Making sense of adoption: Integration and differentiation from the perspective of adopted children in middle childhood

Elsbeth Neil

Children and Youth Services Review, 2012, vol. 34, issue 2, 409-416

Abstract: Adopted children must integrate into their adoptive families, but they also need to differentiate between their adoptive and birth families, and to make sense of their adoptive status. This research examines these issues using the perspectives of adopted children in middle childhood. Forty three English domestic adoptees who had been placed for adoption under the age of four (mean age 21months) were interviewed when aged between 5 and 13 (mean age 8.6years). Seventy percent had been adopted from the public care system, and most retained some contact with their birth family. Qualitative analysis revealed that almost all children felt fully integrated into their adoptive family, expressing positive feelings of love for and closeness to their adoptive parents. In terms of managing the tasks of differentiation, one quarter of children were not yet exploring the meaning of adoption, another quarter of children found these issues unproblematic, and half of the children had complicated emotions that often included feelings of loss, sadness or rejection in relation to their birth family. Over half of children reported experiencing uncomfortable questioning or teasing from other children about their adoption. The findings from this qualitative and exploratory research support the need for openness of information in adoption, the importance of preparing and supporting adoptive parents in helping children make sense of being adopted, and the need to help children manage their adoptive status in the peer group context.

Keywords: Adoption; Children's views; Qualitative interviews; Adoptive families; Understanding adoption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740911004233
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:34:y:2012:i:2:p:409-416

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.11.011

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().