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How does adoption affect children?

As easy as it would be, there's no single answer to this question.

Here at American Adoptions, we know every adoption journey is different. And, as a private infant adoption agency in the U.S., we are only experienced in one branch of this family-building option. However, we're here to help those interested in adoption learn more - and that includes information on the effects of being adopted.

Below, you can learn more about how being adopted affects a person, based on research and studies conducted in the past few decades.

If you're interested in this topic, we'd also encourage you to read stories from adoptees, but keep in mind: Every adoptee's experience is different, and no single adoptee can speak for all those adopted. It's a complicated journey, and perhaps no one is more entitled to complicated feelings than the one person who had no say in the decision.
A note: American Adoptions would never assume to speak for adoptees. While the information below is research-based, it is not an extensive description of the impact of adoption on individuals.
What are the Potential Long-Term Effects of Adoption?

It's naïve to say that there are no effects of adoption on children. In fact, placement itself greatly impacts a child - for better or for worse, they will be raised by non-biological parents, with all the nuances that entails.

The short-term adoption effects on a child can be wide-ranging, due to the varying experiences that children have when they are placed with adoptive parents. There's a great difference between a child adopted as an infant and a child adopted out of foster care during their teenage years.

So, what about later on in that adoptee's life? What are the effects of adoption on adults who were adopted?

Before we get into the potential long-term effects of being adopted, you must remember that no two adoptees are the same. Some people will identify strongly with the effects listed below, while others will have no frame of reference. And that's okay - your adoption journey is unique, and no matter what you feel, it's valid.

Something interesting: One study from 1998 of twins raised separately - one by biological parents, one by non-biological parents - revealed there were few significant effects of adoption on the adult adjustment of the adoptees. Instead, the study suggested that the adoption effects on a child are more related to the child's socioeconomic status (more on that below) than the placement with non-biological parents.

All that said, here are just a few of the observed effects of adoption on children in the past few decades.

Emotional or Mental Trauma

There is often a great difference in how adoptees process their adoption trauma based on their age at placement. For example, those who are adopted later in life (through international adoption or foster care) can often remember traumatic or neglectful events in great detail, while those adopted at infancy cannot in the same vivid manner.

But the fact is that all adopted children grieve the loss of their biological family, their heritage and their culture to some extent.

As an adoptee learns to accept and move forward from their personal history, they may experience a few psychological effects of adoption on children, like:

However, with proper coping mechanisms and support, adoptees often demonstrate resilience in overcoming early adversities. In fact, one study from 2007 indicated no substantial difference in self-esteem between adoptees and non-adopted individuals.

If you are struggling with emotional trauma regarding your adoption, please call the National Alliance on Mental Illness's Hotline at 1-800-950-NAMI(6264).

Lack of Information in Closed Adoptions

Of all the negative effects of adoption on children, lack of information from a closed adoption is one thing most experts agree upon.

Multiple studies have demonstrated the benefits of open adoption for all members of the triad. Adoptees, however, can receive the most advantages. Research shows that adolescents who have ongoing contact with their birth parents are more satisfied with their adoption than those without contact. It's no wonder that more than 95 percent of adoptions are completed with the agreement to post-placement contact, whether it is direct or mediated by an adoption professional.

However, when a child is placed into a closed adoption, they are cut off from their biological and personal history. It's hard to build an identity without knowing where you come from, which is why closed adoption commonly causes dire effects of adoption on a child.

Fortunately, this can easily be avoided with open adoption. And it's why American Adoptions requires all adoptive parents to be open to a certain degree of contact (with the final amount determined by the expectant mother who picks them).

Socioeconomic Status and School Performance

In a way, adoption is a self-fulling prophecy. Adoptive parents must meet certain requirements to adopt, which means they are often more financially secure and practically prepared to raise a child than others. In turn, children of adoptive parents often experience a childhood with significant advantages.

A 2007 study of adoptees by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that:

Adopted children were more likely to have health insurance and less likely to live in households below the poverty line.

85% of adopted children were in "very good to excellent health."

68% of adoptees were read to every day as a child (in comparison to 48% of non-adopted children).

73% of adopted children were sung to and told stories every day (compared to 59% of non-adopted children).

Adopted children were more likely to participate in extracurricular activities.

More than half of the studied adoptees were reported to have "very good or excellent" performance in reading, language arts and math.

In addition, adoptive parents have been found to be significantly more involved in their child's education and extracurricular activities than any other parents.

A more recent study from 2015 indicates that adopted children are more likely to have a diagnosed disability (physical or mental) and more likely to have behavior or learning problems in class. However, researchers point out that adoptive parents are more likely to seek diagnosis and care for their children than biological parents - which could mean the numbers are artificially high in comparison to non-adopted children.

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When it comes to positive and negative effects of adoption on children, it's tempting to want to talk about the topic broadly. But, adoption is neither black nor white; it's a complicated journey full of challenges and rewards. Rather than paint the whole of adoption as "good" or "bad" for adoptees, it's more reasonable to approach it with a nuanced view.

Our adoption specialists work hard to educate prospective adoptive parents and birth parents about the impact of adoption - not just for themselves but, more importantly, for the child at the center of the process. We provide support and counseling to reduce the likelihood of negative long-term effects of adoption, and we are always here to talk with adoptees whose parents worked through American Adoptions.

We know adoption can be hard. But we're here to make it a little bit easier for everyone involved. You can request free information online to learn more about our agency's mission.

Disclaimer
Information available through these links is the sole property of the companies and organizations listed therein. American Adoptions provides this information as a courtesy and is in no way responsible for its content or accuracy.

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The Possible Long-Term Effects of Adoption on Adoptees

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What is the impact of adoption on children and adults? We explore the research on long-term effects of adoption here. Whether you're an adoptee, a birth parent or adoptive parent, understanding the effects of being adopted will make you a responsible member of the triad.

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Center for Treatment of Anxiety & Mood Disorders

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When we think about adopted children, most of us picture a happy family of cooing parents bonding with an adorable infant. For the adult who was adopted as a child, however, this blissful image is often tarnished by issues that carry over from childhood.

What problems do adopted adults have? Among other things, they often suffer from:

Feelings of loss and grief

Problems with developing an identity

Reduced self-esteem and self-confidence

Increased risk of substance abuse

Higher rates of mental health disorders, such as depression and PTSD.

In fact, Childwelfare.gov reports that, "...most of the literature points to adopted adolescents and adults being more likely to receive counseling than their nonadopted peers (Borders et al., 2000; Miller et al., 2000)."

What Are The Psychological Effects Of Adoption?

Way back in 1982, Silverstein and Kaplan did a study that identified seven core issues in adoption that still hold true today. They are:

The study reports that, "Many of the issues inherent in the adoption experience converge when the adoptee reaches adolescence. At this time three factors intersect: an acute awareness of the significance of being adopted; a drive toward emancipation; and a biopsychosocial striving toward the development of an integrated identity."

Loss first comes into the adoptee's life when they are given up by their birth parents. Although the child is taken into a new family, there is still a sense of loss, even if the child is an infant. We know that it is very beneficial for newborns to bond with their mother - imagine how it can affect a baby who does not make this crucial connection.

Later, as the child matures and finds out they were adopted, that sense of loss becomes a theme running through the person's subconscious. As such, adopted children typically feel succeeding losses much more deeply than their non-adopted counterparts.

Rejection is part of the initial loss the adoptee experiences. In order to be adopted, they had to be rejected by their birth parents. Later in life, if a birth parent blocks the adoptee's search for them, the person experiences yet another rejection.

Guilt/shame comes from the adoptee's feelings of rejection. As we know, children tend to blame themselves when something bad happens, therefore an adopted child naturally questions what they must have done wrong (or what was wrong or "bad" about them) that made their birth parent give them away. Even if the adoptee knows the reason they were placed for adoption, they often still secretly harbor the idea that they were somehow "broken" or could have been a "better" baby, which is why their birth parents rejected them.

Grief is part of adoption because the child lost their birth parents. We see adoption as a joyous occasion for the parents who are adopting the child, therefore the thought is that adopted kids should feel thankful to have a new family. Grieving for what they lost doesn't usually have a place in the child's life - it is considered a rejection of the adoptive parents if the child grieves.

Additionally, children sometimes don't feel the effects of their deep-seated loss until they reach adolescence or adulthood and have developed a high enough cognitive level to understand what the loss means to their life. In many cases, this leads to substance abuse, depression, or aggression.

Identity is another loss the adopted adult must face. While they have been given a new name and identity by their adoptive parents, is it who they truly are? Or are they really the person they were before the adoption?

Even if they fully embrace their new family, the adoptee still suffers a loss of identity because they often know nothing about their birth family. What medical concerns do they need to watch out for (i.e." does heart disease run in their birth family)? Who are their ancestors? What do they know about inherited genetic ties or family backgrounds?

Intimacy is frequently difficult for the adopted adult because they have such deeply rooted feelings of rejection, guilt or shame, and don't truly have an identity. Often people who have gone through these negative emotions subconsciously push others away to avoid experiencing another loss.

The Silverstein and Kaplan study notes that, "Many adoptees as teen[s] state that they truly have never felt close to anyone. Some youngsters declare a lifetime emptiness related to a longing for the birth mother they may have never seen."

Lastly, adoptees often feel little sense of mastery/control over their lives because they had no say in the matter of their adoption. Whether placed with their adoptive family at birth or as an older child, they were not given an option. As they mature, this can result in power struggles with authority figures and a reduced sense of responsibility.

How To Cope With Being Adopted

The first step to coping with being adopted is to recognize that the experience itself leaves residual problems. When the adoptee learns about and acknowledges the core issues inherent to adoption, they can begin to talk about them with someone, such as their adoptive parents, support groups, or a professional.

Accepting and exploring these core issues helps the adoptee work through them. The open adoptions that are the norm nowadays may reduce their sense of loss and guilt, while interacting with other adopted adults can allow the person to feel less alone.

It should be said that, while finding the birth parents can give the adoptee answers and closure, this is a deeply emotional process. Before contacting their birth family, the individual should prepare themselves to experience possible further rejection if a reunion is not what they dreamed it would be (or if the birth parents refuse to meet them once they have been found).

In addition, if an adoptee seeks out a therapist, they should make sure they talk to a professional who has special training in adoption issues.

We Can Help

If you are an adopted adult and are struggling with your feelings, the mental health professionals at The Center for Treatment of Anxiety and Mood Disorders in Delray Beach, Florida, can help. For more information, contact us or call us today at 561-496-1094.

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There are seven core issues that follow adopted children into adulthood. These concerns affect them emotionally and must be addressed to begin healing.

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Recently, one of our readers asked if we would write an article about the difficulties faced by children and adults who were adopted. This is submitted in answer to that request.

Case samples:

All names and places are fictionalized:

A. A woman discovers that her birth mother is alive even though her adoptive parents told her she was dead. In point of fact, her adoptive mother had tried to contact her and the adoptive family from the time she was five years old and onward.

B. A young woman from a war torn Asian nation was adopted by a white American family. She will not search for her parents and family because she is convinced they are dead and she does not wish to "betray" her American parents. She comes to therapy because she has difficulty maintaining intimate relationships and feels quite depressed.

C. An adopted girl is convinced that her parents are her natural parents. However, they are unable to explain to her why she is in their wedding photographs when they had told her she was born a year after they married.

D. A male baby is adopted by a Jewish family and is raised in the Jewish religion. There are no records anywhere of his birth parents and he knows nothing of his genetic origins.

These are just a few of the types of situations that adopted children find themselves confronted with either during childhood or after they enter adulthood.

Other Sources of Information:

Even though a lot more is known today about the importance of the adoptee learning about their natural parents amd their genetic histories, many individual and family issues involving the people who do the adopting, interfere with good child development and adult adjustment.

There are many autobiographical books available, written by those who were adopted and writing about their experiences that provide lots of information about the issues experienced by these people. In addition, a Google search of the internet will yield lots of research studies done on this very issue.

Issues faced by adopted persons:

1. It is very common for those who were adopted to feel rejected and abandoned by their birth parents. This is accompanied by feelings of grief and loss. There is no set time or age when these feeling surface but, sooner or later, they do.

2. Feelings of loss and rejection are often accompanied by a damaged sense of self esteem. There is an understandable tendency to think that "something must be wrong with me for my birth parents to have give me away." It must be understood that these feelings and thoughts are unrelated to the amount of love and support received from the adoptive parents and family.

3. Guilt accompanies loss and grief because the adopted individual believes that they are being disloyal to the people who adopted, loved and raised them. They do not want to hurt or betray their adoptive mother or father. Feelings of guilt and fears of being disloyal were what prevented the girl in case "C" from asking the obvious question, "why am I in your wedding pictures if I was not born yet?"

4. In cases B and D there is a disconnect with the original heritage of the birth parents. For the Asian young woman, raised in a large family with many siblings, the obvious racial differences did come to "haunt her" later on. While she wished to visit the Asian nation of her birth, she was so totally identified with being American, and even "while" that she feared stirring up her past. She, too, did not want to cause any hurt to her adoptive parents. However, it must be said for them, that they encouraged and offered to help her in her search. Despite this encouragement, she was not ready to do any search. Long discussions in therapy never revealed what she feared.

5. According to the great psychologist, Eric Erikson, adolescence involves a search for self identity. While this search is difficult for most teenagers, it presents special problems for adoptee. Assuming they never met their natural parents and family and have no idea of their genetic background, they are left with a gigantic gap in their search to answer the age old question, "Who am I." Of course, the more information available to young people, the less of a gap there is in the information they need to formulate a real sense of themselves. In all of the cases above, a huge gap existed in this information. Except for the Asian young woman, all were denied any information, mostly because the adoptive families, either wittingly or unwittingly, did not provide necessary facts.

6. Missing genetic information is important for obvious medical reasons. It is important for everyone to have knowledge of the medical history because it can provide clues to genetic diseases. For example, in case D, the patient entered psychotherapy unaware that he had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. His family was unaware of this as well. If more had been known about the birth parents, it might have been possible to predict his childhood problems at home and at school. It was only after entering psychotherapy that he was evaluated and diagnosed with ADHD and appropriately treated for this. The information was relieving to both him and his adoptive parents because everyone now knew that he was never "bad" or "dumb" but afflicted with this disorder of the brain.

7. Many adults who were adopted struggle with fears that they will be disloyal to their adoptive parents if they search for their natural parents. In my experience, the only real exception to this is when adoptive parents make the very deliberate and conscious effort to inform and encourage their child to do a search and to let them know how important that is. Unfortunately, as illustrated in cases A and C, there are people who discourage such a search and even lie to their adopted child about their origins. In the end, lies and distortions never succeed and often result in feelings of anger at the adoptive parent, sometimes causing a breach in the relationship.

Why do a few adoptive parents hide the truth?

There are cases where the adopting family lives in a state of fear that, somehow and someday, they will lose their child. This fear of loss, often irrational, is a powerful motivation to keep the adopted child as close as possible.

The truth is that, adopted children who search for their natural parents, have no reason for shifting their loyalties and feelings. They set out on the search because their is a deep-seated need for most of us to know as much as possible about our history, both racial, cultural, personal and genetic.

Adoption Today:

Much has been learned by past adoption experiences that now make some of helps ease the way for families and adoptee:

1. Triad adoption: In this situation, the birth mother and adoptive parents legally agree to have the birth mother involved in the development of the child. This may take the form of monthly visits all the way to weekly and even daily visits, according to what feels acceptable to all parties.

2. People adopting children from other cultures or racial groups agree to raise the child with knowledge and experience in the background of the adopted child. I know of cases where adoptive parents see to it that their child is raised knowing and practicing both the language, customs and religious rituals of their birth parent.

3. Enlightened adoption agencies now keep all records on file of the children put up for adoption and make those records readily available when and if the adopted person wants to learn of their background. They will even arrange meetings with the birth parents.

Today, adoption is common place and no longer carries with it the dark features of shame that colored it dating back to the 19th century and earlier. This is a positive change in making it possible for everyone to feel more open and assured about the adoption process.

Were you adopted and are you struggling with some or all of these issues? Here are some suggestions that might help:

1. There are many support groups for those who were adopted and need help in coping with their feelings, fears and frustrations. An Internet search can lead you to these types of groups.

2. Psychotherapy is extremely helpful in reducing guilt, anxiety, depression and fear about being adopted. It can also remove some of the internal stumbling blocks to doing a search, if you wish.

3. Read as much as possible about adopted children, families and their experiences.

It does take a certain amount of courage but, go on that search and see what you can learn. Be open about it with your family of adoption. You are not being disloyal or unappreciative by doing that search.

Your comments and suggestions are encouraged.

Allan N. Schwartz, PhD

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Psychological Issues Faced By Adopted Children And Adults

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Recently, one of our readers asked if we would write an article about the difficulties faced by children and adults who were adopted. This is submitted in