It’s going to take several posts for me to continue covering the complex trauma found in older adopted children. Duh…it is complex.

Again from Focal Point, I’m taking lengthy quotes.

“The diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) does not capture the full range of developmental difficulties that traumatized children experience. Children exposed to maltreatment, family violence, or loss of their caregivers often meet diagnostic criteria for depression, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, sleep disorder, communication disorders, separation anxiety disorder and/or reactive attachment disorder. Yet each of these diagnoses captures only a limited aspect of the traumatized child’s complex self-regulatory and relational difficulties. A more comprehensive view of the impact of complex trauma can be gained by examining trauma’s impact on a child’s growth and development.”

By the time I’d adopted my first sibling group, I’d already spent 14 years being a birth parent, studying early childhood psychology and education, and working in the public school system. This gave me a pretty good idea of regular childhood behavior versus what I’d later learn, and experience, in the world of traumatized children.

By understanding the attachment that my birth child and I had, it was easy to comprehend the amount of trauma that my adopted children must have experienced from the separation from their caregivers. Factor in the abuse and neglect…no wonder they acted out, so would I have done so had I been in their shoes.

So, yes, I understand the whys, my empathy was learned, not something I’d experienced firsthand, but I’ve certainly had very vocal and verbal children, not shy about relating how they truly felt. I needed to hear their opinions and their experiences.

“The greatest source of danger and unpredictability is the absence of a caregiver who reliably and responsively protects and nurtures the child.”

Because my children all had siblings close in age, I believe that most of my children inoculated themselves from Reactive Attachment Disorder, if that is possible, somehow they looked to each for protection and sustenance, and somehow they found it as well. All the oldest children, in my different adopted sibling groups, were protective and parentified. It is only now, as we look back, that I’m able to see and to appreciate what a great job they did in taking care of their younger siblings, if only to have prevented a Reactive Attachment Disorder diagnosis for the younger children.

I know that isn’t always the case, it has been so here in all but one group…amazing odds I believe. I think I’ve had some amazingly wonderful older children as well. My younger children all look up to their respective older siblings in an appreciative manner as well. This is a relationship system that has greatly benefited our family.

“A secure attachment supports a child’s development in many essential areas, including his capacity for regulating physical and emotional states, his sense of safety (without which he will be reluctant to explore his environment), his early knowledge of how to exert an influence on the world, and his early capacity of communication.”

And as such, when my children have joined our family, emotionally bruised and battered, there has been a desire to connect, to feel and enjoy the safety and security of a family thus contributing to their many successes.

I feel a debt of gratitude to each of the older siblings. And I get sick to my stomach each time I hear of a sibling group being split up.