summary
• Before the adoption, birth and/or previously adopted children develop positive expectations about the sibling joining the family. They look forward to passing on knowledge, playing, and sharing chores. Parents and professionals—unknowingly—contribute to these positive, enthusiastic expectations.
• Parents frequently envision a family comprised of children engaged in playful, enjoyable relations. Yet the adoptee who has previously been neglected, abandoned, and/or abused may arrive with a host of issues. Family members may struggle to maintain the peace, joy, and harmony that satiated the family prior to the adoption. Time will be needed to restore the emotional climate of the home.
• Birth order, ascribed roles, psychological fit, and shared history contribute to how quickly or gradually the post-adoption adjustment of typical and traumatized siblings may occur.
• Expectations and reality clash post-adoption. Yet families armed with knowledge can rebuild. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and the adoptee will adjust their expectations. Each family member will begin to accept the other’s unique qualities and strengths as well as their warts and blemishes! Kids and parents will learn to “fit” with one another.
2
“My New Brother or Sister Experienced Trauma”
What Does that Mean?
Complex trauma: “Think younger”
Many folks will adopt a child who has suffered complex trauma—multiple traumas that are simultaneous or occurring in a sequence, are chronic, and begin early in childhood (Cook et al. 2003). The institutionalized child arrives after inadequate care-giving—neglect—due to the modest caregiver-to-infant ratio found in orphanage settings. This son or daughter has also suffered abandonment, the move from homeland, loss of culture, loss of orphanage friends, and possible loss of siblings. There may be the trauma of pre-natal drug/alcohol exposure. Child welfare and infant adoptees undergo similar experiences. Sadly, there will be those children who join their families after the traumas of emotional abuse, physical abuse, and/or sexual abuse.
Complex trauma interrupts development. The newly chosen child presents as “younger” than his or her chronological age. Let’s take a look at this concept of “social and emotional age” as opposed to “chronological age.” It is really a key matter when blending siblings that have arrived in the family along different avenues—birth and adoption.
The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales offers one way to test the actual age at which a child is functioning—in four main areas—in comparison to the child’s chronological age:
Table 2.1 The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales
| Communication domain | Daily living skills domain |
| ReceptiveHow the individual listens and pays attention, and what he or she understands.ExpressiveWhat the individual says, how he or she uses words in a sentences to gather and provide information.WrittenWhat the individual understands about how letters make words, and what he or she reads and writes. | PersonalHow the individual eats, dresses, and practices personal hygiene.DomesticWhat household tasks the individual performs.CommunityHow the individual uses time, money, the telephone, the computer, and job skills. |
| Socialization domain | Motor skills domain |
| Interpersonal relationshipsHow the individual acts with others.Play and leisure timeHow the individual plays and uses leisure time.Coping skillsHow the individual demonstrates responsibility and sensitivity to others. | GrossHow the individual uses arms and legs for movement and coordination.FineHow the individual uses hands and fingers to manipulate objects. |
Source: Sparrow, Cicchetti, and Balla 2005
On the following pages are two sets of Vineland scores. We can see the impact of trauma on these children’s development in a very simple, concise way. Subsequently, we will discuss the most pertinent ways these types of developmental delays affect sibling relationships when these kids with histories of complex trauma are introduced to age-appropriate brothers and sisters.
Robert
Robert was adopted from Eastern Europe when he was six months old. His complex trauma included abandonment, pre-natal alcohol exposure, and neglect.
Robert’s current chronological age is 11 years, one month. Robert’s actual abilities are:
| CommunicationReceptiveExpressiveWritten | 1 year, 9 months5 years, 11 months9 years, 2 months |
| Daily living skillsPersonalDomesticCommunity | 5 years, 11 month7 years, 7 months8 years, 11 months |
| SocializationInterpersonal relationshipsPlay and leisure timeCoping skills | 1 year, 11 months3 years, 2 months2 year, 3 months |
| Motor skills domainGrossFine | Age equivalentAge equivalent |
Robert, at the chronological age of 11, has development that is scattered. In interpersonal relationships he functions at one year, 11 months. He plays like a pre-school age child—three years and two months old. His ability to get dressed, complete chores, and behave out in the community are more in accord with children about ages six to eight. Robert is “young” when we compare his chronological age to his social and emotional age. Brothers and sisters expecting Robert to play like an 11-year-old will quickly learn that he cannot perform to this level. Taking out the trash, vacuuming, and feeding the pets are all chores that Robert may require help or supervision to carry out correctly.
Betty
Betty is a domestic adoptee. In foster care she experienced abandonment, neglect, separation from three older birth siblings, and three foster care placements. She finally arrived in her adoptive home at age 14 months. Betty’s current chronological age is four years, four months. Betty’s actual abilities according to her Vineland score are:
| CommunicationReceptiveExpressiveWritten | 1 year, 3 months2 years, 6 months4 years, 5 months |
| Daily living skillsPersonalDomesticCommunity | 3 years, 1 month4 years, 6 months3 years, 1 month |
| SocializationInterpersonal relationshipsPlay and leisure timeCoping skills | 1 year, 1 month0 years, 4 months1 year, 10 months |
| Motor skills domainGrossFine | 2 years, 1 month3 years, 6 months |
Betty, like Robert, is not performing at her chronological age of four years, four months. Her receptive skills—what she hears, her capacity to pay attention, and what she understands—lag three years behind. There is an almost two-year gap in her ability to express herself—four years, four months as opposed to two years, six months. She struggles to form relationships, to play, and to move forward with rudimentary coping skills.
Betty and Robert are not unique or “worst case” scenarios. They offer the opportunity to recognize that the child arriving may be “younger” than expected. Social, emotional, physical, physiological, and cognitive domains of development are not proceeding within the parameters expected for the child’s age. Let’s now look more fully at some of the issues this presents when attempting to navigate close sibling relationships.
Complex trauma: The types of delays created
Attachment
Touch is critical to human
