Becoming a Family: Promoting Healthy Attachments With Your Adopted Child. Este artículo no está disponible.Becoming a Family: Promoting Healthy Attachments With Your Adopted Child

It is a story that moves us to tears. An American couple travels across the world to rescue a child from the hopelessness of a foreign orphanage, bringing their new son or daughter to a life of love and family. This work asks whether this transition always goes smoothly. In countries where international adoptions are common - China, Russia, or Romania - orphanages commonly represent the available children 6to their new parents as healthy kids who just need a little love. In many cases, this is a gross misrepresentation. Children who spend time in institutionalized care may have experienced trauma, and therefore may not attach easily to their new family. Parents anxious to bring these children into their hearts struggle seriously with this issue. This work provides parents with effective strategies for ensuring that their adopted child adjusts as quickly as possible. It helps parents identify severe problems before the adoption, significan5tly reduce the risk of future difficulty, and improve the damage already done to the child's otherwise normal, healthy development.

Lark Eshleman, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Institute for Children and Families. A psychotherapist, Dr. Eshleman has trained orphanage workers in Croatia to work with children before they are adopted. A frequent speaker and writer on emotional trauma, she lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania.