CFD 1010 Lecture 4: Varied Family Contexts
Document Summary
Immigrant families: affected by divorce, adolescent single parents, military families, headed by gay or lesbian parents, headed by custodial grandparents, with adopted children. The foster care system has become the source of many adoptions. International adoptions have increased as well as other nontraditional arrangements. Such as single-parent, kinship, and gay adoption: birth parents have become more empowered. Especially in private adoptions: reunions of late-adolescent or adult adoptees & birth parents have become common. They express a deep level of attachment to, and love for, their adopted children. The lives of children who are adopted: children who have been adopted do not have uniform life experiences, children adopted at older ages, and boys, are more likely to have their placements. Those placed with their families as infants show consistently positive outcomes disrupted. That difference is typically attributed to the later-adopted children having experienced earlier trauma. There are unique challenges for transracial and intercountry adopted children and their parents.