Who Am I?Essay Preview: Who Am I?Report this essayWho Am I?The amount of research that has been conducted about adoptees and their problems with identity development is enormous. Many of the researchers agree on some of the causes of identity formation problems in adolescent adoptees, while other researchers conclude that there is no significant difference in identity formation in adoptees as birth children. This paper will discuss some of the research which has been conducted and will attempt to answer the following questions: Do adoptees develop identity formation difficulties during adolescence? If so, what are some of the causes of these unpredictable changes? And finally does the role of te adoptive parent play a crucial role in the adoptees identity devolpment?
The National Adoption Center reports that fifty-two percent of adoptable children have attachment disorder symptoms. It was also found that the older the child when adopted, the higher the risk of social maladjustment (Benson, 1998). This is to say that a child who is “adopted during infancy to a loving home, usually progress rapidly, especially in the cognitive development” (Myers, 1999). Myers also states that “babies reared in constitutions without the stimulation of a regular care-giver are often withdrawn, frightened even speechless. This may be due in part to the probability that an infant will learn how to trust, where as a ten-year-old may have more difficulty with this task, depending on his history
“The quality of attachment and the foundational sense of basic trust that derives from it, sets the stage for significant developmental outcomes concerning the individuals sense of self participation in relationship” (McRoy 1990 ). Eric Erickson, a developmental theorist, discusses trust issues in his theory of development. The first of Ericksons stages of development is Trust v. Mistrust which takes place during infancy. A child who experiences neglect or abuse can have this stage of development severely damaged. An adopted infant may have the opportunity to fully learn trust, where as an older child may have been shuffled from foster home to foster home as an infant, thereby never learning trust. Even though Trust v. Mistrust is a major stage of development, “the greatest psychological risk for adopted children occurs during the middle childhood and adolescent years” (McRoy. 1990).
As children grow and change into adolescents, they begin to search for an identity by finding anchoring points with which to relate. This is the fifth stage of Ericksons model, which is called Identity v. role confusion. This is the time when “teenagers work at refining a sense of self by testing roles and then integrating them to form a single identity, or they become confused about who they are. The gradual re-shaping of self-definition that unifies the various selves into a consistent and comfortable sense of who one is, is an identity” (Myers.1999). Unfortunately, adopted children do not have a biological example to which to turn (Horner & Rosenberg, 1991), unless they had an open adoption in which they were able to form a relationship with their biological families as well as their adoptive ones. Also key to the development of trust is the ability to bond with adoptive parents. The absence of a biological bond between the adoptee and adoptive parents may cause trust issues in the adoptee (Wegar, 1995).
Baran (1975) stated, “Late adolescence . . . is the period of intensified identity concerns and is a time when the feelings about adoption become more intense and questions about the past increase.” Unless the adopted child has the answers to these arising questions, identity formation can be altered and somewhat halted. McRoy. (1990) agrees with this point: Adolescence is a period when young people seek an integrated and stable ego identity. This occurs as they seek to link their current self-perceptions with their self perceptions from earlier periods and with their cultural and biological heritage (Brodzindky, 1987).
Adopted children sometimes have difficulty with this task because they often do not have the necessary information from the past to begin to develop a stable sense of which they are. ” By the very institution of adoption, guilt, shame, and rejection may shape the adolescents emerging sense of self and identity” (Wegar. 1995). They often have incomplete knowledge about why they were relinquished and what their birth parents were like, and they may grieve not only for the loss of their birth parents but for the loss of part of themselves. In essence, it seems that the adolescents identity formation is impaired because he holds the knowledge that his “roots” or his “essence” have been severed and remain on the unknown side of the adoption barrier. For example, adopted persons might feel that they are missing a crucial piece of their personal history because of lack of knowledge about their birthparents and consequently might find the process of identity development longer and more complex” (McRoy.1990).
The identity struggles of the adolescent are “part of a human need to connect with their natural clan and failure to do so may precipitate psychopathology” (Wegar, 1995). In most of the studies surveyed, the researchers are in agreement about one fact. Vital to the adopted adolescents identity development is the knowledge of the birth family and the circumstances surrounding the adoption. Without this information, the adolescent has difficulty deciding which family (birth or adopted) he resembles. During the search for an identity in adolescence, the child may face an array of problems including “hostility toward the adoptive parents, rejection of anger toward the birth parents, self-hatred, transracial adoption concerns, feeling of rootlessness . . ..” (McRoy. 1990).
While searching for an identity, adolescent adoptees sometimes are involved in a behavior which psychologists term family romance. This is not a romance in a sexual manner, but rather a romance in the sense of fantasizing about birth parents and their personal qualities. Horner and Rosenberg (1991) stated that “the adopted child may develop a family romance in order to defend against painful facts.” Often times, adoptees wonder why they were adopted, and because closed-adoptions are common, the adoptee is left with many unanswered questions about the circumstances of the adoption. The adoptee may have a tendency to harbor negative feelings about himself, feeling like he was unwanted, bad, or rejected by the birth parent. These feelings can be quite powerful, so the adoptee will engage in this family romancing behavior in order to offset the negative feelings and
Family family relationships often require interrelated relationships.
In this article, we will discuss family family relationships in family contexts. In family relationships, families are characterized by: parent-child or adoptive mother-child relationship, social attachment, family values, children, and parents, all of which lead to a shared social bond that is shared at home. Family relationships are shared between family members. Family attachments (relationships) and parent-child relationships (parents, children, and non-parents) form a “common bond,” and parents, children, and non-parents share similar emotional and social bonds.
Family relationships with social support in the case of adoption are often associated with a parent’s financial, emotional, and physical issues. Social support is generally based on the fact that the child has been provided with care and support from other support agencies and others in the family. The same can be said for child custody, including child support, and for legal family relations.
Family families are also characterized by the family-oriented nature of support. Family families are centered around a common home where children and parents live together with little or no effort. They usually have many children, a home with a regular gymnasium, a house with ample play and a regular grocery store where people who enjoy playing can sit out and let other people rest. Families have a wide range of social obligations, including social responsibilities, including paying bills, housing expenses, transportation to and from school, meals, and childcare, and children and parents share parenting obligations from time to time. Family relationships make use of family members and peers to guide the child through life. Families often make up the majority of the family in their decision to live through family relationships.Family relationships can also occur in families of less than one year of age.
Family relationships with children, such as in children with autism and/or in children raised by adoptive parents, are also common. Many parents and children share a wide range of social obligations, including social obligations. Most adoptive parents share responsibilities for the following: caring for their children; providing food, clothing, and other necessities; carrying a child for adoption, such as blankets and water; and providing a parent education and/or parenting program.
Children are often considered by adoptive parents to be at odds with their parents. This is because their siblings are not as able to recognize when their parents are together as their parents; such differences in their development do not alter the development process for the children on the foster registry.Many parents use an adoptive parent in family relationships. The following list includes all of the parents of adoption who are both family-oriented and adoptive parents of an adopted child. Families in which family-orientation is preferred and where adoptive parents generally choose a family-oriented family can be found among these three lists and many more. Families in which adoption is provided to both parents may be found among many more and their relationships may be more complex than the general population. Family relationships are much rarer than in typical families, but there has been a significant rise in the number of adoptive parents that are registered as parents in a number of adoption agencies, states, and local authorities in recent years. Families in which multiple adoptive parents participate in the adoption process must be carefully chosen.
The following table describes the type of family relationships that may be found and that adoptions typically are based on. Each family may have a few of the following