Openness & Adoption

Openness & Adoption

Studies indicate that open adoption is good for children and their families. The most extensive study to date of open adoptions has followed 720 people including adoptive families, birth parents and children to the age of twelve. "Openness in Adoption, Exploring Family Connections," by Harold D. Grotevant and Ruth G. McRoy, published in 1998, found that "parents in fully disclosed adoptions demonstrate higher degrees of empathy about adoption, talk about it more openly with their child, and are less fearful that the birth mother might try to reclaim her child than are parents in confidential adoptions."

In adoptions that begin with openness, the expectant/placing family and adoptive family meet, select each other, and work cooperatively toward the placement of a child. They plan to maintain a relationship in the future in which they may communicate directly with each other through letters, pictures, phone calls and/or visits. Identifying information, meaning last names and addresses, may be shared. An adoption agency or facilitator's role in these new relationships should be active and supportive, focused on the benefit that openness can have for the child.

Contrary to many fears of adoptive parents, open adoption is not co-parenting. Birth parents relinquish legal and basic child rearing rights to the adoptive parents, but the child has the opportunity to develop a relationship with the birth family.

All of this may sound somewhat scary to adopting and placing parents who have never thought about being a part of their child's life after the adoption.

Many families we work with who are presently involved in open adoptions wonder why more people don't consider it. "It takes the work out of explaining who his birth mother is, because he will know her," says one recent mom. For birth parents, it is reassuring to know that the child is safe and well, and to have ongoing communication with the adoptive family.

Most families agree to get-togethers planned in advance, as they would with other extended family members. The relationships have been compared to that of in-laws, who are not directly related to all members of the family but who are part of the ongoing life of the family, particularly the life of the child.

And what does the future hold for children in open adoption?

In the past, critics of open adoptions have maintained that such relationships will damage self-esteem and cause confusion. The Grotevant/McRoy study found no significant differences in self-esteem and socio-emotional adjustment among children involved in varied degrees of openness, including traditional, closed adoptions. The research revealed that children who are included in contact with birth parents have the highest levels of understanding of adoption.

© 2003