We are a family from Denmark, we live in a city between Frederikssund and Roskilde.
On this page, I will tell about our experiences on our adoption of our girl Natasha, who comes from the orphanage BalVikas in Mumbai, India.
We have had some experience around Natashas behaviour and ways to respond to that has surprised us and I will tell about that here.
My husband and I adopted two children from India. The first was the adoption in October 2001, when we had our boy Nicklas. He comes from the Orphanage Preet Mandir in Pune in India.
The second adoption was in 2004 when we took home our girl Natasha from the orphanage BalVikas in Mumbai, India.
We took home our daughter in September / October. 2004, and there she was 2.7 years , she is 6 years today. Already the first time we saw her, we were concerned. Natasha was the pushed hard to us with a push in the back, which we believe was unnecessary and totally inappropriate, given the first time be meeting her new mother and father and be placed in front of strangers who not only is completely different by look, but also speaks quite incomprehensible., That in itself is hard and scary enough for a child.
Then we have a girl who was emotionally and socially disturbed, she seemed very scared. She sat with the tongue out of her mouth and like suck on it and she remained deadlocked and sealed inside itself and eye contact she would not.
When you are orphanage child, this behaviour may be likely, when you are exposed to being "torn" away from your known location and from the people, which you have been with and linked to, it could be a normal behavior, but this behaviour continued a long time after we came home to Denmark. I with my professionalism (I am a social worker in a kindergarten) to say that a normal child of almost 3 years, will very rapidly be curious to new things and toys, it was certainly not our girl.
Back home in Denmark took our surprise on. Our girl showed a behaviour that were most curious, we believe.
When we had to put her to bed, she screamed and showed a fear, both in body and voice, which I can not describe, she was to terrify to her bed and to close her eyes and sleep.
It was also quickly very clear to us that our girl had been exposed to some unpleasant on the toilet. We could not get her out on the toilet, she simply hold on to the dorframe and screamed and screamed.
When Natasha was playing in her room, we had to not close the door, she could /would not be alone if we closed the door, or would go out of the room she screamed and wept.
Our girl could also take on, to lie down on the floor, we had some times get to her, after we had put her, as she lay down on the floor and slept with his pillow and quilt inside under a table, that she has in her room, which is showing, with all clarity that we do not like, perhaps even fear her bed.
It was also quickly evident to us that our girl has been subjected to fierce scolding and that she has been beaten on the BalVikas. If we reproves her, and raise our voice, so she keeps for the ears and works very scared and we can look at her body language that she "expects" to be beaten.
Another thing which surprised us a lot, was that our girl was terror-stricken by men, for us it seemed as if she expected something "not good" or even hurt, when a man came into the same room.
Something that Natasha also has had problems with since coming home, is to feel her needs / herself.
She can eat and eat and drink and drink, she has no stop in relation to label "I do not need more, now I'm sated"
Similarly, she does not notice when she is dead tired and need sleep. She "running" out there, with 180 per hour and can not "fall"
Another thing is that Natasha is fearless, she does many "dangerous" things she does not think consequence of what can happen. She can find to climb up on a book shelves at the top, to get something and she does that by taking a table, then a chair and then she crawls up ... without thinking that she might fall down. She is very spontaneous and can actually "persuaded" to anything