Research has identified family dynamics within adoptive families as essential to understanding adopted individuals' adjustment. However, there has been a lack of attention to the intricacies of ...adoptive family context, especially dyadically and as a group. This study examines data from 177 adoptive families from the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project, a longitudinal study of families who participated in domestic U.S. infant adoptions. Study participants are from the second and third collection waves, during adolescence and emerging adulthood. Participants completed interviews and questionnaires at home (Wave 2) or online (Wave 3). The present study examines family context in relation to parent-child incompatibility (match between parent expectations and child's behavior from the Parenting Stress Inventory) and how family context during adolescence (Family Assessment Device, Family Inventory of Life Events, Brief Symptom Inventory) is associated with concurrent and later adjustment (Youth and Adult Self Reports). Family context variables were hypothesized to predict parents' and their spouses' ratings of incompatibility using actor-partner interdependence models. Varied actor and partner effects of family dysfunction, parent distress, and family stressors on ratings of parent-child incompatibility were found. Using regressions, family context variables were hypothesized to have positive associations with adolescent and adult adjustment. Variables accounted for significant variance in adopted individuals' outcomes when considering symptom type (internalizing, externalizing) and age (adolescence, emerging adulthood), though many variables did not have a significant main effect. Results allow for better understanding of differential associations of family context with adjustment for adopted individuals and families. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
Existing over many centuries, adoption has been challenged in recent years by evidence about practices that do not respond to the principles, ethics and laws under which it should be enacted. Written ...from a multidisciplinary and international perspective, this article outlines the place of adoption in the child protection system, as well as its core elements of permanence and stability. Recent demographic changes in adoption throughout the world are first examined. The negative consequences of children's exposure to early adversities and the postadoption developmental trajectory of adopted people are also summarized. The focus of the argument is that adoption provides a legitimate model for the alternative care of children if undertaken within a rights and ethics framework that emphasizes children's best interests, as set out in international conventions and national laws. Implications for adoption policy and practice are presented.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, PRFLJ, UM, UPUK
Children join adoptive families through domestic adoption from the public child welfare system, infant adoption through private agencies, and international adoption. Each pathway presents distinctive ...developmental opportunities and challenges. Adopted children are at higher risk than the general population for problems with adaptation, especially externalizing, internalizing, and attention problems. This review moves beyond the field's emphasis on adoptee-nonadoptee differences to highlight biological and social processes that affect adaptation of adoptees across time. The experience of stress, whether prenatal, postnatal/preadoption, or during the adoption transition, can have significant impacts on the developing neuroendocrine system. These effects can contribute to problems with physical growth, brain development, and sleep, activating cascading effects on social, emotional, and cognitive development. Family processes involving contact between adoptive and birth family members, co-parenting in gay and lesbian adoptive families, and racial socialization in transracially adoptive families affect social development of adopted children into adulthood.
Parents' socialization beliefs have implications for the psychological adjustment of their children through their parenting behaviors; however, such pathways have rarely been established among ...Chinese American families. The present study examined how Chinese American parents' goals for their children to take on bicultural values and behaviors (i.e., bicultural socialization beliefs) influenced their child's level of depressive symptoms in emerging adulthood through their parenting behaviors and the level of parent-child alienation. Data came from Waves 2 (adolescence) and 3 (emerging adulthood) of a longitudinal study of 444 Chinese American families. Mothers' reports of their bicultural socialization beliefs positively predicted adolescents' reports of mothers' autonomy-supporting behaviors and interdependence-focused shaming behaviors. In addition, there was a significant and negative indirect effect of mothers' bicultural socialization beliefs on emerging adult depressive symptoms through adolescents' reports of mothers' autonomy-supporting behaviors and emerging adults' reports of alienation to their parents. In contrast, there was a significant and positive indirect effect from fathers' reports of their bicultural socialization beliefs to emerging adult depressive symptoms, through emerging adults' reports of alienation only. Findings contribute to our understanding of bicultural processes in Chinese American families and establish that parents' beliefs have significant implications for the psychological adjustment of Chinese American youth.
Public Significance Statement
Chinese American parents' goals for their adolescent child to be bicultural are important for their child's mental health in emerging adulthood. Practitioners would benefit from giving attention to the bicultural goals that underlie parents' behaviors in understanding how to best serve Chinese American youth and families.
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•Parent and adolescent reports of internalizing were mildly or not at all correlated.•The majority of adoptees did not experience clinically significant internalizing.•Some adoptees experience ...internalizing that is undetected by parents and untreated.
Mental health is a critical area of concern for adoptees, particularly during adolescence. The use of individual counseling services is one way through which adoptees can gain support and learn coping strategies for their mental health needs. However, for adolescents, parents are often the gatekeepers for access to these services. Using data from the Minnesota-Texas Adoption Research Project (MTARP), a longitudinal study of domestic infant adoptees, the present study investigated adolescent domestic adoptees’ (N = 156, mean age 15.7 years, 52% female) reported levels of internalizing symptoms compared to their mothers’ (N = 173) and fathers’ (N = 162) reports. The adopted adolescents ranged in age from 11 to 20 years (mean = 15.7). Rates of symptom agreement were compared and examined in relation to the likelihood that the adoptee was currently or had been engaged in individual counseling services in the past year. The group with the highest rate of enrollment in counseling services were those in which the adoptive parent and adoptee agreed that the adoptee was experiencing high rates of internalizing symptoms. Of greatest concern was the finding that a large portion of adolescents reported significant levels of internalizing symptoms while their parent did not, and that many of these adoptees were not receiving any counseling services at that time. The results from this study demonstrate the importance of parent-adolescent reports and the need to improve parent perceptions of adoptee mental health.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The formation of an adoption information gap was examined for a group of 169 emerging adults (M = 25.0 years) who were adopted as infants. Participants completed interviews and questionnaires at ...adolescence and emerging adulthood (late teens to 20s). The Adoption Curiosity Pathway model guided research questions about formation of an adoption information gap, which exists when there is a difference between what an adopted person knows and what he or she desires to know regarding his or her adoption. In addition, specific issues were identified about which emerging adults were curious. Differences in these specific issues were examined across gender and openness arrangement with birth parents at emerging adulthood. The most frequently sought information was medical and health history. Logistic regression analyses revealed that the formation of an adoption information gap, which contains the specific items of curiosity, was more likely for those who were less satisfied with the amount of openness with birth parents during both adolescence and emerging adulthood. Implications for practice are presented.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Adopted persons face special challenges in the development of identity, as aspects of their histories may be unknown, making it difficult to construct a coherent narrative linking past, present, and ...future. Extensive literature on adjustment outcomes for adopted persons indicates an elevated risk for adjustment problems. In this study, a low-risk sample of adopted youth is involved to examine, longitudinally, connections between adoptive identity and adjustment. Participants included 145 adopted youth who participated in Waves 2 (W2: adolescence: mean age = 15.7) and 3 (W3: emerging adulthood: mean age = 25.0) of a longitudinal study with a nationwide sample. Children were placed with same-race adoptive families (over 95% White) as infants through domestic private adoption agencies in the U.S. Internalizing and externalizing behaviors were assessed by the Youth Self Report (W2) and the Adult Self Report (W3). Adoptive identity was assessed by ratings of 6 dimensions coded from interviews which, using cluster analysis, revealed 4 adoptive identity subgroups: unexamined, limited, unsettled, and integrated. Factorial ANCOVA examined mean differences in W3 internalizing problems across identity clusters while controlling for W2 internalizing. The main effect for adoptive identity cluster was significant: F(3, 840.72) = 3.724, p = .011. Adopted adolescents in the unsettled group had significantly higher levels of internalizing problems in emerging adulthood than persons in the unexamined and limited categories. A similar ANCOVA for W3 externalizing behavior was not significant. Identity profiles high in negative affect may be at particular risk of increased levels of internalizing problems.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
Many Chinese American parents desire for their children to take on both Chinese heritage and mainstream American values and behaviors, referred to as their bicultural socialization beliefs. Parents' ...development of such beliefs appears linked with parent-adolescent conflict concerning cultural values, yet the direction and temporal ordering of this relation is unclear. The present study aimed to resolve discrepancies in the literature through examining the bidirectional relations between Chinese American parents' bicultural socialization beliefs and the acculturative family conflict they experience with their children. Relations were examined across two developmental periods of the children: adolescence and emerging adulthood. Data came from a longitudinal study of 444 Chinese American families from the west coast of the United States. Mothers and fathers reported on their own bicultural socialization beliefs for their children. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents/emerging adults each reported on levels of acculturative family conflict within mother-adolescent and father-adolescent dyads. Higher levels of family conflict in adolescence consistently predicted greater increases in parents' desires for their children to be bicultural in emerging adulthood. Results have implications for interventions with Chinese American families and demonstrate Chinese American parents as capable of adapting and growing from challenging, culturally based interactions with their children.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
Objective
To examine how lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parents navigate openness dynamics with children's birth family across a 5‐year period, when children are preschool‐ to school‐age.
...Background
Few studies regarding birth family contact have included longitudinal data as well as a sample of adoptive parents of varying sexual orientations. Thus, this study used a multiprong theoretical approach grounded in emotional distance regulation, families of choice, and gender theory.
Method
A mixed‐methods approach with longitudinal quantitative survey and qualitative interview data from 106 lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parent families was employed to examine the type of contact, its frequency, who was involved, perceptions of this contact, and the extent to which formal agreements exist between adoptive and birth families regarding contact.
Results
Findings revealed variations in the status and perceptions of contact across adoptive families. We also discovered that many lesbian and gay adoptive parents reported that birth parents had intentionally selected a same‐sex adoptive couple, and birth parents appeared to have distinct reasons for this choice.
Conclusion
Although some differences in birth family contact distinguished lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parent families, these families generally appeared more similar than different.
Implications
Implications—particularly a need for demonstrated competencies in adoption openness—are discussed for adoption professionals in policy, practice, and legal realms.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, INZLJ, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
The present study examined adoption-related family conversation as a mediator of the association between adoptive parents' facilitation of contact with birth relatives and adolescent adoptive ...identity formation. The sample consisted of 184 adoptive families. Data were collected in two waves from adoptive mothers and fathers, and adoptees (M = 15.68 years at adolescence; M = 24.95 years at emerging adulthood) using semistructured interviews and questionnaires. Structural equation models showed a good fit to sample data, and analyses supported the hypothesized mediation model. Contact with birth relatives is associated with more frequent adoption-related family conversation, which in turn is associated with the development of adoptive identity. These results highlight the importance of supporting activities such as contact that lead to adoption-related family conversation.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
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