Adoption status and family relationships during the transition to young adulthood.

Abstract

While adoptive family research has increased, most has focused on childhood and adolescence. Despite the known importance of parent-adolescent relationships drawn from the general population, we know little about how adoptive family relationships change or remain the same as adopted adolescents enter young adulthood. Utilizing the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study, the purpose of this study is to build upon previous research to explore differences in conflict, closeness, and relationship quality between adoptive and nonadoptive families during the transition from late adolescence into young adulthood. Self-report and independent observations were collected from children, mothers, and fathers at late adolescence (14.50–18.49 years) and young adulthood (18.50–22.49 years), and analyzed using within subjects repeated measures. While adoptive family dyads had lower relationship indicators compared to nonadoptive family dyads, similar trends over time occurred for both family types. Using individuation theory, we suggest individuation occurs for both types of families, with adoptees facing unique additional challenges during this process, including integration of adoption status, adoption communicativeness, adoption information seeking, and relationship with birth parents as possible influences in this process.

Observing Change Over Time in Strength-Based Parenting and Subjective Wellbeing for Pre-teens and Teens

“…The small amount of research that has been done, however, suggests that positive aspects of parenting decline during the pre-teen and early teen years. This has been found for parental warmth (McGue et al, 2005; Rodríguez et al, 2014 8 ; Walkner and Rueter, 2014), parental closeness (Walkner and Rueter, 2014), parental support (Hafen and Laursen, 2009), as well as parental involvement, closeness and regard (McGue et al, 2005) – all of which decrease in pre-teen and teen years.…”

Family Dynamics During Emerging Adulthood: Reviewing, Integrating, and Challenging the Field

“…Importantly, sex differences in these results appeared to derive from the fact that mothers, not fathers, tended to be the custodial parent (Arnett, 2015; Wells & Johnson, 2001). Finally, this review underscored differences between adoptive and nonadoptive families, as levels of conflict (self‐reported and observed) were found to be higher in adoptive families than in nonadoptive families (Walkner & Rueter, 2014).…”

“…Eight studies adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods: Five of these were categorized as mixed‐method studies and three as multimethod studies (Anguera, Blanco‐Villaseñor, Losada, Sánchez‐Algarra, & Onwuegbuzie, 2018). Of all the studies applying qualitative methods ( n = 21), 12 conducted interviews, six included open‐ended questions, one involved a focus group (Hamwey et al, 2019), one included both interviews and focus groups (Crocetti & Meeus, 2014), and one included family observation tasks (Walkner & Rueter, 2014).…”

The relations between maternal mind-mindedness, parenting stress and obstetric history among Chinese mothers

“…Many Western studies have also explored the circumstances under which maternal mind-mindedness would vary. Previous studies have found that a mother's mind-mindedness is related to both parenting stress and negative behaviours towards the child during interaction at home (McMahon & Meins, 2012;Walker, Wheatcroft, & Camic, 2011).…”