Why Adoption Is Often The Better Decision than keeping a child, for many young, uneducated, impoverished teen mothers.
Adoptees Compared With Non-Adoptees:
This study by The Search Institute of over 700 families examined children twelve to eighteen years after they were born and placed for adoption. This same study also revealed that:
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Adopted adolescents’ self esteem was as high or higher than their peers;
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75% of adopted adolescents are psychologically healthy;
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Adopted adolescents do extremely well in school;
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Adopted adolescents attend college more often than the general population;
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Adopted adolescents experience lower rates of crime and drug abuse.
Fact
Children adopted in infancy do as well as non-adopted children on measures central to mental health. The differences are so slight this study puts to rest the oft-stated view that adoptees have major mental health problems compared with their non-adoptive peers.
(Adoption and Mental Health, E. James Lieberman, MD and Katherine Whipple, Ph.D, Friend of the Court, Volume 5, Spring 1997.)
Fact
Adoptees see themselves as being more in control of their lives and have more confidence in their own judgment than do their non-adopted peers. In numerous other comparisons, adoptees tended to view others more positively, have a more internal focus of control, and see their parents as significantly more nurturing, comforting, predictable, protectively concerned and helpful than did the non-adopted.
(K.S. Marquis and R.A.Detweiler, Does Adopted Mean Different, 1985, as described in The Adoption Handbook.)
Fact
The impact of adoption on children is overwhelmingly positive. Adoptive families provide supportive, nurturing environments, the effects of which are evident in the health, development and behavior of young adoptees.
(Nicholas Zill, Vice President and Director of Child and Family Studies, Westat, Inc in
testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means,
Subcommittee on Human Resources, May 10, 1995.)
http://www.gravityteen.com/adoption/news.cfm
Provident Living Home Adoption Matters Adoption Fact Sheet
Adoption Fact Sheet
Children of Married Parents
* Children who live with married parents tend to have higher grades, are more likely to attend college, and experience lower rates of unemployment.¹
* On average, children of married parents experience better physical and mental health, have lower rates of substance abuse, experience less child abuse, and are less likely to commit suicide or engage in criminal behavior.²
* “What has been shown over and over again to contribute most to the emotional development of the child is a close, warm, sustained, and continuous relationship with both parents.”³
Children of Single Parents
* Children raised by a single mother are six times more likely to live in poverty, twice as likely to drop out of high school, and two to three times more likely to have serious emotional and behavioral problems than children who grow up with both parents.4
* During middle childhood, children raised by single parents have high rates of chronic health and psychiatric disorders.5
* On average, teens from single-parent homes are more attached to their peer groups and less attached to their parents’ opinions.6
* As teenagers and young adults, “being raised in a single-mother family is associated with elevated risks of teenage childbearing, . . . incarceration and with being neither employed nor in school.”7
* Children of unmarried women are likely to need to assume adult roles prematurely.8
* “Single mothers . . . report less perceived social support, fewer contacts with friends and family, and lower levels of social involvement than married mothers.”9
Benefits of Adoption
* “On an index of self-esteem, adopted adolescents compare favorably to” those who were not adopted.10
* Children who were adopted as infants have better health, see mental health professionals less often, have fewer behavioral problems, and do better in school than children born outside of marriage and raised by the unmarried mother.11
For more information about LDS Family Services adoption services, please call 1-800-537-2229 or visit itsaboutlove.org
Sources
1. See William J. Doherty and others, Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the Social Sciences (Institute for American Values, 2002), 10–11.
2. See Doherty, Why Marriage Matters, 11–17.
3. Armand Nicholi, “The Impact of Parental Absence on Childhood Development: An Overview of the Literature,” Journal of Family and Culture (autumn 1985), note 3; as quoted in Bill Muehlenberg, “The Case for the Two-Parent Family,” National Observer—Australia and World Affairs (Sept. 2002), 44.
4. Kristin A. Moore, Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing (1985); and Patrick Fagan, “How Broken Families Rob Children of Their Chance for Future Prosperity,” The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, no. 1283, June 1999; cited in Adam C. Olson, “LDS Family Services Helping Parents,” Ensign, Oct. 2004.
5. “Executive Summary: Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service (Sept. 1995), 12; cited in Infant Adoption in Michigan: Reviving a Vanishing Phenomenon, Michigan Family Forum (2005), 4.
6. Ross L. Matsueda and Karen Heimer, “Race, Family Structure and Delinquency: A Test of Differential Association and Social Control Theories,” American Sociological Review 52: 171–81; cited in Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the Social Sciences (2002), 16.
7. Executive Summary (Sept. 1995), 12; as quoted in Infant Adoption in Michigan (2005), 4.
8. See Elizabeth Terry-Humen, Jennifer Manlove, and Kristin A. Moore, “Births Outside of Marriage: Perceptions vs. Reality,” Child Trends Research Brief, April 2001, 6.
9. John Cairney and others, “Stress, Social Support and Depression in Single and Married Mothers,” Social Psychiatry Psychiatric Epidemiology (2003), 38:445
10. Search Institute, “New Study Identifies Strengths of Adoptive Families,” from June 1994 Source Newsletter; www.search-institute.org/archives/gua.htm; retrieved September 27, 2006.
11. See Nicholas Zill, Mary Jo Caoiro, and Barbara Bloom, “Health of Our Nation’s Children,” Vital and Health Statistics, series 10, no. 191, and Nicholas Zill, “Adopted Children in the United States: A Profile Based on a National Survey of Child Health,” testimony before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, May 1995; cited in Patrick F. Fagan, “Adoption: The Best Option,” in Adoption Factbook III (1999), 3.
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