ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the break in continuity experienced by children when they become adopted, and the ways in which the adults around them struggle to remain attuned to their emotional experience and particularly to the experience of loss during this transition. The children were described as surprisingly compliant, showing little outward sign of emotional turmoil. The adopters and carers – and social workers too – admitted feeling anxious about a child becoming openly distressed, and put great effort into minimising the disruption for the children. The foster carers were the most vocal about the need for a gap of several months prior to contact happening. Most expressed a fear of intruding, forcing themselves in and stirring up distress for the new family. All feelings of missing, of pining to see a lost person, are seen to reside with the carer and her family alone – not the child.
