The State of Knowledge Of Foreign Adoptions
Not that many large scale studies into adoption have been done, with the exception of this Swedish programme perhaps, which lead to the following article:
A summary of the results of key international adoption research projects based in Scandinavia.
By Dr. Monica Dalen, Department of Special Needs Education, Faculty of Education, University of Oslo
Introduction
Foreign Adoptions and Research
The adoption of foreign children started in Scandinavia around 30 years ago, and a total of around 65,000 children have been adopted into these countries. Sweden has the highest number, with 35,000 foreign adoptees. In second place comes Norway, with 15,000 adoptions and then Denmark with 13,000. Finland has the lowest number of foreign adoptees.
Research into international adoptions started at the beginning of the 1970s in those countries that were the first to adopt children from other countries (the USA and Sweden). As adoptions across national boundaries gradually became more and more common, this research work spread to many countries. International, scientific literature on adoption across national and race boundaries is, however, relatively recent and limited in scope compared with research literature on the adoption of children from the same country as the adoptive parents.
Target group and methodic approach
In most of the projects, the researchers have approached the adoptive parents. Only rarely have they started off with the biological parents. This can naturally be explained by the anonymity considerations that characterize all adoption activities. Often, no information is available, and at other times the biological mother will be unknown. This is particularly pronounced when it comes to foreign adoptions. The biological origins of many foreign adoptees are also unknown. It would undeniably be interesting to gain a closer insight into the circumstances that lead to children being put up for adoption and perhaps particularly into the biological mother’s thoughts, not only when she decides about the adoption but also later on in life.
Before the mid-1980s, it was rare for the adoptee to be used as the informant. In those cases where this happened, the children were relatively young, i.e. around 12 years old (Gardell 1979, Cederblad 1989, Kvifte- Andresen 1992). This is probably primarily due to the fact that the adoptees were not any older than this. During the 1990s, researchers in several projects have approached teenagers and young adults who have been adopted (Rørbech 1989, Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Botvar 1995 and 1999, Cederblad et al 1994, Irhammar 1998, Sætersdal & Dalen 1999, Brottveit 1999).
In Scandinavia, it has also been common to approach teachers, doctors and other health-service personnel (Gunnarby et al 1982, Proos ET al 1992, Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Kvifte- Andresen 1992, Moser 1997, Dalen & Rygvold 1999). Many projects have also had one, two or three target groups.
Most of the research projects have been carried out as interview surveys. This is natural when taking into consideration the fact that adoption is an emotionally charged issue. However, most of the projects have involved extremely structured interviews with relatively many informants (Kvifte- Andresen 1992, Cederblad et al 1994). Only a few have made use of in-depth interviews that require qualitative processing and analysis and which therefore cannot cover too many people. Over the past few years, however, more such studies have been conducted, particularly since the adoptees have become adults and can themselves tell us about their lives (Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Irhammar 1997, Sætersdal & Dalen 1999, Brottveit 1999).
There are also many purely quantitative studies in which questionnaires have played a dominant role. By using such an approach, the researcher can reach out to large groups and compare information from various groups of informants. These surveys have focused on foreign adoptees’ general living conditions and quality of life, on their schooling and educational patterns and on more demographic information about themselves and their families (Pruzan 1977, Rørbech 1989, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Cederblad et al 1994, Botvar 1995 and 1999, Dalen & Rygvold 1999).
It has also become more common for researchers to follow up their informants through longitudinal studies (Simon & Alstein 1977, 1981, 1987 and 1996, Bagley 1991 and 1993, Dalen & Sætersdal 1992 and 1999, Botvar 1995 and 1999). As the adoptees gradually grow older, such studies will provide us with an insight into new periods of their lives. Taken together, these studies may give us an impression of what it is like to be a foreign adoptee in various phases of the adoptee’s life.
Choices of issues
There are interesting differences between North America, the UK and the rest of Western Europe when it comes to the choice of issues on which the research has focused. In countries with colored minorities, researchers have been particularly interested in the adoptees’ ethnic sense of belonging, identity and self-confidence. This is naturally linked to the political debate on adoption across national and race boundaries that has taken place in these countries. Although many of the projects have had a comprehensive perspective, the ethnic sense of belonging has held a dominant position (McRoy & Zurcher 1983, Gill & Jackson 1983, Simon & Alstein, 1977, 1981, 1987 and 1996, Grotevant & McRoy 1988).
Research in the rest of Western Europe seems to have had a far more psychological starting point, and the problems researchers have been interested in have grown with the adoptees. During the first few years after foreign adoptions started, researchers in Scandinavia were more concerned with studying the initial period of adaptation in the adoptive family, with particular emphasis on the children’s mental and physical developments (Schielderup-Mathiesen & Nytrøhaug 1977, Hallden 1981, Cederblad 1982, Gunnarby et al 1982). Once the children grew slightly older, the researchers started to become interested in their language development and learning progress (Hene 1987 and 1988, Berntsen & Eigeland 1987, Hoksebergen et al 1987, Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Kvifte-Andresen 1992). During the past few years, the focus has been on the teenage years and the adoptees’ sense of identity, and many projects have concentrated on these issues (Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Irhammar 1998, Sætersdal & Dalen 1999, Brottveit 1999).
On the whole, we can say that researchers in western Europe and particularly in Scandinavia have focused on a wide range of areas in the adopted child’s life, while in the USA/UK, they have focused more narrowly on ethnicity and their sense of belonging. In countries where racism and a dislike of strangers is common, research activities are easily pushed towards politically sensitive problems. In those countries where the population is more ethnically homogenous, the researchers have been able to concentrate more calmly on studying adoption related to more psychological problems linked to separation, early attachments and later adjustments.
Research in Various Social Contexts
It can be difficult to give a correct picture of the adoption research that has been carried out, since international adoption research has been carried out in very different contexts and at different times. In the same way, adoption practice and legislation vary from country to country and from culture to culture. The historical and socio-political developments in many countries therefore make a comparison of the research results from different parts of the world and epochs rather doubtful.
Even comparative analyses of closely related countries, such as Norway and Sweden, can be problematical. In Sweden, for example, as distinct from Norway, private adoption agencies are allowed and single people can adopt children. It is obvious that comparisons with other countries that are more removed from Scandinavian conditions will be even more doubtful, although this is occasionally carried out in large overview articles (Demick and Wapner 1988, Hersov 1985 and 1990, Silverman and Feigelman 1990, Tizard 1991, Simon and Alstein 1996).
The Relationship Between Clinical and Epidemiological Surveys
A disproportional large share of adoption research is based on clinical material, i.e. on parents or children who have sought psychiatric or psychological help (e.g. Brinich 1990, Brodzinsky 1990, Cederblad 1989, Grotevant and McRoy 1988, Kats 1990, Seglow et al 1972). Several surveys indicate that adoptees are over-represented among such clients. However, the results are contradictory and do not give any uniform answer to the question of whether adopted children with psychological problems are over-represented in society or whether they show a specific psychopathology. Naturally, applying clinical findings to the normal population will always be problematical.
It is therefore important that we also have results that are based on surveys carried out on normal populations. A few such studies have been carried out over the past few years (Rørbech 1989, Verhulst et al 1990, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Botvar 1995 and 1999, Cederblad et al 1994). The epidemiological studies are based on a great number of figures that are usually obtained through surveys that take the form of questionnaires and structured interviews. The advantage of such studies is that the results can be generalized to apply to larger groups. At the same time, it is important to be aware that the results obtained from such studies are often based on average targets. If the empirical material is studied in more detail, it has been proved that the result may hide a wide range within the target group in question. Despite the fact that such surveys are extremely valuable, one must for that reason be careful about using the results uncritically.
It is also important to consider the adopted children’s problems compared with the general situation of children in society. Demographic cross-section surveys are a useful corrective here. Any evaluation of the way children and teenage foreign adoptees have adapted to society must always be compared with the way other groups have adapted.
Follow-up studies are necessary
In adoption research, it is particularly important to remember that conditions during one period of life can change during the next, and that research results from cross-section surveys carried out during one phase of life do not automatically show what will happen during the next phase (Clarke and Clarke 1977 and 1988, Figley and MacCubbin 1983, Filipp 1981, Gallangher and Vietze 1986, Magnussen 1988, Sommerschild and Grøholt 1990). Individual, genetic differences interacting with protective mechanisms in the environment may lessen the risk of serious pathology. This is also the case with strongly disadvantaged risk groups, although it is difficult to predict which factors determine the symptoms in adulthood (Garmezy and Rutter 1985, Kadushin 1967 and 1970, Magnussen 1988, Rutter 1988, Venable 1989).
Bohman and Sigvardsson’s (1980 and 1990) surveys of “invisible” Swedish adoptees at the ages of 11, 15, 18 and 23 years provide a reminder of how dangerous it can be to make what may be a negative finding for one age group into an eternal truth or prediction for future developments. In a survey of 624 adopted children, Bohman and Sigvardsson find, for example, that as 11-year-olds, all of 26% of them could be classified as “problem children”. In a retrospective article (1990) they state that ”at this stage of our study, we drew the conclusion that children of unwanted pregnancies were at a substantial risk of maladjustment during earlier school years”. In later follow-up surveys, they find that these facts have changed and the adoptees were ”in no way worse” than the rest of the population.
Dalen and Sætersdal (1992) interviewed teenagers who had been adopted from Vietnam when they were around 20 years old. Several of them had at those time serious identity problems. Their main desire was to be Norwegian and to be perceived as Norwegian by those around them, since this gave them the social status they wanted. For that reason, many were anxious about being associated with immigrants and refugees because these groups were often assigned a low social status. However, when the researchers met the same people again after ten years, the picture had changed (Sætersdal and Dalen 1999). The problems that were most important when they were in their twenties were no longer so important to them. For example, they had a far more relaxed attitude to their own appearance and to immigrants and refugees. They were now more interested in issues related to their co-habitants, establishing a family and, not least, their education and professions.
Adoptive Families
Family and Settlement Patterns
Adoptive families are stable families. Compared with families that have their own biological children, the percentage that get divorced is far lower. This also applies to families who have adopted children from abroad, and the same tendencies are confirmed in several Scandinavian surveys (Rørbeck 1989, Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Kvifte-Andresen 1992, Cederblad et al 1994, Botvar 1995 and 1999). In the latest Norwegian survey carried out, Botvar (1999) finds that 15% of the foreign adoptees between the ages of 15-19 years state that their parents are divorced. The equivalent figure for Norwegian-born teenagers is 25%. Adoptive families also have a stable settlement pattern. Only a small percentage (around 20%) move house while the children are growing up, and most of those who move only do this once and usually within the same geographical area (Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Cederblad et al 1994).
Sibling Relationships
According to the latest Norwegian survey in this field (Botvar 1999), there are twice as many only children among foreign adoptees (14%) compared with Norwegian-born children (6%). The majority, 57%, states that they have adopted siblings, 10% have both adopted and non-adopted siblings, while 19% only have Norwegian-born siblings. These main trends are confirmed by other previous surveys (Rørbech 1989, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Cederblad et al 1994, Botvar 1995). The percentage of adopted children who have no siblings is, however, slightly lower in Sweden (10%) and Denmark (12%) than in Norway (Cederblad et al 1994, Rørbeck 1989).
Employment Status
Adoptive parents are not representative of parents in general. All the surveys carried out in Scandinavia show that working-class families are under-represented among adoptive families (Rørbeck 1989, Kvifte-Andresen 1992, Cederblad et al 1994, Botvar 1995 and 1999, Dalen & Rygvold 1999). Botvar (1999) compares the father’s occupation in both adoptive families and families with their own natural-born children and finds that the humanistic-social middle level is particularly heavily over-represented among adoptive fathers. According to this survey, every fourth foreign adoptee has a father working in the health, social-welfare and education sector. We also find the same tendency among the adoptive mothers (Dalen & Rygvold 1999).
The fact that so many adoptive parents have occupations that mean they often come into contact with children and teenagers and with the welfare services may be positive for the children, since these professions require the parents to be educated in subjects such as psychology and pedagogics. In addition, we know that many adoptive parents take part in courses arranged by the various adoption associations. For that reason, the families should have relatively good financial and educational resources. The parents’ high level of education may, however, also have a negative effect on such things as the adoptees’ learning and motivation, which we will come back to later.
Motives for Adopting
Hoksebergen (1987) uses the terms ”internally-oriented” and ”externally-oriented” adoptive parents. He puts those who are involuntarily childless in the first group, while the second group comprises parents that adopt due to their political convictions. He believes that adoptions due to ”abstract ideals” run a greater risk of failure than those based on childlessness and a strongly expressed desire to have a child.
Trisiolotis (1988) uses the terms ”child-centered” and ”parent-centered” motivation. He claims that adoptions far too often take place on the infertile couple’s terms, and that the child’s primary needs often come second. According to Trisliolotis’s terminology, the Scandinavian adoption policy has been extremely ”parent-centered”. An intense desire to have a child, rather than an idealistic wish to help needy children, has been felt to be the best guarantee for a successful adoption relationship. The result of such an attitude is that around 90% of all those who presently adopt a child state involuntary childlessness to be their motive. These may be couples who cannot have their own children or couples that want more children in the family (Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Rørbeck 1989, Cederblad et al 1994, Botvar 1995).
Nowadays, there are many indications that this attitude is changing and that the opportunity to adopt is being extended. New adoption legislation allows single people to adopt and whether other groups should have the same rights is also the subject of discussion.
New fertility techniques and bio-technological innovations will naturally also affect adoption applicants. No one can predict the consequences of the medical developments in this field. The demand for children may fall and adoptive parents may be recruited from other social levels. Perhaps prospective adoptive parents will adopt for more ideological, political and religious reasons.
The Adopted Children
The average age of an adopted child at the time of adoption has fallen considerably over the past 20 years. In 1980, the average age was 2.3 years, while it is now around 1 year (Proposition to the Odelsting no 63, 1997-1998). Just over half of all the children now adopted from other countries to Norway, for example, are under one year old. Most of the children now being adopted come from Asia and South and Central America.
Most of the foreign adoptees, between 60-70% and usually around 65%, are girls. (Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Kvifte-Andresen 1992, Botvar 1995 and 1999)
The First Period Spent With The Family
Research on the child’s health when he or she arrives to stay with the adoptive family has often differentiated between the child’s physical and mental health (Hofvander 1978, Gardell 1979, Hallden 1981, Gunnarby et al 1982, Proos et al 1992, Berntsen & Eigeland 1987, Dalen & Sætersdal 1992). Most surveys show that the health of most of the adoptees is satisfactory when they come to live with their new families. Only around 10-15% was in bad or extremely bad physical shape. Adoptions from countries affected by war and extreme suffering will naturally have a higher percentage of children suffering from poor health, a fact that was confirmed in Dalen and Sætersdal’s (1992) survey of the war children from Vietnam. Even though conditions in the donor countries have improved for many of the children now given up for adoption, new adoption countries whose conditions are revealed to be extremely poor are constantly appearing. Adoptions from countries in Eastern Europe are examples of such a development.
So how do the children react psychologically to the change? The results of the first research projects, which particularly focused on the adoptees’ reactions during the first period spent with their new families, were practically identical. They showed that the children had a very difficult time (Hallden 1981, Cederblad 1982, Blucher-Andersson 1983, Berntsen and Eigeland 1987, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992). The kind and extent of the problems varied slightly according to the age of the child when adopted. Many children found it difficult to sleep, and going to sleep in particular was a problem for several families. For others, the greatest problems were related to food and eating. Some children did not want to eat at all, while others overate and were completely focused on food. Most of the children showed signs of anxiety and insecurity. They wanted to lie in their parents’ bed, became anxious every time their mother disappeared from sight and reacted with fear to strangers. Their parents described them as clingy. Some of the children had inexplicable emotional reactions, such as a sudden outbreak of anger, a crying fit during which they were practically inconsolable and a complete rejection of human contact at times. This last way of reacting was reminiscent of what Grotevant and McRoy (1988) describe as so-called ”elbow children”. These children were difficult to make contact with and literally pushed their parents away. Such reactions were particularly challenging for many parents because they knew how important this first interaction was for the child’s further development. Some problems were also linked to language and communication, but most of the children found it easy to make themselves understood with the help of gestures and simple words and phrases (de Geer 1992, Berntsen and Eigeland 1987).
The parents felt they were relatively well prepared for the fact that the child might have some physical complaints. However, many said they were not entirely aware of all the mental problems the child had. It is important to state here that the first surveys were carried out in the 1980s, when the adoption associations were developing their professional and specialist work. Later surveys have not focused to the same extent on the initial period spent with the family. Thus we do not know if we would have had the same results today. However, it is easy to believe that today’s adoptive parents are better prepared for the fact that the child may have mental adjustment problems as well. This is largely due to the fact that the adoption associations and authorities have made a much greater commitment to information, teaching and guidance over the past few years.
All the research projects that have focused on the initial period spent with the family show that, after a period of between three and twelve months, the adjustment difficulties diminish. For most of the children, these difficulties disappeared entirely but for some children this took a while longer. However, the situation gradually improved even for those children with the greatest problems.
Children Who Are Particularly At Risk And Strategies For Coping
Some of the adoptees have had an extremely difficult time in their native country due to war, violence, abuse, malnutrition and other lack of care. Naturally, these children will be very challenging at first. A follow-up survey of the war children from Vietnam has been carried out in Norway (Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Sætersdal and Dalen 1999). The results of this survey confirm that the initial period was particularly demanding. The parents tell of three-year-old children who weighed seven kilos and were just skin and bone. These children had diarrhea and festering abscesses and many were entirely apathetic and showed no reactions to joy, anger or sorrow.
The Vietnamese children make up an extreme group that can serve to show how the interaction between a very damaged child and new careers starts up and is developed. Interviews with the parents of the Vietnamese children show that the child’s poor physical and mental state actually helped the attachment process. The damaged child affected the parents strongly, in the same way as a newborn child starts off emotional reactions due to his or her helplessness and total dependence on care and love. The Vietnamese children’s defenselessness reinforced and intensified the emotional attachment between the parents and children in a way that may otherwise be difficult to achieve with other adoptees who arrive in a more normal physical condition for their ages. What else can one do with a three-year-old that weighs seven kilos and physically and mentally functions like a baby than take the child in one’s arms, hold him or her close, carry the child ”day and night”, literally put the child to one’s breast and give him or her all the closeness and security they are capable of accepting?
Many adoptive parents say they feel it is difficult to ”force” themselves on a child who rejects them and does not want contact, although this may be necessary to show that ”you’re my child now”. The adoptive parents of the Vietnamese children had to communicate with their children at a far earlier level of development than their ages indicated due to the children’s helplessness. Such experiences are thought provoking and may make us more aware of the importance of recapturing a lost baby period.
Learning, Language and Schooling
Surveys of foreign adoptees’ schooling cover children adopted from very diverse countries, children who were at different ages when they were adopted and children with very varied childhoods in their native countries. This naturally makes it difficult to treat them as one group, and the few surveys that have looked at sub-groups within the same empirical material have also proved that there is a great deal of diversity within the group. Dalen & Rygvold’s survey (1999) showed that a group of the foreign adoptees performed better at school and had better language skills than their Norwegian-born schoolfriends. At the same time, it also found that a relatively large group scored far worse on the same variables. This indicates that we must be careful about using results that are based on average targets since these may cover a wide range within the relevant target group.
Adoption and language
Scandinavian research into foreign adoptions has paid particular attention to the adoptees’ language development and mastery of language (Hene 1987 and 1988, Berntsen and Eigeland 1987, de Geer 1992, Lyngstøl 1994, Rygvold 1998 and 1999). This may be due to the fact that the Nordic region is a small language area and that a common language is one of the signs of belonging and attachment. It is also natural bearing in mind that language is an integrated part of a person’s cognitive, social and emotional development. Any language difficulties, for example resulting from the interruption to the adopted child’s language development, may affect his or her learning and development.
Research has shown that learning a new mother tongue is a vulnerable process, and around a third (between 20-40%) of the foreign adoptees do have language problems (Hene 1987, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Rygvold 1997, Dalen and Rygvold 1999). In these surveys, the frequency of language difficulties is viewed in connection with the age of the child when adopted. Although there is a tendency for the extent of language problems to increase with a rising adoption age, children who were adopted as babies also have such difficulties at times. There are many indications that age alone are not crucial to the development of a new language. Other factors, such as the number of separations, stable adult contact and stimulation and poor physical health on arrival are also significant.
In order to show how foreign adoptees’ language difficulties manifest themselves; researchers have focused on various forms of language skills. The most common division is; day-to-day language and school language skills (Berntsen and Eigeland, 1987, Dalen and Sætersdal, 1992, Dalen and Rygvold 1999). Day-to-day language is the contextualised language in which meaning and understanding are anchored in the here-and-now situation to the same extent as in the words themselves. Day-to-day language is the language form that is used in normal everyday speech and contexts. School language is the decontextualised language, in which meaning and understanding are not imparted through the communication situation itself to any great extent. Examples of this are oral communication in the form of lecture-like teaching, messages given to the entire class and written texts.
Adoptees’ language problems seem, however, to be particularly linked to the use of the language at a higher language-cognitive level (the school language). In day-to-day speech, children can utilize situational and non-verbal language, and for that reason any language difficulties will not be revealed until demands as to more abstract language production and understanding are made. However, this is just the kind of language demand that children face in school. Adoptees’ good day-to-day language skills are, to a certain extent, connected with the fact that many of them are clever at using the language knowledge they have when communicating with others. In this way, they can hide difficulties in understanding language and other language problems - ”the language façade dazzles”.
Surveys have shown that there is no correlation between the adoptees’ day-to-day language skills and their school results (Dalen 1994, Dalen and Rygvold 1999). On the other hand, there is a significant link between their school language skills and their school results. Their school language difficulties affected the adoptees’ results in both Norwegian and mathematics. It is natural to expect the language skills to affect their Norwegian studies, but it is perhaps more surprising that it has such a strong effect on their mathematics results. This shows that the ability to carry out mathematical operations is closely connected with proficiency in using a situation-independent language, such as school language.
Very many parents start off by wanting their adopted children to be taught their mother tongue. This is particularly true for children who were slightly older when they were adopted and who came from Spanish-speaking countries. All experience so far shows that this is difficult to comply with (Berntsen & Eigeland 1987, Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Rygvold 1999). This is not due to the fact that schools are unwilling to provide mother-tongue teaching, but that the children themselves do not want such teaching. Many parents actually tell of their children’s strong unwillingness to use their mother tongue. This may be a sign that we perhaps should leave the adopted children alone and allow them to expend their energy on learning Norwegian. It is a fact that most foreign adoptees become monolingual, so it is important that they master their new mother tongue just as well as Norwegian-born children.
Hyperactivity and Adoption
The results of a number of research projects indicate that hyperactivity is more common among adopted children than among non-adopted children (Dalby et al 1982, Brodzinsky et al 1987, Kvifte-Andresen 1992, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Dalen and Rygvold 1999).
Hyperactive behavior affects the pupil’s learning and social functioning in a school situation. Hyperactive pupils are easy to distract, they have problems maintaining a long attention span and they are quickly distracted by events in and outside the classroom (DuPaul and Stoner 1994). This has consequences for the pupil’s learning as well as for the social interaction in the class. Pupils that are inattentive and unconcentrated have problems understanding the teacher’s instructions and messages. A lack of concentration will also make it difficult for the pupil to focus on his or her own work and the tasks that must be carried out. As a result, the pupil may have an increased risk of developing learning difficulties.
Several school surveys show that pupils adopted from other countries have significantly more hyperactive behavior than Norwegian-born pupils (Verhulst et al 1990, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Kvifte-Andresen 1992, Dalen and Rygvold 1999). This behavior creates problems for them and negatively affects their school results.
Although heredity is regarded as a common cause of hyperactivity, this condition may also be linked to an acquired dysfunction (Zeiner and Bjerke 1998). Such a dysfunction may be due to such things as the abuse of alcohol, narcotics or nicotine during pregnancy, premature and difficult births, and extremely unfavorable care conditions during the first months of the child’s life. Many of the foreign adoptees may have experienced such conditions during their first years.
The myth of the adoption age
When planning many research projects, the adoption age has been regarded as an exceptionally important variable. It has been a stated fact that the younger the child is when he or she is adopted (preferably straight after birth) the greater chance he or she has of developing well.
Gradually, as the results of the research in this field were published, it was proven that the adoption age was certainly not such a crucial factor for the success of an adoption as had been previously supposed. Although some surveys found a correlation between the adoption age and later developments, some of this could also be explained by other variables, such as the child’s gender, native country and state of health (Verhulst et al 1990, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Dalen and Rygvold 1999, Botvar 1999). Some studies actually showed that children who were quite old when they were adopted had been as successful as children who were adopted at a young age (Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Kvifte Andresen 1992, Botvar 1995, Rørbech 1989). Other factors than the adoption age seem to have more effect on the adopted child’s development, such as what the conditions during the child’s first few months were like, the child’s mental and physical state at the time of adoption and the quality of the interaction in the new adoptive family.
It thus seems to be a myth that a young adoption age ensures the best development for a child. The conditions under which a child has lived seem to be more crucial than at what age he or she was adopted. If the conditions have been extremely poor and lasted for several years, it is obvious that the adoption age will be significant.
Adoptive Homes Are Supportive
Several surveys show that adoptive parents are far more supportive of the child’s school situation than the parents of Norwegian-born children are (Dalen & Sætersdal 1992, Tessem 1998, Dalen & Rygvold 1999). For example, adoptive parents help their children with homework more often and get more involved in the day-to-day life at school.
The adoptive parents’ special background is very positive for the child’s school background, but may also have a negative effect, perhaps particularly with regard to school results. If the adoptive parents set too high standards for their child’s results, perhaps because they themselves were clever at school, this can have a negative effect on the child’s self-esteem. This can again inhibit the child’s further learning (Skaalvik & Skaalvik 1988). The link between school results and self-esteem is particularly affected by the emphasis placed on school results by the pupil’s parents. When the parents exert great pressure, the school results have a dramatic effect on the pupil’s self-esteem (Skaalvik and Lauvdal 1984). This is particularly true for those pupils who do worst at school.
Previous research has shown that adoptees who come from homes with a high social status actually achieve worse results at school and have more school-related problems than children who come from homes with a lower social status (Verhulst et al 1990, Bohman 1973, Botvar 1999). The opposite is true for children who have not been adopted, in whose case there is a positive correlation between good results at school and a high social status.
Education and working life
Since there are still few foreign adoptees who have reached adulthood, we do not have satisfactory results that can tell us how they manage when studying and in their working lives. Some surveys show that foreign adoptees as a group complete upper secondary education and take higher education more often than teenagers in general, but there is also great variation within the group (Moser 1997, Nicolaysen 1998, Botvar 1999). This means that there are many that take higher education, but also many who do not. In interviews with young adult foreign adoptees, many say that poor school results or the fact that they have not completed upper secondary school have hampered their educational and work opportunities later on (Brottveit 1999, Sætersdal and Dalen 1999).
Both research and the statistics available show that the teenage foreign adoptees have a different pattern of education from Norwegian- and Swedish-born teenagers (Moser 1997, Nicolaysen 1998, Botvar 1999). It is more common for teenage adoptees with ”working-class” parents to choose to study theoretical or general subjects, while teenage adoptees with “academic” parents usually choose vocational subjects. Compared with Norwegian-born teenagers, teenage foreign-adoptees choose directions of study that agree to a lesser extent with their parents’ educational background. Furthermore, fewer teenage foreign adoptees with academic parents have been found to complete upper secondary school than other pupils. Teenage foreign adoptees with parents who have less education more often complete their schooling. This tendency is also the opposite to that found in children who are not adopted.
Researchers’ explanations for this atypical educational pattern differ slightly. Verhulst et al (1990) and Bohman (1973) explain this pattern by saying that many adoptive parents have too high and unrealistic expectations as to their child’s education simply because they themselves come from the upper echelons of society. The young people react to this by choosing differently from their parents. It could also be that the adopted children basically feel a weaker attachment to the social class in which they have grown up and that this makes it easier for them to break traditional patterns. Nicolaysen (1998), on the other hand, believes that adoptive parents are less inclined to be conformist. They have gone through a process aimed at accepting that their child is different and are for that reason more open to the idea of the child’s individuality and for unconventional choices of education and jobs.
Identity and the Teenage Years
In the psychodynamic understanding of identity formation, the adoptive relationship itself plays a considerable role (refer, for example, to Brinich 1990, Brodzinsdky 1990, Demick and Wapner 1988, Grotevant 1997, Kats 1990, Kirk 1964, 1981 and 1988, Schiellerup and Grand 1983 and Triseliotis 1973). These researchers claim that the adopted child is caught up in a psychological paradox and that the twofoldedness of the situation is communicated on many levels, both verbally and non-verbally, throughout the child’s entire upbringing.
At some time or other, adopted children have to integrate the awareness that they have two sets of parents into their perception of their own identity. They have to deal with the painful insight that being adopted not only means being ”chosen” but also being ”rejected” and that adoption is not only a way of creating families, but also involves the loss of a family. Brodzinsky et al (1984) claims that such intellectual and emotional insight is impossible before the children are around 8-11 years old, and that it must be seen in relation to the child’s general intellectual and social maturity. He feels that this age is characterized by the child experiencing an adjustment sorrow in relation to the adoption, ”adaptive grieving”, something that requires a lot of mental energy.
Puberty later starts off a period of identity testing, which takes place parallel to the testing out of various group identities. Grotevant (1997) claims, as do other adoption researchers (Brottveit 1999, Sætersdal and Dalen 1999) that adopted teenagers have ”additional work” to do when forming their identies. They have to integrate the awareness of their background into their perception of their personality.
Adoption and Ethnicity
Another key aspect of teenage foreign adoptees’ identity development is their attitude to their own ethnicity. If the way that the adoptees themselves feel they belong (ethnic self-identification) is the same as the way that those around them categorize them (external self-identification), then there is no problem. It becomes more of a conflict if a child feels Norwegian but, because of his or her exotic appearance, is treated as being non-Norwegian. Identity and the formation of identity are closely connected to relationships with others. The ethnic component is a complicating factor, in the same way as the adoption component is.
Attitude to Their Appearance
The adoptees’ appearance is the ethnic marker that sets them apart from their own families from the start, and which later puts them in the category of being ”alien” - like immigrants or foreigners. Other markers that otherwise distinguish ethnic minorities, such as their language, accent, dialect, body language, clothes, cultural behavioral norms, etc, will not be any different from those of the adoptees’ adoptive families or other Norwegians around them. Their appearance is the reason why they are often assumed to be immigrants or refugees. These are groups with which the adoptees themselves do not identify and that have a low status in our society, thus making life problematic for them sometimes. It is not their appearance in itself that is the problem, but the fact that their appearance sets them apart from their family, siblings, relatives and friends. Their appearance is the visible marker that stamps them as being ”different” and non-Norwegian.
Attitude to Their Culture and Background
Foreign-born adoptees are more accepting of their background than they are of their appearance. However, for some, their ideas on their cultural background are strongly linked to their thoughts about the adoption itself and their own biological family. They do not want to think constantly about a past that no longer feels relevant to them. "It's best not to think about such things." Several of them also refrain from raising any questions about this because they care about their parents - and are afraid of hurting them with their statements.
Attitude to Immigrants and Refugees
Teenager’s foreign adoptees have a varied, ambivalent, complex attitude to both their own ethnic group in Norway and other immigrants. Most of these teenagers stated in different ways and more or less covertly that they wanted to distance themselves from immigrants and refugees (Brottveit 1999 and Sætersdal and Dalen 1999). Such a distancing may be physical or psychological. They distanced themselves physically from immigrants in the school playground, on buses, at social events and in public places. The distancing may also be psychological. Even though many had had immigrants in their class at school, very few had been friendly with them.
Most of them rejected any community of interest with immigrant groups. They thus also lost the opportunity to obtain information on current conditions in their native country, or on the country’s religion, traditions and customs, which many of them otherwise showed an interest in other ”non-dangerous” connections. Interviews with young adults adopted from Colombia, India, Korea and Vietnam all confirm this distancing (Brottveit 1999, Sætersdal and Dalen 1999).
Brottveit (1999) claims that immigrants have a culturally stigmatized minority position comparable to that previously held by Lapps and gypsies. Although opinion surveys show a relatively positive attitude to immigrants - especially on the part of younger people - Brottveit claims that these factors mean that foreign-born adoptees have problems defining themselves. Brottveit calls this an "ethnic role disability".
However, by distancing themselves from immigrants and refugees, they also distance themselves from their background and origins. There is a risk that they will develop self-hatred and double communication. Some of the oldest teenagers were aware of this and stated that they did not like their own reactions.
Follow-up surveys of adult Vietnamese men and women who had been adopted and were now in their thirties (Sætersdal and Dalen 1999) showed that these had a more clarified attitude to their ethnicity as adults. The question of adoption, their biological family and their attitude to immigrants and refugees no longer interested them in the same way. The problems that were so important during their teenage years were no longer problems or were lesser problems than they had expected. The past lay there like a backcloth, but it was the present and future they were now interested in.
Strategies for Coping
When they are young, strangers relatively protect foreign adoptees against discrimination. On the whole, their schools and local environments have shielded them because they were accepted and recognized as members of Norwegian families. However, the protection and shielding provided by the adoptive family during childhood disappears once the child becomes a teenager and has to face many situations alone. Strangers may not identify them as Norwegian and may treat them as immigrants or refugees, with all the discriminatory attitudes that this involves. The young foreign adoptee is defined as "belonging" inside, while teenagers are often defined as being outside the context with which they identify themselves. Sometimes they belong, and sometimes they do not - depending on how those around them define them. Their position is marginal, or rather double marginal because of both their adopted status and their ethnic origins, which do not define them as either "Norwegian" or immigrants. They do not belong to a clearly defined cognitive or cultural category.
The main problem - particularly during the teenage years - is to do with the difference between the rest of the world's and the adoptee's definition of identity and belonging. The most important factor for teenage and adult foreign adoptees is for them to receive confirmation that they really belong, both as a member of their nuclear and extended families and as a member of the society in which they have grown up and of which they have become a part. We interpret the considerable mental energy expended by many of them to mark the fact that they belong in Norwegian society as being a sign of their uncertainty regarding their own social position and as an indication of racial ideas in our society, where a Norwegian identity is defined as being a ”white” identity.
TO SUM UP
Most People Manage Well
Epidemiological surveys carried out in several countries show that the majority of children and teenagers adopted from other countries manage well in their new families and countries (Verhulst et al 1990, Simon and Alstein 1996, Bagley 1993, Rørbech 1989, Dalen and Sætersdal 1992, Kvifte Andresen 1992, Cederblad et al 1994, Botvar 1995 and 1999). These surveys have been conducted at slightly different points in the foreign adoptees’ lives, but those covering young people over the age of 12 years show that around 75% manage well, without any sign of major problems. These results are the same as those found in similar surveys carried out on Danish-, Swedish- and Norwegian-born young people and in surveys that have directly compared foreign adoptees with young people in general (Jonsson and Kalvesten 1964, Burman and Nylander 1969, Cederblad and Hook 1986, Lavik 1975, Rørbech 1989, Cederblad et al 1994, Wichstrøm 1994, Botvar 1995 and 1999).
The fact that so many of the foreign adoptees manage well must be seen as very positive and good feedback for the adoptive families, adoption associations, governmental authorities and, not least, the donor countries. When we take into account that many of the foreign adoptees have had a very difficult start in life, these results are even more gratifying and optimistic. It is possible to ”heal” or ”cure” previous wounds and injuries, and adoption seems to be a solution that provides new, undreamed-of opportunities for many children. Adoption is a crucial turning point in a child’s development and may lead to a better life for many people. Such a radical change of living conditions may lead to not only physical, but also mental traumas being healed, as the results of research into foreign adoption show.
The Picture Is Not Just “Rosy”
Despite the positive research results, we would be careful about presenting this area as being too ”rosy”. The research results also show that 25-30% of the foreign adoptees have some problems linked to language, learning, identity and ethnicity. We have examined these areas earlier and shown that many foreign adoptees are struggling to find their place both in their families and in society at large. In the introduction, we also pointed out that results based on ”clinically” selected persons may be both important and correct in relation to the groups they are based on, but that one must be careful not to generalize these to apply to all foreign adoptees. The research results we now have to build on, however, show that, on the whole, the teenage years are particularly demanding for many foreign adoptees and their families. The Norwegian child welfare statistics illustrate that foreign adoptees as a group are underrepresented in the child welfare statistics, but over-represented in the 13-19-year-old age group and in some towns (Kalve 1999).
These findings are thought provoking and show that adoptive families have a different course of development as regards contact with the social services, in this case the child welfare services, than families with their own natural-born children do. In interviews with adoptive parents, they clearly state that they feel under a great deal of pressure to manage their own situation. The families try to sort out on their own until things suddenly get too much for them when the child is a teenager. Maybe they have stretched things too far, and have no more energy left when the special teenage problems start. The parents shrink from seeking help for as long as possible. They were at one time approved as parents and have taken the initiative themselves to bring a child from another part of the world here to this country. They feel they have to master this situation, and preferably without bothering other people too much. Their problems have therefore been under-communicated to the rest of society, thus ”veiling” the everyday lives of many adoptive families.