Understanding Your Child



Adopted children, from infants to older children, may have a variety of needs and concerns. Parents must be aware of potential issues, including grief and loss, anger, and identity, in order to help their children develop and grow.



The Inner World of the Adopted Child
Child psychologist Dr. Christopher Alexander offers insight into the needs and concerns of adopted children, including family interaction, child development, and anger.

How to Anticipate Times of Identity Sensitivity
There are certain times in the life of a young adoptee when questions about his/her identity may trigger unusual behaviors. Parents can help by being aware of these times, and make themselves emotionally available to their children.

Adopting an Institutionalized Child: What Are the Risks?
Dana Johnson, MD, PhD, offers blunt, but optimistic information for prospective parents. Children should not be expected to be without problems; parents need to be prepared in advance with resources for help, and to asume challenges that may arise.

Grief and Loss
Grief and loss are part of the life of young adoptees and children and youth in foster care. Professionals and parents offer insight, suggestions, and support to adoptive and foster parents seeking ways to identify these issues, and talk to their children about them.

Lifelong Issues
Seven issues affecting all members of the adoption experience.

Multiple Transitions
Special thanks to Michael Trout of The Infant-Parent Institute for allowing us to reprint the script of the video "Multiple Transitions: A Young Child's Point of View on Foster Care and Adoption". What would even the youngest children tell us if they could? Perhaps these are their words.

Transition from Orphanage to Home
You have been preparing for this moment for months - perhaps years, but for your child, the move from an institutional setting to family life is confusing, and very different from life in an orphanage. Practical suggestions for parents and a Q&A session with child development expert Rita Taddonio of Spence-Chapin.

Understanding Adoption: A developmental approach
An article from the Canadian Paediatric Society walks through development from infancy and early childhood to school-aged and adolescence, also addressing the differences between children adopted as infants and those adopted at older ages.

What Is The Primal Wound?
Author Marcy Axness examines the trauma of separation.

Why Adoptees Search
Adoptees search for birth parents and other birth family members for a myriad of reasons at different times. These articles offer some insight into those reasons.