen easily to people who need to be "carefully kept." Real, advised the skin horse, usually happens after your fur has been loved off and your eyes have dropped out, but that doesn't matter. For when you are real, you can only be ugly to those who do not understand.

We claim this book--we touched by adoption--and yet sometimes it is we ourselves who do not understand. Building a sense of entitlement to one another is a part of the claiming and bonding process for all of those in adoption-expanded families. It's about believing, with all of one's being, that you are OK, that you are deserving, that you belong, that, together, the family and each of its members is whole and strong. That we are real.

© Patricia Irwin Johnston

Entitlement vs. OwnershipCurrently in both independent and agency adoptions, adoptive parents and birth parents are coming together with much openness. In the 1980's, both the American Adoption Congress and the Child Welfare League of America passed resolutions recommending open adoption as standard practice.

Is having initial openness along with a comprehensive health history enough? Is it enough to have pictures and letters for the child from the birth family? Does openness solve most problems for the child concerning roots? Do ongoing visitation and contact with birth family help?

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Open adoption is important it can provide a sense of roots and continuity not seen in confidential placements. With secrecy, feelings of shame and inadequacy begin to dissolve. But, beyond open placement every family choosing to adopt must consciously know and work with the issue of "entitlement." No, openness isn't enough.

ENTITLEMENT

In her book Raising Adopted Children, author Lois Melina states: Developing a sense that a child "belongs" in the family, even though he/she wasn't born into it, is a crucial test for adoptive parents. Unless parents develop a sense that the child is really theirs, they will have difficulty accepting that the child is really theirs. They will have difficulty accepting their right to act as parents.

She further says that a follow-up study by Benson Jaffee and David Fanshel suggests "that the amount of entitlement parents feel can be determined by looking at the extent to which they take risks with their children, deal with separation, handle discipline and discuss adoption with their child and others."

INFERTILITY ISSUES

When working with a prospective adoptive couple or single, the issue of infertility resolution should be considered. Even preferential adopters need to do work in this area. Questions to ask are:

· What has been done regarding the grief process when not able to give birth?· Has the family or individual been in a support group such as Resolve or have they had individual counseling?· Are they in denial thinking this longed for "magical child" will fill the void?· Are they angry, even furious because of this?· Can they describe the grieving process, healing and letting go?· Generally if they can't describe it, they haven't done it.

We know when there is a loss in our lives, there is no such thing as "complete resolution." There are times when sadness and grief will reappear and recycle. Those who have done the majority of this work will not become stuck feeling undeserving, victimized, cheated or angry.

CLAIMING BEHAVIOR

Claiming behavior precedes entitlement. In several ways, it is important that the family feel it has a right to the child. The family will want to have a strong self-concept and a commitment to the adoptive relationship. As would be expected, parents who have a solid base of self-esteem are better able to show claiming behavior.

It is helpful to experience a psychological pregnancy with ritual. After, grieving

pregnancy loss and having closure in this area, the adopting couple or single can begin preparing the home for the arrival al of the child. A full nursery can be readied and enjoyed prior to the child's arrival. Because rituals provide a way for people to express their feelings and because they signify change, these are signs that change will take place: In the past, children of adoption have sometimes arrived on short notice. Perhaps out of fear or superstition, pregnancy rituals have been little acknowledged.

Another sign that change is coming is by having a baby shower attended by family and friends. A shower is a way to share some of the feelings of uncertainty while, talking about hope and dreams for the future. While some pre-adoptive families will feel uncomfortable doing all of this prior to the arrival of a baby, my clients tell me consistently that they have no regrets about preparing a nursery and having a shower prior to the baby's arrival. It helps with the transition in thinking of themselves as parents-to-be.

MORE RITUALS

Rituals following the arrival of a child will aid entitlement. A common traditional ritual is a christening ceremony. In open adoption, an entrustment ceremony where the baby is formally presented to the adoptive parents is another building block in feeling entitled. It is a way to acknowledge feelings of shared joy and sadness, loss and gain, and change...

Rituals provide a meaningful bridge out of secrecy and shame, which have been prevalent in traditional adoption. Children learn more from what we feel than what we say. Rituals celebrated with openness, love and pride send a strong message of-validation to those around us and, most importantly, to the infant or child. As frosting enhances a cake, so rituals optimize entitlement.

Entitlement is maximized when the family can have fun and be silly. Anyone still mired in infertility grief will be unable to be light-hearted and enjoy the child. As the "memory makers" for our children, we provide the rituals, traditions and values we think important. Light-hearted times will vary according to one's own parenting style and need not be expensive or elaborate. Children learn best in an atmosphere that is relaxed and fun. When we can play, laugh and spread out joy to our children and others, entitlement thrives.

It is said that laughter is the mainspring of the soul. Parenting is supposed to be fun!

ONGOING PROCESS OVER TIME

Entitlement does not occur as a single event. It is built over time through many developmental stages. Entitlement -translates into self-confidence in one's parenting style. The focus is child-centered when we are sensitive to the child's needs and feelings. Secure, self-confident parents are able to solidly bond and attach to their child. Adoption issues or fears regarding the birth family are dealt with and are not ignored.

Ownership of the child is not seen in a family with well-developed entitlement. It is seen in the family who is highly fearful, controlling and generally focused on their own needs rather than those of the child. In this kind of situation with little emotional safety provided the child so learns from cues to shut down and ask few questions. As with a pressure cooker, the contents remain locked inside while building momentum . . .awaiting release at a much later time.

Parents who are secure transmit that security to the child who can then reciprocate in the attachment cycle. Feelings go full circle in a home atmosphere which is nurturing and safe emotionally. It is important to remember that bonding is a slow unfolding process which takes time. Just as it takes time to come to terms about your fantasies about the child, so it takes time to grow together.

The bonding cycle can be hindered if a child does not respond well to us. It can also be affected if the child has a different temperament and personality style than that of the adoptive family. It can be difficult to parent a child who is physically unattractive to us. Good entitlement, along with awareness and knowledge, consciousness, support and resources will help the parents at a difficult juncture.

VISITATION

Children in open situations with birth family contact are not confused. Without exception, professionals and adoptive families are reporting more positives than not in these situations. Without shame or secrecy, the adopted person is able to move through develop mental stages without becoming stuck. The openness adds "concrete pieces." The birth family is a reality, not a fantasy. The child going into puberty in an open placement can directly call and ask the birthparent about his or her own experience. (My daughter did this after wondering why she was developing so early. Her birth mother was able to share information which was not on the original health history form.) With birth parent fantasy a reality, the child can be freer emotionally. Yes, the child will still go through stages of grief from time to time. With increased cognition, the reality of the loss will be understood and felt. But, the answers will be available directly. Parents who have done processing around their adoption fears are able to send verbal and body language messages that match when questions arise. Once again, we see that this optimizes the child's attachment to the adoptive family.

SUMMARY

Entitlement can best be achieved after emotional reactions to infertility have been identified and processed. As a key dynamic in the open or closed adoption process it strengthens all family ties. . Entitlement requires consciousness and awareness on the part of the adoptive parents. Developing a sense of entitlement is ongoing and takes time.

Rituals are a vital part of entitlement helping the family move away from secrecy and shame. Pre-adoption rituals, post adoption family rituals which are complex and those which are simple, contribute to family integration. Rituals acknowledge feelings, define

relationships and mark transitions in our lives. Rituals strengthen feelings of entitlement.

Entitlement, to parents, means that we feel whole in our parenting. Whole parents are confident when disciplining. Discipline is neither too harsh nor too light. Parents in the entitlement mode versus the ownership mode are able to provide an atmosphere which feels emotionally safe and respectful. The adopted child senses that questions about adoption may be comfortably, asked and issues may be explored.

A strong sense of entitlement is a basic building block in the bonding/attachment cycle with -the child. A child feeling that parents are relaxed, safe, confident and whole can grow and blossom in this kind of nurturing environment. Well-attached children have strong conscience development. Safety is the basic building block in the family atmosphere from which entitlement comes forth. Self-esteem then follows as part of this process.

Open adoption is the concrete piece which further assists the -family in this journey towards becoming confident and whole. Added contact with the birth family in a relaxed, accepting atmosphere benefits not only the adoptive family, but the child and birth family as well. Everyone wins!

Ellen Roseman-Curtis is Director of "Cooperative Adoption Consulting" located in SanAnselmo, CA. The service is international focusing on education and openness in bothagency and independent placements. Ellen lives near San Francisco with her three daughters, who came to her through birth and adoption. Audiotape on Entitlement can be purchased through Cooperative Adoption Consulting, 54 Wellington Ave., San Anselmo, CA 94960.

Credits: Ellen A. Roseman

Promoting Attachment through the SensesBabies under a year old are highly sensory beings. Because their primary intellectual task during the first few months of their lives involves learning to use all of their senses and developing motor skills, each of a baby's senses is finely tuned and he is acutely aware of any and all changes. His environment is defined by all of his senses--how things look, how things taste, how things smell, how things feel, how things sound--and through his experience of a familiar and predictable routine. While it's always best for children to experience a stable and secure environment from the moment of their birth, this is often not possible for babies who will be adopted. For children who must move from an environment in which they already feel secure, then, transferring attachment to a new

parent will be enhanced by efforts to maintain as many familiar sensory elements as possible.

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All of Chapter 3 ("We Have Lift Off") of my book Launching a Baby's Adoption (February, 1997, Perspectives Press) offers readers suggestions for addressing ways to incorporate the familiar into a newly-arrived baby's routine and into his sensory experiences. The book offers practical strategies for helping your child find his new environment familiar to his sense of sight, his sense of taste, his sense of smell, his sense touch, his sense of sound. But Chapter 3 of Launching a Baby's Adoption is far too long for posting here. We'll need to limit your "taste" of the book, then, to just two of your baby's senses. I've chosen to share with you some suggestions involving the senses of smell and touch.

Families adopting internationally and the professionals working with them seemed to acknowledge that change can affect even babies' attachments much earlier than have those working with domestic infant adoption. Magazines such as Adoptive Families and Adoption Today have through the years featured articles on the adjustment difficulties common to children arriving from India, from Asia, from South America. The symptoms discussed were the symptoms of grieving, as these children dealt with the loss of the familiar--familiar caretakers, familiar food, familiar sounds, familiar smells, familiar voices and language, familiar culture--and were forced to make a transitional adaptation. In a powerful example of David Kirk's Shared Fate theory in action, it has been those adopters who were, by virtue of the obvious in their family, unable to reject or deny difference and instead were forced to acknowledge it, who have led the way in dealing with this important adoption-related issue.

Being asked to maintain the familiar for the baby's sake is sometimes a difficult thing for new adopters to hear. In claiming for themselves the role of parent, new adopters had expected that as parents it would be their role and their unquestioned right to make decisions that new parents make about nursery decor and layette, about feeding, about a comfort cycle, about family routine, etc. Now being asked to "adapt" to a parenting style and routines already established by birthparents or foster parents or group home workers may remind adopters once again that their family's beginnings are different from the

beginnings of families built by birth. They may balk at feeling out of control once more and vow to do things their own way despite suggestions from others.

Promoting attachment, however, lends itself to a whole style of parenting which fits right in with my strong view, expressed throughout Launching a Baby's Adoption, that adoptions must be baby-centered. Parents promote intimacy by responding to the baby's cues rather than imposing their own will upon Baby. The pediatrician and author William Sears, M.D., actually calls this style "attachment parenting." Dr. Sears writes for the general population of parents, and not only is his focus not adoption, but some of the things he writes may not feel particularly sensitive to adoption. On the other hand, I agree with Sears, who believes that this "tuning in" approach to parenting carries over into closer relationships between parent and child that will lead those children themselves to become better parents.

The older your baby is at placement with you, the more significant transition issues may be for him. Please try to recognize your resistance to being told how to parent as a left over loss-of-control issue and attempt to be flexible here. Over the long haul, your willingness to compromise during transition, to allow your child's experiences to lead you as his parent, and to gradually introduce your child to the new sensory experiences and routines which reflect your own preferences may result in fewer adoption-connected problems or differences later.

Some of the suggestions I share for sensory attachment are pro-active. They are things you can do to try to put your "personal stamp" on the environment in which Baby will spend his time before he comes to your home. Parents whose children will continue to live in an orphanage or in foster care in another country after they've already been "assigned" may find some of these tips useful, as may those whose children will move temporarily after birth to a domestic foster home and those whose children will need to spend time in a neonatal nursery. You may be able to send ahead some items that can help your child adapt to his family-to-be. Blankets, toys, pictures and posters, cassette tapes (nothing of heirloom quality or which would have irreplaceable family significance.) Even if this adoption does not come to be, what will you have lost by providing these inexpensive items? Other suggestions are re-active. These are some ways that you can adapt and retrofit your home's environment to include some of the familiar comforts of the place in which your baby lived before he came home to you.

OLFACTORY SENSATIONS A baby's sense of smell is stimulated by a variety of odors in his environment. Every habitat, every workplace has an odor that is it's own. When you go back to your parents' home today, do you not notice upon entering that it "smells like home"? When you open your partner's closet, do you not smell him or her there? When you enter your workplace do you notice a familiar odor comprised of the product of that workplace (paints, toners, fabrics, papers, chemicals, the carpeting, the smoking or non-smoking and more.) Your favorite restaurant is permeated by, among other things, the cooking smells associated with the spices and other foods that draw you back there again and again. What distinctive odors are a part of your home--your baby's new home?

Observe or ask about your baby's previous environments. What colognes, soaps, powders, deodorants, detergents, fabric softeners, cleaning products, and cooking odors were a normal part of Baby's first environment? Might you and your partner use some of those earlier-known scents for a while in order to give your baby a sense of the familiar? Did incense scent the room? Use candles in your home. Sheets and blankets washed with the same detergent or tumbled with the same fabric softener strips as those used by a foster mom can make a new bed seem more like home. If you will be traveling to another country, you may wish to purchase local soaps or detergents to take home with you.

Whenever possible, ask to take home with you actual blankets or clothing with which the baby may be familiar. Frequently those adopting internationally will find that the foster parents caring lovingly for their Baby are so poor that they are hesitant about allowing the adopting parents to keep anything. Mary Hopkins-Best, in her new Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft (Perspectives Press, May, 1997) suggests planning ahead for this eventuality. Most foster parents and nursery supervisors are more than willing to trade old for new, she suggests.

Research seems to indicate that newborn babies quickly come to identify their birthmothers by smell--both through the phenomes generated by their bodies and the unique fragrance of their breast milk. If your adoption is an open one and your child's birthmother will have cared for him for a time, you may wish to ask your baby's birthmother to give you a tee shirt she has worn which you can wear (without washing her smell out of it) for several days at home as your baby gets used to you. If your child has spent several weeks with a single foster caregiver, you might make the same request of that person.

Therapist and open adoption expert Sharon Roszia observes for both parents and professionals that supporting and encouraging these kinds of interlinks in transitioning between birth and adoptive (or foster and adoptive) families can offer benefits to the adults, as well as the child, diminishing any possible feeling that one is "taking something away from" or "beholden to" the other and helping each feel that together they are a "team" working on behalf of a baby they both love.

VELVET TOUCHYour baby's sense of touch quickly helps him respond to the shape of a trusted caretaker's body, the touch of her fingers, her rough or gentle handling, to a manner of being carried and cuddled (arms, backpack, frontpack, sling, rocking chair, hammock, etc.), to the softness of a particular mattress or the firmness of a sleeping mat, to the texture of clothing and bedcoverings, or to the shape and firmness of a particular latex nipple or pacifier.

In some situations you may be able to send blankets and clothes, a supply of a particular brand of nursers and nipples to be used for the baby who will be yours. In other cases you may be called upon to adapt to the textures your baby has grown used to. Though you can't change your body shape, understanding that a baby may be missing the soft shape of

his plump foster mother as he struggles to get comfortable against your flatter and more athletic frame will help you understand to what he's working to adapt.

Unfortunately in most international adoptions and with the domestic adoptions of a great many babies who are not newborns you are likely to find that agencies or institutions remain uninformed about the value of information about sensory expenses and transitional aids and processes and will not be willing to cooperate with your requests about transitional preparation. (We can always hope that within a few years Launching a Baby's Adoption will have changed all that.) Some don't want to offend orphanage workers or foster parents. You may even find some professionals apparently afraid of and resistant to your questions about the details of your baby's sensory and experiential life before adoption. If this is the case, all is far from lost! As parents your willingness to reach out for help if needed and, even more so, to be flexible and adaptable as you search for what seems to "feel" right between you and your baby is perhaps the most important element in building your attachment to one another. Where to turn? Why to a parent support group, of course, and its hundreds of families who have already "been there."

© Perspectives Press

Credits: Patricia Irwin Johnston, MS

Bonding & Attachment

Bonding and attachment are two very different but very important processes every new parent should know something about.

Bonding is "falling in love" with your child and your child with you. Bonding problems are rare and those that do not resolve themselves within a few weeks, rarer still. With infants, bonding can be instantaneous. With older children and teens, it will take time. You must get to know each other and build on friendship and commitment. Once this process is complete, the bond is just as strong, no matter the age of the child.

Attachment is much more complicated than bonding. Attachment is a process of trust. Children who were abused and neglected or had multiple caregivers in the first year of life may be incapable of trust and have some degree of an attachment disorder. Since attachment problems are not uncommon, before adopting any child over age 2 years, you should request a copy of the child's most recent "comprehensive psychological evaluation." This document should include at a minimum:

an IQ, an attachment potential evaluation,

psychological, medical and learning test results, a social history and recommendations for any therapies the child might need, for example

speech therapy, physical therapy or psychiatric therapy.