The Destruction of the Adopted Child’s Self-esteem
In 2015, a website named Adoptee Rage suggested that self-esteem is a
judgement to oneself and it reflect to a person’s overall emotional evaluation
of his or her own worth. Adoptees has a difficulty on keeping their self-esteem
high. They tend to have this judgement on themselves that they are not a
biological child and they are left by their biological family. They experienced a
lot of challenges being an adopted child and accepting, knowing and
appreciating their identity. Studies says that a lot of adopted children has a
low self-esteem because of their adoption trauma or their negative experience
to their biological family.
Adoptee Rage also concluded a study that has a high percentage of those
in prisons, mental hospitals and committed suicide are adoptees. Several of
attempts are made for those people to heal, adjust and cope with the broken
situation they are in. A lot of institutions are ready to help the families and
children to bond again together and it is also a mechanism for them to
rehabilitate. Nurturing the child when they are going through changes will
impact their development of their self-esteem, for the child to show a positive
effect they must be cared in also, a positive way.
Children might get confused with the genetic mirroring that they will get
from the biological family, they will soon question themself and put the foster
family into a difficult and uncomfortable situation. Their behavior and attitude
might also be genetically mirrored from their biological parents, therefore the
foster family must always cope and handle the changes of the child. It is
difficult if the foster family want to see a mirror of themselves thru the child,
they could also experience in the first months of having the child is unable to
recognize or respond appropriately to the child’s interest. The relationship
between the child and the foster family are a lot of trial, error and frustration,
they need to sacrifice time until their relationship will grow and they will soon
achieve biological language and maternal bond (Adoptee Rage, 2015).
There can be conflicts regarding the adoptee to act if he/she is not
comfortable or doesn’t like the family they manifest; contempt, anger and
growing intolerance. Adoptive parents must be patient and understand the
child that he/she is going through some phase where they are not used to the
new faces and the new environment. Adoptive children also tend to deny or
hide the fact that they are adopted, some of them or naturally see adoption as
shameful and humiliating to be seen or identified as a adopted child. They are
chances that they will brought their adoption trauma until they come to
maturity age but some of them turn the adoption into a positive way and
nurture it as a good part of their life (Adoptee Rage, 2015).
Adoptee Rage also cited that the self-esteem of the adopted child and
how they socialize with their peers or their adoptive family are factors the
people around them should recognize and focus on. The authors gave the
researches a different spectrum of knowledge and added information that we
lack in the past papers. Self-esteem is a big topic for fostered children
because of the possible low-esteem, they might get problems regarding their
behaviors, emotions and their socialization with new people. To maintain the
child’s self-esteem high they need to bond and communicate appropriately
with them and make the feel important and relieve their adoption trauma.
They also concluded there about the adjustments and changes of the
biological and the fostered family. They will play an important role to their daily
life and they must learn how to handle the child with the help of each other.
There are evident problems that will occur if there are interaction within the
biological and adoptive family for the participation to the life of the child. A lot
of foster parents want to mirror themselves to the adoptee, it is difficult to
attain because the genetic mirroring will be coming from the biological
parents. Adoptees can also genetically get their behaviour, attitude and
emotional well-being to their biological parents, it might be change if the foster
family are evidently participating to the child’s life.