Adoption Flashcards
Current Trends (in adoption)
- Open adoptions along a continuum
- Adoption over long term foster care
- -older children with traumatic backgrounds
- -attachment issues common the larger the child is not in a single family context
- Adoption from Abroad
Adoption From Abroad
- Adequacy of care varies tremendously.
- records may be incomplete or inadequate
- higher incidence of disrupted attachment
- Physical differences make adoption public
Adoption Process
- Commonly involves loss as an issue at the beginning.
- Public or Private
- Domestic or International
- Process involves a home study training and unclear waiting period.
- Can be expedited if willing to adopt older child, mixed race child, or with some significant disabilities.
Attachment
The younger the adoption the better.
-typically do not experience loss until age 8
Later-children lose relationships with biological family, friends, pets, foods, customs, surroundings,
- issues of match are key
-answering to outside agencies
The Family Story
- important to start talking about adoption story early
- how the story is told and added to overtime as developmentally appropriate is key.
- Biological siblings may experience exasperated sibling rivalry.
Infancy and Toddlers
- The ability to converse openly is key
- -“goodness of fit” issues
- -parental loss of idealized biological child
- -reasons for adoption and preparedness for the resultant issues
- celebration of the “gotcha day”
School Age Children
- Adaptive Grieving: working through abandonment issues
- Family projects in school
Adolescents
- Identity issues
- idealization of birth parents
- wondering what if
- integration of parts from both families
- more conflict is common
Adult Adoptee
Continuing identity issues
- searching for birth parents
- maintaining relationships with real parents
Difficult to place adoptions
- Child over age 5
- minority/mixed race children
- physically, emotionally or developmentally disabled.
- Sibling groups
- General issues
- -Attachment issues, trauma, preparedness for the enormity of difficulties.
International Adoptions
physical, cognitive and mental health issues
-communication issues
-culture shock
-cultural integration of the whole family, not just the adoptee
—food and language and music
-Issues in adolescence with pressures towards conformity.
Goal=true bi-cultural identity.
Transracial Adoptions
24-40% of all adoptions. Lots of public opinions “color blind” ideals diminish the importance of race in our culture. Child may grow up as a minority in their immediate social context and the family.
What helps?
Positive ties to child’s cultural and racial community
- creating multicultural identity shared by all family members
- connecting to other multicultural families and activities.
- openly discussing and acknowledging racism/prejudice.
Resiliency in Adopted Families
Marital stability and shared parental values
- open communication, structure, warmth, and flexibility.
- realistic expectations of adoption
- parents perception of difficulties as problems to be solved not signs that adoption is failing.
- empathy toward child’s experience.
