Issues to Consider Before You Adopt
Research demonstrates that most children who are adopted thrive, and that with training and support, the most ordinary people have grown into their roles as adoptive parents with amazing results.
However, adoption always introduces its own set of conditions that affect the lives of those adopted and of the families who adopt them. Adoptive families are indeed different from families created by birth, and every adoptive family experiences, and is affected by these differences.
The following resources explore some of those differences and issues which may emerge and re-emerge as all family members go through life’s developmental stages.
More Information and Resources:
- Grief and Loss Issues for Adopted Children (pdf)
- Fantasies and Fears of Adopted Children (pdf)
- The Adoptive Family: Creating Family Kinship Networks
- Intergenerational Adoption Issues (pdf)
- Open Adoption: Realities and Considerations
- LGBTQ Youth and Adoption: Articles and Insight from the NCCWE
- Five Hot Buttons Not to Push: What Friends and Relatives Should Know
- Drifting Into Adoption (pdf)
- Lifebooks: Preserving Your Child’s Story
The Invisible Realities of Adoption
What all of our kids have in common - all of the kids available for adoption - is the experience of abandonment. Our kids have been abandoned before having any of that; our kids are often abandoned at an age so young that they don't even have words yet. Adoption ends the experience of being abandoned, but the effects of the abandonment still remain.
Dealing with Adoptee Fears of Loss
Between the ages of eight and 10, children have enough biological facts to understand that their birth parents are real people, out there somewhere, even if they don’t know who they are. stirs emotions, from incredulity to sadness, disappointment, anger, confusion, and guilt. Kids at this stage may not always express their feelings, so parents should watch for fantasies, and help their child work through his story.
Why Children Need to Know The Facts About Their Lives
hildren need to know the truth about their lives starting immediately. It is never to early to start talking to your children about adoption and how they came to be in your family.
7 Core Issues of Adoption
The parent and child in an adoptive family have an unshared genetic and social history that all must take into account. All should understand the seven core issues of adoption and know that they resurface often in the lives of any member of the adoption triad.
Preparing Your Family for Adoption
Here are a few tips on preparing children already in the family for a new, adopted sibling or cousin. The advice to other family members can by applied to children as well.
Grief and Loss Issues for Adopted Children: Caring Adults Can Make a World of Difference
Adopted children aren’t crazy or unloving if they feel sad or angry or fearful - let them know that. No one can make these children’s losses smaller by suppressing them - caring adults can, however, help them to make the rest of their lives bigger.
Intergenerational Issues in Adoption
The Seven Core Issues of Adoption and Intergenerational Issues in Adoption developed by Sharon Kaplan Roszia and Deborah Silverstein addresses many of the adoptee and the birth parents fears and doubts.
Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Adopt
Important questions you should ask yourself and your family before you adopt.
Preparing Your Family for Adoption
Here are a few tips on preparing children already in the family for a new, adopted sibling or cousin. The advice to other family members can by applied to children as well.
Adoptive Families are Different
Adoptive families are indeed different. Assuredly, they are not less-than nor second-best, but they are different from families created by birth. Here we pinpointed eight areas of difference: