Perspectives on Challenged Family Building

It’s time! November is Adoption Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness about adoption, adoptive families and the children who are in need of adoptive homes (North American Council on Adoptable Children, 2001.) This post is to provide ideas for those of you who want to do something in honor of this special month for [...]

In Part 1 of this blog, we learned that adoptive families often experience a cognitive dissonance—a discrepancy between what they expect and what they experience. This can be particularly true in cases in which the adoptee’s mental health issues seem “invisible” to teachers, extended family members, neighbors, mental health professionals, etc. Mothers, fathers, brothers and [...]

No matter the route, parents arrive at adoption with a set of expectations about what adding a child to their family will mean. Often, these expectations are quite optimistic. A significant goal throughout the adoption process is to help adoptive parents alter their idealistic beliefs and move toward more realistic expectations.
There are many predominant expectations:

“I want [...]