Who Am I
The amount of research that has been conducted about adoptees and their problems with identity development is enormous. Many of the researchers agree on some of the causes of identity formation problems in adolescent adoptees, while other researchers conclude that there is no significant difference in identity formation in adoptees as birth children. This paper will discuss some of the research which has been conducted and will attempt to answer the following questions: Do adoptees develop identity formation difficulties during adolescence? If so, what are some of the causes of these unpredictable changes? And finally does the role of te adoptive parent play a crucial role in the adoptee's identity devolpment? The National Adoption Center reports that fifty-two percent of adoptable children have attachment disorder symptoms. It was also found that the older the child when adopted, the higher the risk of social maladjustment (Benson, 1998). This is to say that a child who is "adopted during infancy to a loving home, usually progress' rapidly, especially in the cognitive development" (Myers, 1999). Myers also states that "babies reared in constitutions without the stimulation of a regular care-giver are of
" Unless the adopted child has the answers to these arising questions, identity formation can be altered and somewhat halted. Again, if the child knows the circumstances of his adoption and other pertinent information about his biological roots, he will have an easier time forming an identity in adolescence. Families in Society, 71, 550- 557. Mistrust which takes place during infancy. The adoptee may have a tendency to harbor negative feelings about himself, feeling like he was unwanted, bad, or rejected by the birth parent. This is to say that the child will feel more accepted, and that his adoption is not a stigma if his adoptive parents have the conviction that being adopted does not make the family 'bad', and it does not mean that the adoptive parents are failures because they could not have biological children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 61(1), 70-77. This is the fifth stage of Erickson's model, which is called Identity v. " Finding an identity, while considering both sets of parents is a difficult task for the adolescent. The first of Erickson's stages of development is Trust v.
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Acceptance Essays
