A quiet migration: cultural influences impacting children adopted from the former Soviet Union.

Abstract: When children immigrate to another culture, a variety of salient variables influence their adaptation. Among internationally adopted children, these variables include early history, changes in socioeconomic status, awareness of multiple issues impacting the child post-adoption, availability of social networks, and anti-immigration sentiments in the host culture. The change in socioeconomic status of children adopted from the former Soviet Union is a positive influence with the concomitant improvement in the child's nutrition and health care. Many internationally adopted children have spent time in institutional environments that constitute a culture in and of itself. The orphanages are microenvironments which may be closed to the influences of the larger culture. The environmental components of the orphanage transmit a collection of traits and values which, taken as a whole, constitute the orphanage culture. Adoptive parents must facilitate the children's adjustment to a new cultural milieu with different language, food, and customs. Further, children must adapt to the culture of the family, a culture that may have been previously unknown. Nurses can promote the adaptation of these families by increasing awareness of the multitude of issues that impact internationally adoptive families. Key Words: Immigrants, Adopted Children, International Adoption, Orphanages Few experiences in nursing are more professionally and personally rewarding than providing health care for families with new children. Although this usually means newborns, some people travel different routes to become parents (both literally and figuratively). Home studies, FBI fingerprints, copious paperwork, periods of waiting, and difficult foreign bureaucracies may have been roads by which they arrived at parenthood. It is likely that nurses will increasingly encounter internationally adopted children in health care clinics and school settings as the number of children adopted internationally has doubled since 1992. Due to the decline of adoptable American infants and difficulties with adopting "waiting children" through the U.S. foster health care system, couples have turned to other countries to build their families. Many social, legal, and economic factors underlie this quiet migration of children into U.S. families . From 1989 to 1999, entry visas were issued to approximately 105,000 orphans born overseas (United States Department of State, 1999). In 1999, almost 17,000 children were adopted from abroad, including 4,318 from Russia, 4,101 from China, and 2,008 from South Korea. Nine other nations comprise the balance of source countries for international adoption. From 1997 through 1999, the countries derived from the former Soviet Union were the principal sources of international adoptees for American families (United States Department of State, 1999). However, as demonstrated by reports in the media that have focused on the mental and physical health difficulties of these children , a more negative picture has emerged in contrast to other international adoptees from countries such as Korea. Many of these media reports have focused specifically on behavioral and interpersonal problems in the children from the former Soviet Union. What role does culture play in this picture? What are the specific cultura issues that impact the children's adjustment to an environment? How can nurses facilitate the adaptation of internationally adopted children and their families? Culture Culture is generally defined as a set of group norms, values, and beliefs which are socially acquired and transmitted by language and symbols that serve to guide both social interactions and shape the aspirations and roles of individuals. The notion that cultural factors can influence behavior is not new. Margaret Mead proposed that some of the behavioral dificulties that adolescent girls experience were a function of cultural artifacts as opposed to biological forces. …