On the adopt_Korea yahoo group there is an ongoing discussion about the culture shock that our children have experienced, are experiencing or will experience. The discussion was started because a mother was asking about some sleep issues her family was having it is becoming a discussion of how different parenting styles are in the US and Korea, not a bad discussion but a discussion.

The discussion is turning into a very interesting one about how do we tell if the problem is culture shock, grieving or an attachment issue and what we as parents can do to figure that out.

I know that I suffered a bit of culture shock upon arriving in Korea such as I am not used to taking my shoes off only to put on slippers or the fact that since Korean’s sleep on the floor, beds are not queen or king size unless you are in a hotel (and even then you can choose to stay in a hotel that has traditional Korean beds).

I remember reading about an American mother who read in her referral information that her baby loved bath time but when she gave the baby a bath the baby screamed constantly. She could not figure it out until one day the baby slid into a laying position and all the sudden the baby was happy, while it went against everything she had learned in all the parenting books and from other parents she then started bathing the baby on it’s back and bath time was a great hit at that point.

The same holds true with stomach sleeping, Korean mothers rotate how they put the babies down so that they have a well shaped head (to give their babies good fortune) meaning that they lay their babies on their stomachs and many Korean babies prefer sleeping on their stomachs (I know that Little Princess almost ALWAYS sleeps on her stomach). In America we have been told that our babies should never sleep on their stomachs as it could cause SIDS.

One mother described the difference in Korean and American parenting styles as “an overriding attitude that influences all of our actions/reactions to our children.” American parents tend to measure “progress” in terms of independence and milestones reached, Korean mothers (as the father tends to be gone to work and out of the picture most of the day) tend to focus on fostering complete dependence for the first two years to form the strongest and deepest emotional bond with their child possible, then start teaching them how to do things for themselves and that independence is fostered quickly, usually in less than a few years.

Some Korean mothers yell at their children and swat their hands away when they try to pick up their own food and feed themselves or show other signs of independence. In Korea, it is considered rude to eat with your fingers as well so children are not encouraged to eat with their fingers. Don’t get me wrong, Korean mothers do have milestones they would like to see their children reach in the first two years but those milestones are very different than those here in the United States – one such milestone is potty training. When discussing this with other Korean mothers I was told that potty training starts well before a child is a year old in Korea, if the child is potty trained before their first birthday it is believed that they will be very smart and learn quickly.

I look back and see how LONG it took my son to adjust and I realize that much of that is because I had no clue how to do it the way he was used to and I was trying to force my ways on him. My son HATES change and likes things to stay the way they always were, can you imagine how hard things were in the beginning for him? I am just now starting to see. (Just so you know my daughter is happy all the time and so she had no MAJOR issues with the change — issues just nothing major like her brother.)

I know that should we ever adopt again and should it be from any other culture I will also be researching the parenting values of that culture as well as all of the required reading, it would have helped greatly in our transition especially since I also had two children with two completely different personalities as well!

What would have helped you?

You can read about Carissa’s adventures in parenting over at Faith, Hope and Love