Adoptive parenting and attachment: association of the internal working models between adoptive mothers and their late-adopted children during adolescence

Abstract

Introduction: Recent literature has shown that the good outcome of adoption would mostly depend on the quality of adoptive parenting, which is strongly associated with the security of parental internal working models (IWMs) of attachment. Specifically, attachment states-of-mind of adoptive mothers classified as free and autonomous and without lack of resolution of loss or trauma could represent a good protective factor for adopted children, previously maltreated and neglected. While most research on adoptive families focused on pre-school and school-aged children, the aim of this study was to assess the concordance of IWMs of attachment in adoptive dyads during adolescence.Method: Our pilot-study involved 76 participants: 30 adoptive mothers (mean age = 51.5 ± 4.3), and their 46 late-adopted adolescents (mean age = 13.9 ± 1.6), who were all aged 4–9 years old at time of adoption (mean age = 6.3 ± 1.5). Attachment representations of adopted adolescents were assessed by the Friend and Family Interview (FFI), while adoptive mothers’ state-of-mind with respect to attachment was classified by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Adolescents’ verbal intelligence was controlled for.Results: Late-adopted adolescents were classified as follows: 67% secure, 26% dismissing, and 7% preoccupied in the FFI, while their adoptive mothers’ AAI classifications were 70% free-autonomous, 7% dismissing, and 23% unresolved. We found a significant concordance of 70% (32 dyads) between the secure–insecure FFI and AAI classifications. Specifically adoptive mothers with high coherence of transcript and low unresolved loss tend to have late-adopted children with high secure attachment, even if the adolescents’ verbal intelligence made a significant contribution to this prediction.Discussion: Our results provides an empirical contribution to the literature concerning the concordance of attachment in adoptive dyads, highlighting the beneficial impact of highly coherent states-of-mind of adoptive mothers on the attachment representations of their late-adopted adolescent children.

A proposal for a brief-term post-adoption intervention in the attachment-perspective: a single case study with a late-adopted child and his adoptive mother

“…Kiwot showed a secure attachment representation in the FFI, characterized by an integrated picture of his adoptive parents, sister, teacher, best friend and himself, and expressed through a coherent and balanced discourse style and good reflective functioning. Surprisingly Kiwot confirmed his earned' security in adolescence, a period of great challenges for adopted adolescents demanding them to review their own identity in light of their harsh past history (Pace et al, 2015a).…”

“…Recent longitudinal attachmentbased studies on adoption and maternal sensitivity showed that more sensitive parenting -in infancy middle childhood, and/or adolescence-predicted continuity of secure attachment of adopted children from infancy to adolescence, less inhibited and delinquent behaviours in adolescence and secure attachment representations in young adulthood (Beijersbergen, Juffer, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2012;Pace, Di Folco, Guerriero, Santona, & Terrone, 2015a;Schoenmaker et al, 2015a; IJzendoorn, 2013;van der Voort et al, 2014). In addition, while secure adoptees showed a well-integrated response to infant distress in young adulthood, insecure adoptees showed a deactivating strategy, revealed by dissociation between experiential and physiological arousal (Schoenmaker et al, 2015b).…”

Late Adoptions: Attachment Security and Emotional Availability in Mother–Child and Father–Child Dyads

“…Several studies have specifically explored the relation between the attachment representations of late adopted children and those of their adoptive parents. (Barone and Lionetti 2011;Kaniuk et al 2004;Ongari and Tomasi 2013;Pace 2014;Pace et al 2011;2015b;Steele et al 2008), highlighting as a whole a concordance of attachment features in adoptive mother-child dyads and suggesting that the new social environment can ease the impact of negative past experiences and positively contribute to children's postadoption adjustment.…”

Late-adopted children grown up: a long-term longitudinal study on attachment patterns of adolescent adoptees and their adoptive mothers

“…This could be particularly helpful for adolescents, as they are involved in a reorganization of attachment behavior and in their identity definition, which is especially challenging for the adoptees, as they must cope with painful biographical memories (Grotevant, Lo, Fiorenzo, & Dunbar, 2017). Additionally, adoptive parents with secure states of mind were found to better tolerate and support their children's separation and exploration needs, which are developmental milestones in normative adolescence (Barone et al, 2017;Pace et al, 2015a;Verhage et al, 2016). On the contrary, adoptive mothers having insecure or unresolved attachment states of mind are characterized by difficulties in reconsidering their past emotional experiences with their parents, including themes of separation, loss, and fear, and in processing them in a balanced and coherent representation (Steele et al, 2003).…”