My last blogs have talked about the fears adoptive parents sometimes have, and the media images and popular misconceptions feeding them. This blog and the next one will address whether research supports the idea that children who were adopted are more likely to have problems in school, in family life, and in relating to others and society.
A cautionary note: It is possible to drown in research studies and come out more confused than when you started. I have spent the past week reading summaries of research studies. No doubt there are other points that the authors of the studies would consider important which did not make it into the various summaries. No doubt there are more recent studies I do not yet have access to. These blogs are not meant to be an authoritative literature review. Consider it a sharing of information from one parent to another.
Research seems to indicate that (as of the mid 1990s) adopted children and families were more likely to use mental health facilities and adopted children are overrepresented among patients in mental hospitals.
However, as authors Fisher and Watkins point out in their book Talking with Young Children about Adoption, many of these studies do not differentiate between children adopted at birth and children who had multiple foster homes or care placements before being adopted at an older age. The older children who have endured unstable living situations are significantly more likely to have emotional problems. Some studies also did not control for variables such as socioeconomic status, age, or whether the children were adopted by relatives or by non-family members. Some researchers believe the statistics are improperly done, and should compare adoptees in mental hospitals with other youth in their region, not with all youth nationally.
Several authors point out that adoptive parents may be more willing to seek treatment for mental health problems in their children. They may have more income and education enabling them to seek out these resources. They may be less defensive about doing so. They have worked with social workers and counselors during the adoption process and so may be more ready to seek them out later on. On the other hand, some authors fear that adoptive parents may be too ready to see problems in their children, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Carole Smith points out that if being adopted causes children to have problems, adopted children should share similar problems. A 1965 study did find more hyperactivity, negativity and hostility in adopted children. However, three other studies did not find significant differences in symptoms between adopted patients and other patients.
There was one difference observed in a 1988 study: the parents of the adopted mental hospital patients perceived that there was a mismatch between their child’s personality and that which was felt to be acceptable in their family. The family distanced themselves from the child, blaming the problem on the child’s being adopted. The child thus experienced rejection from the adoptive parents.
It may be that children placed for adoption are at higher risk, as a group, for conditions or behavior patterns such as attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, and impulsivity, perhaps because of genetic predisposition or perhaps because of poor prenatal care or substance abuse. These conditions may lead to greater conflict in some families, contributing to the child’s maladjustment.
A study done in the 1970s followed adoptees who were not in the mental health system. Over 600 foster and adopted children were studied at ages eleven and fifteen, some also at eighteen years of age. At age eleven, the adoptees were said to have more “nervous disturbances and symptoms of maladjustment” than non-adoptees (but fewer than foster children). The eleven-year-old adoptees also had lower grades in school than non-adopted children.
The adoptive parents at this time reported a great deal of anxiety about their child’s entering adolescence, which perhaps became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
However, this study found that the differences in mental health, adjustment and even grades were negligible by ages 15 and 18. Those young people who returned to the study at age 18 were given I.Q. tests and no differences were found between the adoptees and non-adoptees.
However, several other studies do claim that adopted children tend to do less well in school. In one study they scored lower on “having vocational or educational goals”. Whether this is related to genetic inheritance, prenatal care or other factors cannot be positively determined. My next blogs will speak of the role of genes and environment, and of the positive research on adoptees.
Please see these related blogs:
What Really Happens When Adopted Kids Grow Up?
When Adopted Kids Grow Up: Worse-Case Scenarios
Media Review: Opposing Viewpoints Series: Adoption