What are the primary post adoption issues for adoptive parents to consider?

Polly

Post adoption Issues:

- When and how will you talk to your child about adoption?
- How will you address the topic at the various stages of their life (how to discuss adoption with a 14 yr old is very different to a 5 year old)?
- What will you tell your child about their first family and their family history?
- If it is an open adoption how will organise visitation and the sharing of information, letters and photos etc with the first family?
- If it is not an open adoption how will you deal with the possibility that your child may want to search for their first family or they (or you) may want more information about their family or medical history?
- Are there siblings? Will your child have contact with them?
- How will you deal with any health or emotional issues that arise in the future particularly those that are unexpected or may have been caused or contributed to by the first family (eg. foetal alcohol syndrome, abuse etc)?
- How will you deal with possible trauma, grief or attachment issues that your child may experience? Have you done extensive reading on these issues?

- What will you tell others about your child's adoption?
- How does your family feel about the adoption and what will you do if family members or friends treat them differently to biological family members?
- What will you teach your child about how to deal with other people's opinions and comments especially if they are negative, cruel or intrusive?
- What will you tell your child's school about their adoption and how will you deal with topics or projects that may be difficult for them (eg. family trees, genetics etc)?

If your child is from a different race/culture to you:
- Do you plan on teaching your child about their culture and how will you do that?
- Are you aware of common stereotypes pertaining to that culture (eg "All asians are good at math") and how to plan on dealing with that?
- How will you help your child deal with racism?
- If your child is from another country are you planning on taking them back to visit their country/first family/foster family?

- If your child is being adopted as an older child are you aware of the issues that are common in older child adoption and how will you deal with them if they arise?
- If your child has spent time in an orphanage setting or is coming from a deprived environment are you aware of the issues (sensory issues, self stimulation behaviours, developmental delays etc) and how will you deal with them?
- If your child is coming from a foster family will you maintain contact with them?
- Are you aware of post adoptive depression?
- Have you researched/talked about the issues surrounding disrupted adoptions?
- Do you understand how to seek help if you need it?

Theresa

This:

http://johnraible.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/crash-course-in-transracial-parenting/

LinnyG

That raising a stranger's child is not even close to raising your own biological child.

Love is NOT enough. We can have the most awesome adoptive parents in the world, but that will never take away the fact that you are strangers, and that we lost our mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, our entire first family, cultures, heritage, country and identities in the process of gaining a "new family."

Wanting to know and love our first family has nothing to do with our love for our adoptive family. When we go into reunion, and most of us do, it is really none of your business.

Our falsified, amended birth certificates are lies. Our adoptive parents did NOT give birth to us. If at all possible, demand that you obtain a copy of your child's ORIGINAL, non-falsified birth certificate.

That open adoptions are what is BEST for the child, unless there was neglect or abuse. Even then, it is important that the child maintains contact with safe members of their first family.

It is normal for an adoptive child to grieve the loss of their first Mothers.It is scientifically proven that is traumatizing for a child to be separated from his or her first Mother.

Please read about how adoption will most likely affect an adoptee, his or her first parents, and their adoptive parents.
http://www.amfor.net/acs
Books:
The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier
Lost and Found: the Adoption Experience AND
Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness both by Betty Jean Lifton
The Adopted break Silence by Jean Paton
The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler
Adoption: Uncharted Waters,by David Kirschner
Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by David Brodzinsky

Laurel J

Well, don't do your own homework--that would only make you look like a fit parent.

Really? Yahoo answers? REALLY?

I would say how you were going to handle to adoption with the child. Were you going to tell him or her. How were you going to introduce your adopted child to others.

My adopted children know that they are adopted. When I introduce them I do not say this are my adopted children and these are the ones I gave birth to. I just say these are my kids.

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