How does adoption affect kids later in life?

Possum

Here are blogs written by adult adoptees -
http://www.adultadoptees.org/forum/index.php?topic=2805.0

It can be a whole lot of head-mess, especially if it's not handled well.
Do allow them to know their truth - and they need contact with first family - if it's safe and possible - for better emotional and psychological health.
Adoptees have losses - they need to be acknowledged and grieving allowed.
Teen years can be especially hard - as this is the age all people start questioning who they are.
When you don't have all the answers - it makes it even harder.

celtic.piskie

How much of your identity comes from your past?

I have no past. No-one knows what I did before I was 5.

I don't know what I was like as a baby, I don't know how old I was when I walked, talked, what my favourite song was as a baby.

All these things people take for granted. I've got a 10 week old baby, so the conversation comes around to what people were like as babies. I have no idea. Don't know how much i weighed, if i cried a lot, did i have hair.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, it really did affect me.

I was never a child. I never crawled, i never learnt to walk, I didn't havr any first words, and i've always known i wasn't wanted.....

I was adopted when i was 6 months old, sent back to care when i was 3.5.
I am so loved now, and a very happy wife and mother.
But imagine going through all that usual teenage angst knowing you've been rejected by 2 families, not knowing if you look like byour mum or dad, if your personality is like theirs.

Heather B

Well, imagine the identity crisis the average adolescent goes through then multiply that by 10 and you may have some idea of how an adolescent adoptee is affected and how normal childhood experiences are magnified several times over for the adoptee

Unfortunately this is rarely acknowledged or addressed so the adoptee suffers alone. Consequently, adoptees are very strong and independent people, we have to be 'cos nobody seems to care what we go through!

JustMeTiff

I have to say the first answer to this question is not a really good one... My parents were the best parents you could ever imagine... I was adopted around 2... When I found out I was adopted I was about 8 years old... As I was growing up around age 10 - 14 or so... I did have some issues.. I used to make up stories to try to fit in somewhere because I felt different.. not sure exact reason for doing this... but I had some hard times.. Not really bad though... a few people would look down on me and tease me about being adopted, but my mother taught me to say.. "At least my parents got to pick me, yours got stuck with you" lol.. I dealt with it and grew up.. and never really thought about it much more... I don't really remember what happened before the adoption.. I was fairly young... But I don't wonder either... I'd like to just see what my biological parents look like maybe know a medical history... But otherwise.. I am happy with what I grew up with!

suz

i was adopted just after my 3rd bday. my mom was very loving and as honest with me as possible. wen i was 14 or 15 she told me that wen i turned 18 if i wanted to she would help me find bio parents, now 38 and still dont want to meet them.
my mom would give her life for me just as i would for my children.
being adopted has nothing to do with the changes that come with puberty. just another chapter in every kids life.

L-train

I was adopted when I was very young and I love my adoptive parents more than anything. We did not have a perfect family life but that never made me wish I wasnt placed with them.

They were always very open with me which I think is the key. If they dropped the bomb "you were adopted" when I was a teen I could see getting pissed.

When I was 17 I found my birth mom just because I was curious what she looked like (nothing like me). We are friends but I dont have the love for her that I have for my adoptive mom.

I think people are adopted should feel special becuase their birth mom cared enough atleast not to abort them and then a family who didnt even know them cared enough to take them in and raise them as their own!

I feel very fortunate to be adopted.

Here is a poem my adoptive mother gave me on my first mothers day

not flesh of my flesh
nor bone of my bone
but never the less
still of my own
never forget for a single minute
you werent born under my heart
but in it

softball_whitney_04

I have delt with many children (ages 3-5) that are adopted and they all are fine, they love their mommy's and daddy's. As for the older ones, I have 3 cousins who were they were all adopted as infants. The one is 37, another one is 26 and the last one is 18 and they have all been fine the entire time. But their parents were VERY open with them about their adoption! They all knew at young ages they were adopted but that they were loved just as they would be in they were born to their parents! I mean heck my oldest cousin that is adopted my aunt and uncle helped him find his birth parents and went with him to meet them! The other two don't have an interest in finding their birth parents and that has always been their choice, they know that their parents will help them find their birth parents and support them if they want to look! So I would have to say from first hand experience, it all depends on how you approach the situation with your adopted child, if you try to hide it then yeah you probably will have problems, but be open about it, when you feel the child is old enough to understand, don't wait to late though cause it will look like your hiding it!

Tiffany

it depends on how they were treated, or how their mind works

Gluey

It depends on if you are a good parent or not.

annie

My bff was adopted and she dosen't mind!

SHASHANK

adoption will not at all affect the child but parents only think
bad and hesitate to care them when they urate hence treir minds too change

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