Adoptive parents face the emotional impact of parenting a child with adverse and often traumatic early experiences. The current qualitative study explores the experiences of adoptive parents who display heightened trauma symptoms relating to their child’s previous experiences and challenging current behaviours. In total, 10 adoptive parents reporting high levels of trauma symptoms on a quantitative screening measure, the revised Impact of Events Scale (IES-R), were interviewed by telephone to explore their experiences of being an adoptive parent. From the thematic analysis, four main themes were generated: direct trauma, the emotional impact of parenting, support network and sense of self as a parent. The findings suggested that how the parents experience their child’s early trauma, the current parenting demands, including child-to-parent violence, and the presence of lack of support are important factors in the adoptive parents’ trauma response, which all draw together to influence the parents’ sense of self. The clinical implications of the findings about the trauma experience of adoptive parents, and importantly their relevance for addressing child-to-parent violence, are discussed along with factors, such as parents’ support networks, that determine their evaluations of their competence and sense of self as a parent. The limitations of this study and recommendations for further research are also discussed.
Plain Language Summary
Being an adoptive parent has many emotional challenges, including the knowledge of your child’s traumatic early experiences and managing challenging behaviours as a result of this experience. In this study we aimed to explore how adoptive parents experience their child’s early life trauma and their current challenging behaviours. We spoke to 10 adoptive parents, who had high levels of trauma symptoms themselves, to explore their experiences using a semi-structured interview. We then analysed the findings, which highlighted four main themes: the impact of direct trauma through their current experiences in parenting, which included child-to-parent violence; the emotional impact of parenting children who have experienced early life trauma; the importance of their support network of family, friends and other adoptive parents; and finally, their sense of self as a parent, which related to the stigma, judgement and additional pressure of being an adoptive parent. Overall, the findings outline the emotional and traumatic impact of parenting a child who has experienced early life trauma. This was related in part to the knowledge of what their child had been through, but also predominantly the current challenges they were living with as a result of their child’s early experiences, and in particular child-to-parent violence. The findings have important implications for clinicians, services and post-adoption support agencies. The current study is the first known exploration of adoptive parents displaying high trauma symptoms. It highlights the need for recognition of trauma responses in adoptive parents, and in particular the extent and severity of child-to-parent violence. Training should be provided to raise awareness of child-to-parent violence, alongside clinical interventions for adoptive parents living through the trauma. The study highlights the value of support from others for parents, which emphasises the vital importance of adoption support groups, often provided by charities.
