Stahlke Adoption

Self-Soothing Behavior

Kola continues to rock almost violently as he falls asleep or when he is stressed. Several years ago, we also had a few mild examples of head banging among some of the older five children. I found a good article about the topic on the following website:
adoptiondoctors.com/articles/Article/Post-Adoption-Peculiar-Behaviors/63

The best summary statement from this article:
"These behaviors . . . are basically a normal response to the abnormal environment in which these children were raised."

I will qualify this, however. The staff at Kola's orphanage did their very best with a large number of very young children and limited resources to care for them. It was clear to us that Kola was dearly loved by several of the staff members. But orphanage life can't replicate the attention that a child receives in a family setting.

The orphanage for school-age children, where our first five kids lived, received even fewer resources than Kola's orphanage. As Ukraine emerges from communisum, it continues to struggle with a very poor economy, which means a shortage of public funds. We were told by someone (I can't remember who) that the older orphans are less adoptable and therefore more resources go to the kids at the baby house.
__________________________________________

Here are some sections from Dr. George Rogu's article that I found especially relevant:

Many peculiar behaviors can be observed immediately post-adoption in many internationally adopted children. These behaviors provide self-soothing, self-stimulation and often times are used to attract the attention of the adult caregiver.

For the socially neglected orphan child, the lack of toys, limited human interactions and the lack of loving parent are the primary reason for this type of behavior. While these behaviors appear to be very peculiar, they are basically a normal response to the abnormal environment in which these children are raised.

In an orphanage environment, getting the attention of the adult caregiver is often extremely difficult. A well-behaved, disciplined child who does not disturb or bother anyone would never get any adult interaction. Many times, orphan children resort to attention seeking behaviors such as biting, hitting and various other types of tantrums in order to earn some extra adult attention. To a socially neglected and isolated child, even negative attention like discipline is better than no attention at all.

While I really do understand how disturbing [these behaviors] could be to new parents, I would like to assure you that these behaviors really do go away with time. As new adoptive parents, we must concentrate and reward the good behaviors while ignoring the disturbing behaviors. As parents, it is our responsibility to make certain that the child is always safe, and that the behaviors in no way injure the child. These behaviors generally take weeks to months to self extinguish, but eventually they do after the child settles into his new environment. It should also be noted that many times in moments of stress, these behaviors might reappear temporarily until the stress resolves.

posted by Stahlkes @ 1:24 PM