OK, a long and serious post now, one about orphanage behavior, in general and in specific.
"Orphanage behavior" is something of an ill-defined term. People seem to use it to refer to things that kids who've grown up in orphanages do, that other kids commonly don't, because of their orphanage experience. Exactly what it encompasses, though, seems to depend on who's using the term. Moreover, in many cases, "orphanage behavior" is just behavior: things kids do. Behavior is a continuum, and non-orphanage kids may do the same things, just to a lesser (or even greater) degree. Of course, in what way and to what extent both of these types of behavior manifest themselves depend on the orphanage and in some part on the child herself.
Because this post wound up a lot lengthier than I had envisioned when starting it, I'll break it into sections.
Background
When professionals talk about orphanage behavior, it's almost always a negative; something that must be overcome. Here, for example, is a short article with a rundown of behaviors exhibited by children raised in orphanages. The author calls this "Post-Orphanage Behavior," because he's focused on children who enter families after orphanage life. He defines the behavior like so:
That definition is fair from the perspective of a counselor trying to help children who exhibit behavior that is maladaptive--goodness knows this type of behavior is real and can be severe, and parents whose children behave this way need strategies to deal with the behavior. A focus on extreme cases can draw a clear distinction between the range of behaviors found in non-orphanage children and behaviors arising from orphanage experiences. Understanding the reasons for behavior can go a long way toward dealing with it.
A slightly different perspective
A word of caution, though. When we first started the adoption process, years ago now, we were required to take classes and read books on issues in adoption. Some of this material was on orphanage behavior (or post-orphanage behavior, if you prefer), and much described atypical, worst-case children. That was a real eye-opener, and, honestly, made us a little more fearful going into the adoption process.
In addition, I think this focus does a disservice to children from orphanages. Defining years of their lives as resulting only in maladaptive behavior that must be cured ignores positive things they learn; moreover, it minimizes their own contribution to their own life story. If people are the sum total of their experiences, what lesson does it teach to define a substantial portion of these experiences as negative?
That's not to say it wasn't useful to read educational materials about orphanage behavior before we adopted Elena--far from it. Anticipating and understanding this kind of behavior helps tremendously when dealing with the real thing. So the preparation was overall a good thing.
So let's talk about orphanage behavior in general. I think that, properly, there are two types of behavior that can be classified as "orphanage behavior." One is coping behavior--ways that children behave in order to deal with the structure of life in the orphanage. This, primarily, is what the professionals focus on. The second is taught behavior--behavior the children were taught in the orphange that is unlike the behavior in a family. Let's start with the coping behavior.
Coping behavior
Coping behavior is the kind of things that children do to deal with the stressful aspects of orphanage life: the rigidity of the daily schedule, the turnover of caregivers (from shift to shift or from year to year), and the seeming arbitrariness of changes that are made. This can affect the child's behavior as described in the article above.
In particular, one of the main causes of orphanage behavior is children vying for attention from adults, who rarely have time for the one-on-one interaction, and who may come and go. In reponse, some kids "act out" to attract negative attention. Some withdraw, shutting out all interaction and minimizing the chance of being hurt. Some become "bossy," attempting to wrest control of their life from adults. And some act superficially charming, trying to engage the attention of the adults.
Elena is, I think, genuinely charming. She pays attention to what people are doing, interacts with them, and has an unfeigned delight in watching people and experiencing things. She's also got a sly and unexpected sense of humor, and laughs easily. This attitude, I think, helped her cope in the orphanage, and she has little need for the superficial charm that some children exhibit. However, she does, once in a while, turn on the superficial smile - usually when she knows she's being naughty, or is clearly testing boundaries. The difference between her superficial smile and the genuine one is marked. It's not clear if she's attempting to be "superficially charming" or if she's using the smile to mask emotions of anger or upset; either way, this is a coping behavior.
Orphanage kids often want to control their own life as much as possible. Elena's also occasionally bossy, directing activities in the way she wants them to go and demanding to do this or that activity. We let her, to some extent, make her own choices, and redirect demands into requests (although we'll often reign her in). She's also very vigilant: she notices things, particularly when something's different than it was before (either different in physical appearance, or when activities take place at a different time). That could be something of a useful skill, but it's likely a symptom of the control she wants over her environment, and the worry associated with changes in life.
Another behavior many orphanage children exhibit is self-soothing behavior - rocking, typically, but also thumb-sucking, chewing, hair-twirling, and other things. Elena sucks her thumb at night. I think she's starting to taper off; when she first came home she would noisily suck her thumb as she was drifting off, but now she's more quiet. Still, she has her thumb in her mouth for a good portion of the night. We haven't really addressed this, reasoning that it will taper off further of its own accord.
We've also noticed that if Elena hurts herself, she won't actually cry unless she's really hurt. I've seen her fall and skin her elbow on the sidewalk, for example, and just shake it off. Even when she really is hurt, she'll stop crying once the pain subsides. On the one hand, it's nice to clearly know when she really is hurt and not just shocked at a fall. On the other, it's telling that, for a minor injury, she won't even bother to call attention to it by crying.
As I said above, though, "orphanage behavior" is just behavior: things kids do. All kids are different, and all kids do odd things as they mature, and it's healthy to remember that. Here's a caution: if you're caring for a child from an orphanage, and paying attention to her behavior, pretty soon everything she does looks like "orphanage behavior," rather than odd things that this particular kid does. There's a danger in that, as it can feel like there's a moral obligation to "fix" this kind of coping behavior, rather than just treating it as a stage that kids grow out of.
Taught behavior
Another type of orphanage behavior, and one you'll hear less about, is what I'm going to call "taught behavior"-- things the children were expected to do in the orphanage that carry over into family life. In contrast to the "coping behaviors" above that can be primarily maladaptive, many of these "taught behaviors" can be seen as positive.
For example, one thing that I've heard many orphanage kids do is consistently pick up after themselves. When kids play with toys in the orphanage, they're expected to put them away, and Elena follows suit. She'll almost always put her own toys away, once she's done with them, as a matter of course. When she forgets, a gentle reminder is all it takes to get her to put them away herself. She'll put her clothes in the laundry hamper, make sure dishes are cleared away, and put things back where she found them. She'll even "put away" other things around the house, if she feels they're in the wrong spot.
Elena has no problem with cleaning. She loves taking a bath, always washes her hands, and we can even use brushing teeth as an incentive ("eat the rest of this, and then you can brush your teeth!"). She'll even get genuinely upset when she accidentally makes a mess.
She's also remarkably accepting of changing activities (taking a nap, for example, even when she's playing and having fun), as long as it's a scheduled change in activity. This is the flip side of discomfort with alteration in schedule: as long as we explain that it's now naptime or mealtime or whatever, and it's part of the regular schedule, Elena has little problem segueing into the new activity.
As you might expect, Elena also plays well with other children. She'll look to other kids, and join in with what they're doing (to the extent of following three other girls at the playground in a "follow-the-leader" game, around the playset and off to the bathroom when their father told them to go). She can be a little over-insistent about other kids joining her, but she's also very good about sharing toys and playing together.
Many of these "taught behaviors" are things that can be positive, and they're just as much an orphanage behavior as the troublecome coping bahaviors.
"Orphanage behavior" is something of an ill-defined term. People seem to use it to refer to things that kids who've grown up in orphanages do, that other kids commonly don't, because of their orphanage experience. Exactly what it encompasses, though, seems to depend on who's using the term. Moreover, in many cases, "orphanage behavior" is just behavior: things kids do. Behavior is a continuum, and non-orphanage kids may do the same things, just to a lesser (or even greater) degree. Of course, in what way and to what extent both of these types of behavior manifest themselves depend on the orphanage and in some part on the child herself.
Because this post wound up a lot lengthier than I had envisioned when starting it, I'll break it into sections.
Background
When professionals talk about orphanage behavior, it's almost always a negative; something that must be overcome. Here, for example, is a short article with a rundown of behaviors exhibited by children raised in orphanages. The author calls this "Post-Orphanage Behavior," because he's focused on children who enter families after orphanage life. He defines the behavior like so:
Post-Orphanage Behavior (POB) syndrome is a cluster of learned (acquired) behaviors that could have been adaptive and effective in orphanages but became maladaptive and counter-productive in the new family environment.Authors who discuss this kind of orphanage behavior (and this one is no exception) tend to focus on negative orphanage behavior, and give worst-case examples (note the reference to the horrific mid-90s Romanian orphanages in the linked article). This author even explicitly defines the behavior as being "maladaptive and counter-productive in the new family environment."
That definition is fair from the perspective of a counselor trying to help children who exhibit behavior that is maladaptive--goodness knows this type of behavior is real and can be severe, and parents whose children behave this way need strategies to deal with the behavior. A focus on extreme cases can draw a clear distinction between the range of behaviors found in non-orphanage children and behaviors arising from orphanage experiences. Understanding the reasons for behavior can go a long way toward dealing with it.
A slightly different perspective
A word of caution, though. When we first started the adoption process, years ago now, we were required to take classes and read books on issues in adoption. Some of this material was on orphanage behavior (or post-orphanage behavior, if you prefer), and much described atypical, worst-case children. That was a real eye-opener, and, honestly, made us a little more fearful going into the adoption process.
In addition, I think this focus does a disservice to children from orphanages. Defining years of their lives as resulting only in maladaptive behavior that must be cured ignores positive things they learn; moreover, it minimizes their own contribution to their own life story. If people are the sum total of their experiences, what lesson does it teach to define a substantial portion of these experiences as negative?
That's not to say it wasn't useful to read educational materials about orphanage behavior before we adopted Elena--far from it. Anticipating and understanding this kind of behavior helps tremendously when dealing with the real thing. So the preparation was overall a good thing.
So let's talk about orphanage behavior in general. I think that, properly, there are two types of behavior that can be classified as "orphanage behavior." One is coping behavior--ways that children behave in order to deal with the structure of life in the orphanage. This, primarily, is what the professionals focus on. The second is taught behavior--behavior the children were taught in the orphange that is unlike the behavior in a family. Let's start with the coping behavior.
Coping behavior
Coping behavior is the kind of things that children do to deal with the stressful aspects of orphanage life: the rigidity of the daily schedule, the turnover of caregivers (from shift to shift or from year to year), and the seeming arbitrariness of changes that are made. This can affect the child's behavior as described in the article above.
In particular, one of the main causes of orphanage behavior is children vying for attention from adults, who rarely have time for the one-on-one interaction, and who may come and go. In reponse, some kids "act out" to attract negative attention. Some withdraw, shutting out all interaction and minimizing the chance of being hurt. Some become "bossy," attempting to wrest control of their life from adults. And some act superficially charming, trying to engage the attention of the adults.
Elena is, I think, genuinely charming. She pays attention to what people are doing, interacts with them, and has an unfeigned delight in watching people and experiencing things. She's also got a sly and unexpected sense of humor, and laughs easily. This attitude, I think, helped her cope in the orphanage, and she has little need for the superficial charm that some children exhibit. However, she does, once in a while, turn on the superficial smile - usually when she knows she's being naughty, or is clearly testing boundaries. The difference between her superficial smile and the genuine one is marked. It's not clear if she's attempting to be "superficially charming" or if she's using the smile to mask emotions of anger or upset; either way, this is a coping behavior.
Orphanage kids often want to control their own life as much as possible. Elena's also occasionally bossy, directing activities in the way she wants them to go and demanding to do this or that activity. We let her, to some extent, make her own choices, and redirect demands into requests (although we'll often reign her in). She's also very vigilant: she notices things, particularly when something's different than it was before (either different in physical appearance, or when activities take place at a different time). That could be something of a useful skill, but it's likely a symptom of the control she wants over her environment, and the worry associated with changes in life.
Another behavior many orphanage children exhibit is self-soothing behavior - rocking, typically, but also thumb-sucking, chewing, hair-twirling, and other things. Elena sucks her thumb at night. I think she's starting to taper off; when she first came home she would noisily suck her thumb as she was drifting off, but now she's more quiet. Still, she has her thumb in her mouth for a good portion of the night. We haven't really addressed this, reasoning that it will taper off further of its own accord.
We've also noticed that if Elena hurts herself, she won't actually cry unless she's really hurt. I've seen her fall and skin her elbow on the sidewalk, for example, and just shake it off. Even when she really is hurt, she'll stop crying once the pain subsides. On the one hand, it's nice to clearly know when she really is hurt and not just shocked at a fall. On the other, it's telling that, for a minor injury, she won't even bother to call attention to it by crying.
As I said above, though, "orphanage behavior" is just behavior: things kids do. All kids are different, and all kids do odd things as they mature, and it's healthy to remember that. Here's a caution: if you're caring for a child from an orphanage, and paying attention to her behavior, pretty soon everything she does looks like "orphanage behavior," rather than odd things that this particular kid does. There's a danger in that, as it can feel like there's a moral obligation to "fix" this kind of coping behavior, rather than just treating it as a stage that kids grow out of.
Taught behavior
Another type of orphanage behavior, and one you'll hear less about, is what I'm going to call "taught behavior"-- things the children were expected to do in the orphanage that carry over into family life. In contrast to the "coping behaviors" above that can be primarily maladaptive, many of these "taught behaviors" can be seen as positive.
For example, one thing that I've heard many orphanage kids do is consistently pick up after themselves. When kids play with toys in the orphanage, they're expected to put them away, and Elena follows suit. She'll almost always put her own toys away, once she's done with them, as a matter of course. When she forgets, a gentle reminder is all it takes to get her to put them away herself. She'll put her clothes in the laundry hamper, make sure dishes are cleared away, and put things back where she found them. She'll even "put away" other things around the house, if she feels they're in the wrong spot.
Elena has no problem with cleaning. She loves taking a bath, always washes her hands, and we can even use brushing teeth as an incentive ("eat the rest of this, and then you can brush your teeth!"). She'll even get genuinely upset when she accidentally makes a mess.
She's also remarkably accepting of changing activities (taking a nap, for example, even when she's playing and having fun), as long as it's a scheduled change in activity. This is the flip side of discomfort with alteration in schedule: as long as we explain that it's now naptime or mealtime or whatever, and it's part of the regular schedule, Elena has little problem segueing into the new activity.
As you might expect, Elena also plays well with other children. She'll look to other kids, and join in with what they're doing (to the extent of following three other girls at the playground in a "follow-the-leader" game, around the playset and off to the bathroom when their father told them to go). She can be a little over-insistent about other kids joining her, but she's also very good about sharing toys and playing together.
Many of these "taught behaviors" are things that can be positive, and they're just as much an orphanage behavior as the troublecome coping bahaviors.
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