It is common for an adoptive family to hear from their family members, friends or even people they bump into at the store about how much their child looks like them.
How is this so? Is it coincidence? But how is it coincidence when so many adoptive parents are told similar things?
According to Julie Drew, co-founder of Heart of the Matter Seminars, there is actually a scientific explanation for this called “attunement.”
When referring to a child’s brain development, attunement is the act of the parent making the appropriate facial expressions in response to certain events. For example, a parent should smile and laugh with the child when playing games, reading books, and enjoying other fun activities. Conversely, if the child touches something hot, or falls down, it is appropriate for the parent to show sad expressions.
Attunement leads to the child developing “affect regulation,” which helps the child understand the correct facial expressions to match his or her emotions.
And the indirect effect of attunement, according to Drew, is that the child’s facial expressions look a lot like his or her parents’.
“I think that one of the reasons why so many of our children look like us is because they have learned glad, sad, mad and scared from our faces,” Drew said. “We have attuned to them enough times that their glad looks like our glad, and their mad looks like our mad.”
So, next time someone tells you that your child looks like you, you now have a bit of an explanation why!
Click the following to learn more about Heart of the Matter Seminars.
This explains a lot to me. It is pretty much impossible that the woman I call MOM cannot be my birth mother. But people say I look like her. In reality, I look almost exactly like my oldest sister.
I also had two girls who were adopte d by a family that is not related to any of us, and THEY now look like their adoptive mother.
Thank you for this article. Things make a little more sense to me, now.
I love this. I gave my beautiful living life from me to a wonderful amazing family , when I gave birth I wanted her mother in there with me was a WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE. She now looks like her mother and father Was meant to be completely. The 1st year was tough on me. But when I spended the week with them a year after There was no more fear. I knew was perfect for her. I look at the pictures they post and send me. Just beautiful how their little girl is forming their face expressions and personality! A lot of the people who where wanting to adopt seemed so fake. Most just had money made it seem like they just wanted to be as if look at what I did. These people I chose where not wanting a nanny Hands on people who really wanted a baby to join their life. Not a fake smile not phony. That’s what I wanted a good life for her. They aren’t lazy. They don’t have a nanny ( I was a nanny. Most don’t want to raise the children themselves because they are too busy but just have money to give someone else to be the parents and then wonder why the children have behavioral issues). They are true people. Beware to women who are choosing adoption for the life in them. You have to really read as into why they are adopting in the 1st place. Because they can end up lying about you I grew up with nothing Still have nothing. I had nothing to give the beautiful life. I didn’t want to take her from home to home not knowing if tomorrow no food or not like I grew up with. I wanted her to have everything I didn’t. Straight love
My brother and I are adopted (from different families) and people tell me all the time how I look like my dad and how my brother looks like my mom. Normally it frustrated me because I thought it wasn’t true, but this makes it a lot better.
Thanks
Hello,
Is there a scientific paper I could read about this?
Many thanks,
Georgia-Alexandra Spyropoulou
Hi, Georgia-Alexandra — This paper might be a good place to start: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-07286-012 We’d also encourage you to search through some databases and libraries to explore this topic in more detail. Thanks!