How Both Families Can Support a Child’s Questions About Adoption

Questions are a natural part of growing up. Children ask where they came from, who they resemble, why their family looks the way it does, and what happened before their earliest memories. For an adopted child, these questions may also include their birth family, the circumstances surrounding the adoption, and how the important adults in…

What Children Learn When the Important Adults in Adoption Work Together Well

Choosing adoption can bring strong emotions to the surface for everyone involved. A birth mother may feel confident that adoption is the right decision for her child while still facing disagreement from parents, siblings, the birth father, or other people she loves. Family members may be grieving, worried, confused, or unsure of their place in…

What Lasting Adoption Relationships Have in Common

Adoption creates a lifelong connection between a child, a birth family, and an adoptive family. The legal process may be completed at a specific point, but the emotional relationships surrounding adoption continue to develop as the child grows. Like all meaningful relationships, they may experience changes, questions, milestones, and periods of adjustment. Lasting adoption relationships…

How Birth Mothers and Adoptive Families Can Prepare for Future Conversations With the Child

Adoption can create meaningful relationships between people who share a lasting love for a child. It can also bring emotions that are difficult to explain. Birth mothers may experience grief, uncertainty, pride, relief, love, or fear. Adoptive parents may feel gratitude and happiness while also carrying anxiety about the future, the adoption relationship, or whether…

How Birth Mothers and Adoptive Parents Can Talk About Hard Feelings Honestly

Adoption can create meaningful relationships between people who share a lasting love for a child. It can also bring emotions that are difficult to explain. Birth mothers may experience grief, uncertainty, pride, relief, love, or fear. Adoptive parents may feel gratitude and happiness while also carrying anxiety about the future, the adoption relationship, or whether…

Why Emotional Honesty Matters Between Birth Mothers and Adoptive Families

Adoption relationships are built around love for a child, but they also involve emotions that may be difficult to express. Birth mothers may experience hope, grief, reassurance, fear, pride, and uncertainty, sometimes within the same day. Adoptive families may feel excitement and gratitude while also worrying about saying the wrong thing, overstepping boundaries, or failing…