Adoption and the Family

Addressing the Needs of Adopted Teens
Most parents agree the adolescent and teen years are without question the most challenging for their children and for the family as a whole. This can be especially true in the case of adopted children who, like all teens, struggle with issues related to who they are and who they want to be. Imagine the added confusion during this crucial developmental stage, when teens reflect on their unique situation as an adopted child. Read more >>

Book Review - Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens
Book review of Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens by Debbie Riley and Dr. John Meeks. Read more >>

Adoption Doctors
Adoption doctor is a specialty recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics who evaluate a child's medical records, conduct physical examinations and tests, and advise parents on childcare. They help children transition from foreign or domestic orphanages and foster care into their new permanent homes. Read more >>

Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome?
Science is just beginning to define Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome (PADS). PADS can range from a full-blown episode of severe depression that requires hospitalization or just a simple case of the blues that lasts a month or two. The few scientific studies of PADS indicate that over half of adoptive mothers experience it. Read more >>

Holidays with Extended "Family": An opportunity for connection
For some families who live far apart and only see each other at holiday time, the chance to build connections makes this time especially important. For adoptive parents, the desire for their children (and their family) to be loved and accepted may be tinged with anxiety.Just as adoptive parents broadened their understanding of adoption (beyond the personal experiences they had prior to considering adoption), so too must extended family members learn a great deal. Read more >>

Adoption and the Holidays
For children adopted at older ages, holiday time can conjure up important memories and associations. Whether having lived with birth families, in foster care, or in orphanages, children with positive or negative memories of what happened during this season, of how holidays were celebrated or not, are likely to experience powerful emotions related to their memories. Read more >>

Inside Adoption: Single parent with three adopted children
Kathy is a mom to three kids who were adopted. One was adopted as a newborn, one as a three-year-old, and one as an 11-year-old. All three children have various emotional, behavioral, developmental, and mental health issues including bipolar, autism, learning disabilities, depression, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), RAD (reactive attachment disorder), and ADHD. Read more >>

Adopting Older Children
There are many reasons why prospective parents choose to adopt children who are older. Whatever the motivation, the decision to adopt older children must come after careful consideration and education as to both the many rewards as well as the challenges involved. Read more >>

Single Parent Adoptive Families
Some single adoptive parents originally thought they'd parent someday with a partner, and subsequently made the sometimes difficult decision to go it alone, rather than continue to wait for Mr. or Ms. Right. They have had to embrace the many obvious challenges with single parenthood, but also have come to appreciate the many less obvious beneficial aspects of single parenting. Read more >>

Supplemental Therapies For Adoptive Families
Families that adopt often undergo family therapy to discuss adjustment, parenting, grief, and the adopted child may also need additional interpersonal psychotherapy to work through issues of abandonment, creating new attachments, and peer relations. For some families, however, standard therapy may not be enough. Additional issues in need of treatment might include auditory processing difficulties, speech complications, attachment and bonding challenges, trauma related issues, and more. Read more >>

Therapeutic Respite: What? Where? How?
Parenting children or youth with emotional, behavioral, or mental health issues - including many foster and adopted kids - can be very challenging and stressful. Foster and adoptive families sometimes have access to respite: someone else who will caretake their child for a few hours or a few days. Read more >>

Adoptive Parents Can Only Guess. . .
Communication is critical to successful parent-child relationships. Understanding and empathy help parents to communicate with their children. But, do parents really have a connection when it comes to what it feels like to be adopted? Yes, there are some adoptive parents who themselves were adopted, but most parents cannot put themselves into the shoes of their adopted child. Read more >>

Talking About Adoption: How Often and How Much?
Most adoptive parents worry about whether or not they are communicating enough with their children about adoption, especially with children who don't present them with a lot of questions. On the other hand, some parents express concern about overdoing the emphasis on adoption, perhaps giving their children the impression that they were unfortunate victims of life's events. Today's adoptive parents need to help their children with their important feelings related to adoption, including feelings of loss and grief, which impact their child' sense of security and self-esteem. Read more >>

Adoption and Sexuality
Talking with children about sex can be one of the most challenging aspects of parenthood. This task may generate additional anxiety in adoptive parents because adoption and sexuality are intertwined in complex, emotional ways for both adoptive parents and their children. Adoptive parents need to look for appropriate ways to correct this misperception so that their children/adolescents will view them as a resource for information on sexuality as well as role models to identify with. Read more >>

Therapeutic Interventions with Sexually Abused Children and Their Families
What all victimized children do have in common is the violation of their bodies and appropriate boundaries. The resulting loss is of trust in adults, either because they perpetrated the abuse or failed to protect them from the abuse. Helping children heal and recover from the trauma of sexual abuse takes time and patience and is most effective when both child and caregivers are involved in the treatment process. Effective treatment must always integrate parents into the treatment process. It is not uncommon for the adoptive parents to feel confused, anxious and angry when the trauma is revealed. Read more >>

Adolescence and Adoption
There are two major tasks of personal growth for all teens: identity formation and separation. For adopted teens, the tasks of mastering identity and separation come with more complexity because of the additional challenges that are part of the adoption process. This growth, however, is necessary and important to their development and well-being. Read more >>

Healing Loss in the Traumatized Child
Many of the stories of children who enter the foster care system involve abuse - physical, sexual or emotional - neglect or abandonment. Care giving adults may be drug or alcohol addicted or mentally ill, unable to care for themselves, let alone children. In some instances, children have witnessed violence, even murder against loved ones. Unfortunately, multiple caregivers and moves both prior to and subsequent to placement in foster care compound the experience of trauma and loss. Read more >>

Post-Adoption Counseling
The field of post-adoption services reflect both the research and clinical practice that has clearly demonstrated the unique needs and challenges that adopted children and their families face throughout their lifespan. Children adopted at older ages, who have experienced abuse, neglect or some other early life trauma including multiple foster care placements, institutional care as in international adoption, or children with other types of special needs may be at additional risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties which require effective mental health intervention. Read more >>

Talking with Children Conceived Through Donor Insemination, IVF with Egg Donor or Surrogacy
Although controversy continues to exist regarding adoption practices such as transracial and open adoption, there is no controversy about the expectation that at some point, adoptive parents will talk with their child about his/her adoptive status and share the facts related to how their child came to be part of the family. Unlike adoption, however, no such clear expectation for disclosure exists for parents who conceived their child through alternative family-building methods such as donor insemination or in vitro fertilization (IVF) with an egg donor or surrogacy. Parents who have successfully conceived with the help of a third party continue to be counseled by some medical and mental health professionals that it is not necessary to share the circumstances of the child's conception with their child - that it is not necessary for the child to know the truth about how he came to be part of his family. Read more >>

I Don't Care if he goes to Harvard, But...
Everyone who decides to embark on the journey of parenthood goes down the road with fantasies of what parenthood will be like, and more importantly, dreams about what their child will become as he grows up. Adoptive parents have the same dreams that all parents have, although they have less information about the biological road maps of their children. Adoptive parents may find this inability to predict actually frees them from standard pressures but creates another, unique set that must be dealt with. Read more >>

Sibling Bonds and Separations
Since sibling relationships are potentially the longest relationship we will ever have mental health professionals believe they are more influential than the relationships with our parents, spouses, or children. Children in foster care and those in adoptive families have some unique challenges when it comes to siblings. Sometimes they know about their siblings, and sometimes they only wonder if they might exist. As parents, we need to respect how our children might feel about the siblings they cannot be with, and find ways to open communication about their thoughts and feelings about siblings. Read more >>

Adopted Teens Often Fear Leaving Home
While adoptive parents may certainly experience ambivalence about seeing their children growing up in preparation to leave the nest, it is often the adopted adolescent who may have difficulty with separation because of unique feelings related to adoption. The ad where the parents seemingly can't wait to renovate their child's room/house/garage as soon as the child leaves may not be all that humorous to adopted teens. Read more >>

Discovering Red Flags: Is it Adoption or is it Something Else?
Adoptive parents must be especially good at noticing changes in their child’s behavior. They must then figure out if the signal/difficulty indicates that their child is struggling with an issue that is related to adoption. Because it is too important that parents accurately “diagnose” the difficulty, most adoptive parents would like to know what adoption-related issues might be indicated by the behavioral signal their child is sending. Read more >>

Post-Adoption Support Benefits Adopted Teens and Parents
Even the most well adjusted adopted teen may begin to struggle with feelings of rejection and abandonment as they become adults. Post-adoption support in the form of emotional counseling or family therapy can help you and your teenager work through the issues that often emerge during an adopted child's adolescence. If your teen needs more constant or consistent support, you might consider a school especially equipped to support adopted teens. Read more >>

Successfully Communicating with Your Adopted Teen
When your adopted teen hits adolescence, it's more important than ever to keep the lines of communication open. This tends to be the time that children experience a range of emotional concerns related to their adoption. If your adopted teenager becomes distant, "closed off" or remote, there are a few simple guidelines you can employ to maintain a positive, open and supportive relationship with your adopted teen. Read more >>

Adoption and the Community

The Dating Game
For all teenagers,dating can be exciting, intriguing and daunting. Adolescent adoptees face additional concerns when they begin dating. As their interest in dating heightens, adopted teens may struggle with a myriad of questions. The core of these questions is intricately to the teens' quest for identity, and the answers help to move them towards developing healthy interpersonal relationships. As parents, it is important to provide guidance to your teenager to help them address the complex issues behind their questions. Read more >>

Developing Social Skills
Parents want their children to be liked by others and to exhibit behavior in line with normal expectations for their age. Parents therefore naturally often worry about their child's ability to choose appropriate playmates and develop meaningful friendships. Parents want their child to become "socially competent." Some adopted children, regardless of the innate temperaments, have had early life experiences including breaks in attachments, abuse or neglect, health problems, etc. which may result in emotional challenges that interfere with the development of social competence. Read more >>

School Success = Family Success
For many foster and adoptive parents helping their child be successful in school, not only means giving them a stable and loving home, but also finding out the child's school history and special education needs. It's common sense that children who meet with success at school are more likely to develop sold self-esteem, make positive choices about their behavior, and look forward to their future. School success and positive family relationships often have a reciprocal relationship. Read more >>

Groups for Adopted Kids?
In addition to communication at home, while parents remain the child's most valuable resource, parents need to know that they do not have to be the only resource for their child. They demonstrate support for the children's needs when they find other places where their children can talk about adoption, whether it is with a private, knowledgeable counselor or in a group of other adopted children. In groups, children have the opportunity to explore adoption freely without fear of hurting anyone, saying the wrong thing, or appearing disloyal. Read more >>

Adoption and the Schools
The school environment can be wonderful support for adoptees and adoptive families. If educators are comfortable with the subject of adoption, there are many opportunities to help students learn that adoptive families are permanent and real. The enormous influence of the school enviroment makes it a critical component in the development of children's self-concept, including what it means to be part of an adoptive family. Because teachers are powerful role models, they must understand the emotions of adopted children. Read more >>

W.I.S.E. Up! It's Back to School
Nearly all kids who were adopted by their families are asked questions by well-meaning people to be friendly or just out curiosity. Therefore, parents quickly learn that they must prepare themselves for the questions and develop answers that they are comfortable using in response. It is also important for adopted children and teens to be just as prepared as their parents are. Read more >>

The Value of Role Models in Adoption
Role models help children define what they feel is important and valuable. Children often use them as models of comparison with themselves, and when they believe that they share characteristics, it helps them to believe in themselves. Role models who also happen to be adoptees are particularly important for our children because adoption is a difference that is not shared with many others. Read more >>

Adopted Adolescents in the Classroom
As adopted children enter adolescence, they face additional struggles, which may come out in the classroom. When adopted children become teenagers, feelings of grief and loss may transform into questions of belonging and personal identity. As a result, your adopted teen's behavior at school may also change into a "don't care" attitude at school, and previously responsible or conscientious students may seem to lose focus or have difficulty upholding their usual academic standards. Read more >>

Adopted Children and Their Peers Adopted children may be asked a variety of questions from their peers. Adoptive parents need to prepare their children by anticipating what may happen. Any situation is easier to cope with if children have been able to consider in advance, the ways that they would be most comfortable responding. Their answers to questions will then be more likely to reflect greater comfort and spontaneity. Read more >>

The Adoption Circle

Searching for Birth Parents Abroad
Sometimes it may not be a great idea to search internationally for your adopted child's parents. Read more >>

Who Searches for Their Birth Parents and Some Reasons Why They Do It
Which children search for their birth parents? Why do they do it? Studies say that searching for birth parents is now a normal part of adoption. Althoug children often wait to search for birth parents, they are not more maladjusted or unhappy with their adoptions than those who don't. Read more >>

Educating Children to be Part of the Adoption Community
People in the adoption community are reaching out to promote acceptance of adoption as just one of the many ways to form families. The adoption community is committed to these efforts because an increase in generalized knowledge about adoption can help to foster use of positive language and greater sensitivity to appropriate boundaries around private information. A more widespread emphasis on the positive outcomes of adoption can also promote understanding and acceptance by young people who are increasingly likely to encounter classmates and neighbors in adoptive families. Read more >>

Making the Decision to Adopt
People adopt children for a variety of reasons. Some couples adopt because of a wish to expand their families and/or provide a home for a child in need. Some couples adopt because they feel that they are too old to pursue pregnancy and birth. And of course, both singles and couples adopt because of infertility. While the decision to adopt after infertility comes easily to some couples, most people do not experience this decision as easy. Instead, the decision making process in adoption is usually quite difficult and emotionally challenging. Read more >>

Entitlement and Claiming in Adoption
It is critically important it is for adoptive parents to come to terms with all the losses related to adoptive parenting. Entitlement incorporates all the responsibilities and risks of parenthood. Ddoptive parents can develop a sense that their child belongs with them by finding the similarities they share with their children in mannerisms, personality characteristics, or even in physical appearance. Read more >>

The Adoptee Search: Looking for the Missing Piece
Adoptive parents need to know that it is normal and necessary for children to search for information about their birth and heritage. Regardless of how we feel as parents about the concept of search, the most important thing is to focus on what is best for our children. To do that, it is helpful to look at search through the eyes of adoptees themselves and then to consider how that information relates to the unique needs of each of our children. As adoptees go in quest of information about their past, is that the facts have been lost or hidden. It is difficult for those of us raised in our birth families to fully comprehend how it can feel to go through life without very basic details about our existence that most of us take for granted. Read more >>

Beneath the Mask
Defining their identity is a challenge for adopted teens gbecause they are without the basic knowledge of where they came from as they try to gain understanding of their personal adoption experiences. Often there is a void of vital information for both parents and therapists of adopted teens, but there are some commonalities among all the adolescents. Learning what questions adopted teens face can help them figure out who they are. Read more >>

Forming a Sense of Self: Multiple Choices for Adoptees
All of us, in the course of growing up, form a sense of identity by building on our experiences and how we interpret them, how others respond to us, and what groups or individual role models we choose. The goal is to establish a stable and positive sense of self that will support our ability to function productively and to establish and maintain relationships. Adoptees face extra challenges as they follow the normal path to forming their sense of self. Read more >>

What Kinds of Emotional Issues will my Adopted Child Face during Adolescence?
Adopted children and adoptive parents know that despite how healthy their families are, as children enter adolescence, emotional struggles require parents' support and guidance. As adopted teens begin to explore and question their identity, beliefs and values, they may trigger deeper emotional issues related to adoption. Read more >>

Special Kinds of Adoption

Understanding and Supporting the Unique Needs in Kinship Adoption
Kinship adoptive families are formed both by choice and often out of necessity. A family member has an unintended pregnancy and another family member agrees to adopt the baby - to keep the child in the family and/or often times filling the dream of a single or infertile couple who are happy to step up to the plate. Read more >>

Love is Not Enough: Parenting in Transracial Adoption
Without question, Caucasian parents raising adopted children of a different race face the important challenge of ensuring that their children grow up with knowledge and pride in their racial/cultural heritage - keys to a cohesive, positive identity and self-esteem. This involves commitment to open communication that parents must make a priority. For many parents, this means making changes in their lifestyle and facing their any feelings of discomfort or fear. Read more >>

Special Kind of Adoption: Jewish Adoptive Families
Jewish parents must carefully consider how they will communicate respect for the religion of their child's birth family. How will they address their child's questions about his birth religion and about how the birth parents may feel about their child being raised in a Jewish home? Formation of a cohesive identity can be a difficult challenge for all adoptees. For adoptees not born Jewish or who are of a different race or culture, feeling connected with the Jewish community - the "clan" can be especially daunting when outside messages question that identity. Read more >>

Gay and Lesbian Adoptive Families
Adoption presents many challenges for families. All adoptive families struggle with society's bias about being "second-best" to biologically related families. Gay and lesbian adoptive families face an extra layer of challenge. Even within the adoption community, it is well known that very often, gay and lesbians face the struggle of being perceived as "last resort" families for adopted children. Gay and lesbian adoptive families not only have to cope with the challenges presented by adoption, including racism if the adoption is transracial/transcultural, but certainly discrimination by people who do not approve of their sexual orientation, known as heterosexism. Read more >>

Same Family, Different Stories
Families with more than one adopted child obviously have children with different stories about how they became part of the family. One of the most important challenges for parents relates to their concerns about sibling relationships and is dependent on each child's unique temperament and personality. Because sibling relationships are very complex, adoptive parents with more than one child need to diminish any comparisons that might imply there is a difference in children's status or role in the family. Read more >>

Birth Country Connections for Families with International Adoption
There are several aspects of adoptive parenting that are different from the usual mothering and fathering, and one is the normal and necessary task of helping children make connections to their heritage. Heritage is the legacy given to us through our biological roots and typically, adopted children do not share genes and ancestors with their parents, instead they have their own unique heritage. Children, who have been adopted internationally, bring the additional gift of a different ethnic heritage, making their families multicultural. Read more >>

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