This was my son.

Dr. Bruce Perry, a Child psychiatrist featured on the Oprah show states that neglect is the absence of necessary stimulation in order to build a certain part of the brain. In order for children to learn, to stimulate areas of their brain they NEED stimulation. Without stimulation they will learn to stimulate them themselves or retract into themselves. Your brain will form differently.

Dr. Federici calls this Institutional Autism in Institutionalized children. But, what about biological children?

Dr. Perry calls this total global neglect.

But, can you make a child autistic by neglecting them so thoroughly because they never, ever come into contact with humans? That they are so globally neglected that they retreat so thoroughly into themselves that they can’t get out.

Can neglect cause mental retardation?

Absolutely.

Danielle, one of Florida’s most shocking cases of neglect was not only malnourished but also so severely neglected that when she was admitted to the hospital for a physical her appearance wasn’t what shocked Dr. Rodriguez most. The most profound effect of her neglect was how she reacted to human beings. “She wouldn’t make eye contact. She frequently pushed us away, kicked us away,” Dr. Rodriguez says. “[She] would snarl at us, frankly. She behaved like an injured animal. We realized the safest place would be one of the caged cribs.”

If there is little or no stimulation, if there is no human contact, if there is nothing there what else is there? Little development. Danielle, at the age of 9 years old, was determined to be 2 months old developmentally. AJ, at his adoption (26 months), was determined to be between 12 and 18 months, depending upon the skill.

Parents are powerful. If you look at this picture (and I am linking to this picture because it is SO extremely important to see) you will see the difference between a normal three year old child and an institutionalized/neglected three year old child. Perry indicates in his interview that the neglect specifically affects sleep, anxiety, and mood regulation, all of which AJ has problems.

So, in our case, is it an issue more with neglect and institutionalism than with medical issues? I am hoping so because I know that children have an opportunity to rebuild some of those synopsis (some) with care.

Yes, back to that nature vs. nurture. Which one wins?

Post from: Blisstree

Oprah, on Neglect

Some,

It makes me think that AJ was one of the lucky ones to be placed in the orphanage. When you watch you will see that so many of the children are actually abandoned on the streets by their biological parents and know their parents don’t want them. What that does to their emotional state I can’t imagine. like Slava, run away because of the home-life; alcoholism, violence, neglect.Some are left without papers, which I can only assume means they can’t travel anywhere or ask for help from an orphanage (without proof of identity how can you prove who you are?). One child stated that at age five his parents left him on the street with this papers and he was able to make his way to an orphanage. Lucky kid.Most of these children endure harsh temperatures in the winter, little food, and most turn to prostitution and drugs early to make money.

In the 1990’s Russia noticed a vast increase in these street children and has done a tremendous amount to reduce the number of children on the streets. However, in 2007 there were 10,000 children living in Moscow. he official number right now is about 700,000 but most feel the real figure is between 2 and 4 million.It really makes me feel that AJ was lucky to be placed in an orphanage. I still don’t feel like we “saved” him from a street life. Most importantly, Russian Social Services did that when they intervened on the day of his birth.And you know what? I am beginning to think that that is there was someone very important looking after him that day.

Post from: Blisstree

Russian Street Children

A child was considered neglected if his parents or caregivers did not provide supervision or food, clothing, or shelter. Abuse was sexual or physical.

The aggression was defined as arguing, cruelty to others, destruction of property, disobedience, and threatening of fighting. It was based on the primary caregiver’s perceptions when the child was 4,6, and 8.

I wonder what they would find if they interviewed parents of children from Russian, Chinese, and other Eastern Block orphanages?

Post from: Blisstree

Early Neglect Predict Aggressive Behavior

Adoption, relinquishment, loss, abandonment, neglect, abuse, are full of grief.

Infertility and miscarriage are full of grief.

And no one type of grief can trump the other. 

I have read so many posts (and I’m not going to link them) and angry and hurtful comments this past week and I am ashamed at some of the words people have said to each other. The kinds of things that people will write because they can’t see the hurt in each other’s eyes or hear the anguish in their voices when they talk about relinquishing their child or having social services take him away, or they don’t know what it is like to never be able to conceive, or they have never experienced a miscarriage (or 6), or they have never been told their child has been “given” to someone else.

I have lived through the grief of infertility and it sucked. And I have seen and felt the grief of my own son. And that was even harder. He has still not come to terms with his own birth mother issues (and I certainly don’t expect him to at 4 years old) and we have learned that we can not talk about his Russia Mama (we can only talk fleetingly about Russia).

However, I can’t imagine what it would be like to make an adoption plan for a child and I don’t understand how other people can trivialize it or dwindle it down to the “see ya, have a good life” mentality that  the movie Juno seems to have done (note: still have not seen it…just going off of reviews). And I can’t even imagine AJ’s birth mother never thinking about him or The Bebe’s birth mother never thinking about him (who is with him this very day in Family Court). How could that EVER be possible?

The one thing about life is that no one person can ever outsmart grief no matter what the source because grief comes from the core of a person, from the very soul. And no matter how hard one tries to outsmart it and push it away it will fester and breed, and fight to get to the surface.

Post from: Blisstree

You Can’t Outsmart Grief

A few months ago we had an adoption medical specialist (or so she said) tell a group of pre-adoptive and adoptive parents that sleep issues work themselves out within a matter of a few weeks.

Bull Shit.

Oops, am I allowed to say that?

Studies indicate that 30 percent of all children have sleep problems. And anecdotal evidence suggests that sleep disturbances are more prevalent in adopted children than biological children, according to Todd Ochs, M.D., a clinical instructor of pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

There are hundreds of factors that weigh in to sleep issues in adopted children and my son had, UGH, most of them. Unfortunately, he still has many of the issues so we have had to resort to medication to allow him to sleep more than an hour at a time (and to get more than 5 hours a night, which, of course, a 4 year old needs).

Reasons for Sleep Issues:

Jet Lag

No established routine as an infant or toddler

Neurological disorders: Finally, children with histories of prematurity, prenatal substance exposures, lack of early responsive, regulating caregiving, and stressful/traumatic experiences can literally be wired differently, with real neurological differences in sensory processing and self-regulation.

Sensory Integration Dysfunction: New adoptees are usually so overstimulated (we call it “Disneyland syndrome”) that they may blow right through sleepy time into an adrenaline-addled second or third wind.

Separation Anxiety from their previous caregiver and also from new caregivers if sleeping in a different room: Children experiencing parental love and attention for the first time are understandably reluctant to give it up because someone says it’s “bedtime”. The early stages of a new attachment have an insecure, “velcro” quality, so it’s normal for new adoptees to be anxious and insecure around bedtime.

Medical problems such as hypoglycemia, H Pylori, parasites, allergies, sleep apnea, etc.

Depression and grief: Your child’s grief at the loss of familiar caregivers may erupt at night, and when you come to console them they may be expecting someone else.

Co-sleeping with foster parents or neglect from caregivers

Post Traumatic Stress and/or abuse: The older a child gets, the more cognitive she becomes, and the more able to store experiences and memories in her brain. The degree of stress, even trauma, that adoption can bring depends on memories of her past experience (whether in an institution or not, whether well-cared-for or abused in some way) combined with the comprehension of her adoption experience (gradual or abrupt, amount of transition preparation, whether or not brought into a new culture with a new language). A child’s reaction to such stress or trauma may be controlled by day, but released when she feels more vulnerable, as at night. Hence, the sleep problems so many adopted children experience.

New diet (sounds silly, right?)

Bed Wetting

Night Terrors and Nightmares: Night terrors happen in the first 1-3 hours of sleep and children do not wake during them. It’s a good thing too because some of them can be very violent. We often found AJ thrashing, screaming, hitting himself, and in a heightened state of absolute terror. However, it is said that it is the body’s way of regulating arousal and “decompressing” from the day’s sensory overload and/or stress.

Stress: A child’s reaction to such stress or trauma may be controlled by day, but released when she feels more vulnerable, as at night. Hence, the sleep problems so many adopted children experience.

Post from: Blisstree

Sleep is Overrated: Sleep Problems in Adopted Children

When the underline issues are treated a child will attach.

Sites on attachment:

AttachmentDisorder.net 

Camp Broken Hearts 

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology

Post from: Blisstree

Are Attachment Issues Real?

We know that AJ had a very traumatic life in the orphanage but we don’t know why. When we visited him he seemed happy, content, very excited to see us and comfortable with his caregivers, although they were rough with him. We do know that he spent almost 3 months in the hospital directly after birth before being transfered to the orphanage and that he had transfered orphanage rooms several times since his arrival. This, by itself could lead to trauma because of the consistency issues.

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) for the diagnosis of PTSD is that “the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. The person’s response to the event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror.”

Daniel Hughes, PhD, and author of Principles of Attachment says that the most common cause of PTSD is abuse and neglect. He calls neglect “the trauma of absence.” While many assume that abuse is far more traumatic than neglect, we now know that neglect is equally harmful. We also know that the combination of abuse and neglect can be shattering to a child’s psyche.

So could this be where AJ’s PTSD stems from? And is this where his Institutional Autism stems from? Is he so traumatized that he retreats?

The same article states that children resort to a fight or flight response but if they can’t flee they go internal. We see this often with AJ, especially if he gets in trouble. We often see his eyes glaze over and he retreats into his “autistic state”…using echolalia and a retreat and repeating nonsense words to escape from reality.

But, he also becomes hyperactive before bedtime because we know that that was a very scary time for him the orphanage. He avoids sleeping at all costs.

Interpersonal trauma (such as abandonment, neglect or abuse) is experienced as more severe than trauma of nonhuman origin (such as a car accident). In interpersonal trauma, the severity increases with the closeness of the relationship. Thus abandonment or violence inflicted by her mother would be experienced by a child as extremely devastating. Secondary adversities, such as displacement or relocation after the traumatic event add to the likelihood of developing PTSD. Therefore, an infant who has been abandoned by her birthparents, traumatized by a stay in an orphanage, and is then adopted by strangers is at exceptional risk for dissociation and chronic PTSD.

PTSD can also has an effect on the development on children, including delays in cognition, gross and fine motor, and language development. Children can relieve trauma in any number of way, though nightmares and sleep (AJ did this through night terrors every night for two years), through flashbacks, through imaginary play, through hyperarousal, (another one of AJ’s issues) or by shutting down (which AJ never does).

Treatment? Some suggest Holding Time but our attachment therapist said this was not something for sensory hypersensitive children and for adoptive children who don’t trust. They only time I hold is when he is not being safe (but that is another topic).

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing helps people revisit trauma, reprocess and desensitize their memories, and resolve their feelings.

Post from: Blisstree

Post Traumatic Stress in Post Institutionalized Children