Читать книгу Infants and Children in Context - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 115

Another reproductive option for prospective parents is adoption. Adults who choose to adopt have similar motives for parenthood as those who raise biological children, such as valuing family ties, continuing a family line, feeling that parenting is a life task, and desiring to have a nurturing relationship with a child (Jennings, Mellish, Tasker, Lamb, & Golombok, 2014; Malm & Welti, 2010). Heterosexual and same-sex adults report similar reasons for choosing adoption (Goldberg, Downing, & Moyer, 2012).

Adoptive children tend to be raised by parents with higher levels of education and income than other parents. This is partly due to self-selection and partly because of the screening that adoptive parents must undergo before they are allowed to adopt. It is estimated that transracial adoptions, in which a child (typically of color) is adopted by parents of a different race (most often White), account for about one-quarter of adoptions (Marr, 2017). Although there is little research, transracial adoptive children, and especially adolescents, may face challenges in ethnic and racial socialization and identity development (Wiley, 2017). Research reviews are mixed, with some suggesting no clear relation among racial or ethnic identity, parental socialization efforts, and adjustment (Boivin & Hassan, 2015) and more recent analyses suggesting that racial and ethnic socialization is associated with healthy adoptee outcomes (Montgomery & Jordan, 2018). Parents can foster their adoptive children’s ethnic and racial socialization by exposing children to their racial and ethnic heritage and providing opportunities for children to learn about and interact with people who identify with their birth race and ethnicity (Hrapczynski & Leslie, 2018).

Overall, adoptive children tend to spend more time with their parents and have more educational resources than other children (Zill, 2015). Yet some adopted children show less engagement in class and tend to have more academic difficulties than other children. Longitudinal research suggests that adoption is associated with lower academic achievement across childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood compared with nonadopted comparison groups (Brown, Waters, & Shelton, 2017). Adopted children tend to experience greater stress prenatally, early in life, prior to adoption, and during the adoption process that likely influences their long-term adjustment after adoption (Grotevant & McDermott, 2014). Adopted children therefore may show more psychological problems and adjustment difficulties than their nonadoptive peers, in some cases persisting into adulthood (A. Brown et al., 2017; Palacios & Brodzinsky, 2010).

Children’s experiences prior to adoption and their developmental status at the time of adoption influence their outcomes (Balenzano, Coppola, Cassibba, & Moro, 2018). Children who experience neglect or fear and lack an early bond to a caregiver may experience difficulty regulating emotion and conflict. Biological mothers who choose to adopt may have experienced physical or mental health problems that interfered with their ability to care and form a bond and might be passed on. In other cases, the child may have experienced neglect, deprivation, and trauma, which influence adjustment (Grotevant & McDermott, 2014). Many children adopted from international orphanages arrive with experiences that are harmful, as discussed in the accompanying Lives in Context feature.

For many children, emotional differences are transitional. Research has suggested that most children show resilience in the years after adoption, but some issues continue (Palacios & Brodzinsky, 2010). Those who develop a close bond with adoptive parents tend to show better emotional understanding and regulation, social competence, and also self-esteem (Juffer & van IJzendoorn, 2007). This is true also of children who have experienced emotional neglect, and those effects hold regardless of age at adoption (Barone, Lionetti, & Green, 2017).