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Book Review: All About Adoption:How Families Are Made and How Kids Feel About It

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All About Adoption: How Families Are Made and How Kids Feel About It is a book from Magination Press, which specializes in titles helping children understand tough situations or deal with feelings. (Magination Press is also the publisher of Maybe Days, a Book about Foster Care.) All About Adoption authors Marc Nemiroff and Jane Annunziata are both clinical psychologists specializing in families and children. All About Adoption starts out by saying “there are lots of different ways to have a baby. ..some parents have one baby..and some parents have two or three babies all at once. “Babies grow inside a … Continue reading →

October: Adoption Blog Month in Review

In the adoption blogs for October you’ll find several series: one series on research on “how adopted children turn out” and the genes-vs.-environment question, one on giving back and how adoption makes the world seem a bit smaller, and one on single parent adoption. Media reviews included a workbook helping parents imagine what an inter-country move might be like for their child and think through related decisions. I also reviewed a wonderful resource for parents who think their child may have been exposed to alcohol prenatally. Another review was of an incredible story of an Ethiopian woman who runs two … Continue reading →

How Much is Genes, How Much is Environment?

A generation or two ago, adoptive parents (at least adoptive parents of infants) were told that their children were a blank slate. There would be no “embarrassing” sharing of medical or social information from the birth family; that was irrelevant. It would be as though the child was born to the family. Then science began to validate that many more illnesses than previously believed had genetic roots, and that many behavioral problems and mental illnesses had physical roots. Researchers began to study identical twins separated at birth, siblings raised with their birth families, and birth parents of children adopted at … Continue reading →

Does Research Validate Our Hopes?

My last blog shared, and sometimes critiqued, some negative psychological research on adoptees. This blog will focus on research showing positive outcomes for adoptees. As I said in my last blog, this is not a comprehensive expert research review—just a parent sharing some things to mull over. A 1964 study performed developmental appraisals on fifty adopted children between ages three and seven. All of the children had learned about their adoption before the researchers met them, and none of the children were being seen in counseling or reported to have problems. Their I.Q.s were higher than expected. There was no … Continue reading →

Does Research Validate Our Fears?

My last blogs have talked about the fears adoptive parents sometimes have, and the media images and popular misconceptions feeding them. This blog and the next one will address whether research supports the idea that children who were adopted are more likely to have problems in school, in family life, and in relating to others and society. A cautionary note: It is possible to drown in research studies and come out more confused than when you started. I have spent the past week reading summaries of research studies. No doubt there are other points that the authors of the studies … Continue reading →

When Adopted Kids Grow Up: Worst-Case Scenarios

My last blog spoke of research on adoptees’ adjustment. I mentioned David Kirschner’s book of worst-case case studies. It is a pain-filled and painful book of adoptees who became criminals. But adoptive parents need not panic. Kirschner makes no claim that most adoptees will be violent or that adoption is bad, or even that all adoptees will be maladjusted. He believes that looking for a pattern in the court cases he has worked on might illuminate things that don’t work to help adoptees. He believes that his experiences can not only help adoptees, parents and therapists to avoid horrible outcomes, … Continue reading →

What Really Happens When Adopted Kids Grow Up?

It’s a fear that creeps into most parents’ minds occasionally, and perhaps a bit more often for adoptive parents: “What if my kid turns out to be a totally messed-up adult?” It’s awfully hard to imagine a sweet-faced, affectionate five-year-old as an out-of-control teen or an embittered and estranged young adult. Yet, sometimes we meet caring parents whose teens have fallen into drug abuse, or sweet elderly neighbors whose children never visit, or a couple celebrating their 60th anniversary whose children have each been divorced three times. Thus we have two opposing voices in our heads. Usually the one that … Continue reading →

Birth Family and Entitlement in State Adoptions

I just wanted to touch on some thoughts I had relating to birth family, entitlement and communication. These are mostly things I wanted to get off my chest, but I hope someone who needs to hear them will have a better understanding of one adoptive mother’s perspective anyway. Allowing Contact with Birth Family Most parents I know would agree there is often a sense of loyalty within family—even within birth family. Whether or not this is true in any specific case, it’s because of this many adoptive parents are leery to allow much contact—if any, fearing some information, out of … Continue reading →