Talking about the Birth Family since the Beginning: The Communicative Openness in the New Adoptive Family

Abstract

Communicative openness within the adoptive family changes over time and helps the child explore his/her history. We aimed to evaluate whether adoptive families communicate about specific adoption-related themes from the beginning of their lives as a family. We created an instrument to track the communication process during the first year of adoption, involving a sample of 537 internationally adopted children (313 males, 224 females, mean age of adoption: 4.9 years) at two time points: six (T1) and twelve (T2) months after adoption. Our results suggest that in the first year of placement, children express memories about the past but tend to not speak about their birth families. We discovered a significant difference (Wald test = 4.889; p = 0.027) in communication about the biological family between the two points. The presence of adoptive parents who speak about it impacts the child’s questions about the past (exp (B) = 2.452, p = 0.006) and whether the child speaks about his/her biological family (exp (B) = 2.373; p = 0.017). Then, in the first year of adoption, the presence of an adoptive parent who communicates openly helps the child to ask questions and share his/her thoughts.

Attachment and alexithymia predict emotional–behavioural problems of institutionalized, late‐adopted and community adolescents: An explorative multi‐informant mixed‐method study

“…However, results can be due to the small heterogeneous group, as some differences approached statistical significance, for example, LA adolescents showed higher attachment dismissal than COM peers with no difference with the residential care group in this type of insecurity. Therefore, researchers and professionals are invited to not stop to the absence of statistical difference with non‐adopted peers, maintaining clinical attention and long‐term attachment‐informed post‐adoptive monitoring in this group (Pace et al, 2018; Palacios et al, 2019; Santona et al, 2022, 2022), which may be still vulnerable as supposed not‐originally secure but developed‐secure in attachment after a positive adoption (Pace et al, 2019; Peñarrubia et al, 2022).…”

Communication about children's origins among same‐gender adoptive parent families in Belgium, France, and Spain

“…Messages communicated to children about adoption by adoptive parents and other adults are likely to affect how children present information to others. For example, the openness with which the child asks questions about their adoption history is related to how their parents introduce the topics (Santona et al, 2022). Likewise, a young adult's pride in talking about having been brought up by LG parents appears to be associated with experiences of parental disclosure and openness (Goldberg, 2007; Tasker et al, 2010).…”

Adoption openness and adoption stigma: a retrospective study of adult adoptees

“…According to Le Mare and Audet ( 2011 ), adoption communication is an interactive process constituted by the interaction of both parents and children. This form of communication in the adoptive family supports the child to explore and come to terms with his/her history (Santona et al 2022 ). Speciffically, Brodzinsky ( 2005 ) emphasized open communication about adoption issues as of great importance because it can influence the child’s psychological adjustment more than the actual contact with the birth parents.…”

“…Specifically, communication openness refers to the exchange of information between the adoptive parents and the adopted child. This communication in several cases may entail feelings, and emotions closely linked to the life-changing and traumatic events that the adoptee may have experienced (Barbosa-Ducharne and Soares 2016 ; Santona et al 2022 ). Research demonstrates that when communicative openness was present adoptees expressed a positive view on their adoption and adoptive parents considered that their children had fewer adoption difficulties (Hawkins et al 2007 ).…”

“…In addition, research data show that communicative openness is related to adoptees’ better psychological adjustment, fewer behavior problems, and increased self-esteem (Reppold and Hutz 2009 ; Santona, et al 2022 ). In particular, the Wydra et al ( 2012 ) research findings in a sample of 18 adult adoptees signify that participants who experienced a communicative environment about the topic of their adoption were comfortable with their adoption status.…”