Insights into adoption, attachment, adjustment issues

At fair, learn how to cut stress in adoption
John Johnston, Cincinnati Enquirer online

Adoption can be a great way to build a family, but adoptive parents must understand that it's different from raising a birth child, Debbie Joy says.

She will discuss attachment and adjustment issues in her keynote address Saturday at the Celebrating Families Conference, held in conjunction with the Tristate Adoption Fair, at Vineyard Community Church in Springdale. Joy is a licensed professional clinical counselor in private practice in East Walnut Hills, and she specializes in adoption issues.

"You cannot move babies from family to family without creating trauma," Joy says. "And when you create trauma and don't manage it well, it (worsens)."

Such trauma happens in both infants and older children, she says.

"With older children, we can explain what's going on, read them stories, draw pictures. All the baby has is feelings. You pick them up, and they avert their eyes and stiffen and cry."

Generally, children are dealing with grief, separation and loss issues most intensely in the first year of a placement, she says. But it varies. "Some kids are more resilient, and they adapt quickly. Other kids are more sensitive, and they adapt more slowly."

Those issues might arise again at various stages of a child's development, Joy says. Going to kindergarten can stir up feelings of loss in an adopted child; the onset of adolescence can bring with it questions and concerns.

The good news is that such challenges can be managed. Adoption "is really a win-win situation," Joy says. "It's just we want people to understand the issues so they're not blindsided by things they thought would never happen."