Getting Families and Children Together

Abstract

So far I have considered working with prospective foster and adoptive parents and preparing children for placement. Now comes the tricky part when we try to get children linked up and placed with their new families. These days the term ‘linking’ is preferred to ‘matching’, the latter being associated with an historical situation when there was a realistic choice in the placement of healthy white babies. Current practice emphasises working with prospective adopters towards an understanding and appreciation of each child’s individuality. This includes the recognition that a child has been born to other parents and that this may play some part in his or her growing personality and abilities. As in any family, unrealistic expectations of children or excessive parental attempts to mould their children into ‘carbon copies’ of themselves are likely to engender difficulties for all concerned. Raynor (1980) suggests that ‘in recent years much scorn has been heaped on the concept of matching a child to his prospective adopters’. She notes the near impossibility of accurately predicting a baby’s future personality, appearance, or intellectual capacity, particularly where there may be virtually no information about one biological parent, and acknowledges that ‘there is no question but that some of the matching exercises in the past were carried to absurd lengths’.

‘What must I do to tame you?’ asked the little prince. ‘You must be very patient,’ replied the fox. ‘First you will sit down at a little distance from me-like that - in the grass. I shall look at you out ofthe corner ofmy eye, and you will say nothing. Words are a source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me every day.’

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince