What are the characteristics of good (adoptive) parents? A literature review
Summary
Background and issue
The group of children released for adoption is essentially our country's or other countries' child welfare children. Many have been exposed to neglect and many have major health challenges. This places great demands on the capacity and caring ability of adoptive parents, not only while the children are minors, but also in a life course perspective. In order to be able to make a good and sound assessment of adoption applicants , it is necessary to have up-to-date knowledge of which factors are important for the applicants' ability to take care of an adopted child's care needs and howthe various factors may affect the ability to care over time. The Directorate for Children, Adolescents and Families (Bufdir) has therefore asked the National Institute of Public Health to make an assessment of the criteria currently used in assessing applicants for adoption. The assessment of the criteria shall be made in the light of a literature review with a systematic search of which characteristics of adoptive parents are important for the adoptive children's health and development. The report is a presentation of the results of this literature review.
Method
We conducted a literature review with a systematic literature search based on a number of inclusion and exclusion criteria described in more detail in the report. The report presents and discusses the results from 146 identified studies that included study variables about both adoptive parents / adoptive family and adopted children where (1) the variables about the adopted children were outcome variables, (2) where parental stress was outcome variable, and (3) where the studies maintained sufficient scientific quality.
Sorting of the studies and structure of the report
We have sorted and presented the studies according to topics that in the best possible way correspond to the assessment criteria that are currently applied to applicants for adoption, both nationally and internationally. Each theme forms the basis for one subchapter sorted under four main themes. The first part, the resources and characteristics of adoptive parents, includes studies that describe demographic factors and characteristics of adoptive parents and their families. The second main part, family dynamics, includes studies that deal with relationships between parents and children that are characterized by mutual influence. In the third part, adoption-related topics, includes studies that say to what extent there is support for the parents' expectations of the adoption or how they talk to the children that they have been adopted, have experienced racism, or more generally about their cultural background, are important for the children's health and development. The fourth and final main part includes studies that focus on sibling adoption and adoption of older children, ie adoptions that are assumed to be more challenging and thus require additional characteristics and resources in adoptive parents. Each subchapter contains a detailed presentation of the relevant studies as well as a summary and assessment of the extent to which the identified studies provide a basis for saying something about the connection between the characteristics of the parents and the children's development.
Results
As an overview of what was the conclusion in the review in the various subchapters, we have made a table that answers the question we initially asked: Is there research evidence to say that the given characteristic of the adoptive parents or the adoptive family affects the children's health and development ?
Is there research evidence to suggest that the following characteristics of adoptive parents affect children's health and development?
Yes
no
Too few studies
Parents' resources and characteristics
Age
X
Socio-economic status
X
Single provider
X
Same-sex adoptive parents
X
Vandel, drug abuse, and crime
X
Mental health
X
Connectivity
X
Relationships
X
Social networks and social support
X
Family dynamics
School supportive behavior
X
Family environment
X
Upbringing style
X
Parental stress
X
Adoption-related topics
Cultural communication
X
Openness and communication around adoption
X
Parents' (realistic) expectations of the child's development and skills
X
Age of adopted children at adoption
X
Adopted siblings
X
The results of the literature review show that there is a lack of relevant studies in several areas. This applies in particular to the importance for the children of how parents choose to relate to the adopted children's ethnic and cultural background , and to what extent they have realistic expectations of the children. The literature review further shows that it is highly unclear to what extent the adoptive parents' age , education , finances , and marital status are important for the children's health and development. The literature review further indicates that children who are adopted at an older age (usually older than five years) more often have more serious difficulties when they are adopted, but that age does not in itself have to be a risk factor for the child's cognitive, psychological and relational development.
Furthermore, we found that children seem to function better psychologically and cognitively in families where the parents experience a high degree of social and institutional support , where the family environment is positive, and where the parents support the children's reading and school work well . However, the literature review suggests that it cannot be ruled out that there are other characteristics of the children and parents that covariate with the conditions mentioned above, which better help to explain this connection.
The results from the literature review show that there is the greatest certainty related to the consequences for the children of the parents' own attachment ability , mental health , the quality of the relationship , and their upbringing style .The review indicates that there are certain aspects of the parent's personality that both directly and indirectly affect the children negatively. Parents with generally weak abilities to enter into stable, close and trusting relationships with other people, with a general tendency to react with hostility and aggression towards their surroundings, as well as with pronounced depressive thoughts and negative emotions, will to a greater extent contribute to the child their develops in a negative direction. Parents with these characteristics are also more likely to exhibit dysfunctional parenting strategies in response to their children developing difficulties. The studies do not help to clearly identify the extent to which a negative development starts with the children influencing their parents, or vice versa. However, studies show that the characteristics mentioned above increase the likelihood of a mutually negative reinforcement of each other leading to an increase in children's difficulties. The effect on the children is further enhanced in those children who carry a genetic vulnerability to develop difficulties, ie where the biological parents have mental difficulties / disorders and / or show extravagant and aggressive behavior.
Limitations of the literature review
Most studies are based on families with younger children . There may be other factors that are important when children reach puberty and adolescence. Children adopted abroad come from many countries that to varying degrees have managed to take care of the children's basic needs before adoption. Systematic differences between children from different adoptive countries may help to explain the variations in the results between the studies. In recent years, there has also been an increasing tendency for adopted children to have great difficulties, especially with foreign adoptions. This tendency means that many of the studies may not adequately address the challenges of future adoptive families with some major care tasks related to the children, and who come from countries other than previous adoptions.
The way forward
The adoption project has several parts where this literature review is the first delivery. The next report will present the results of a survey about the adoptive parents' experiences from the adoption process, desire for follow-up, and to what extent they feel they have received the help they have needed for themselves and their adopted children. We will also make recommendations on criteria that should be included in future assessments of adoptive applicants, how these can be measured, as well as suggestions on how to organize future follow-ups of the adoptive families.
Who is the report useful for?
The results of the literature review will also be able to contribute to a better understanding of which characteristics of the parents are important for the care of children and young people, also outside adoptive families. The adoptive family is essentially the same as all other families, although the circumstances surrounding the "conception" are different. The knowledge that has emerged in the report will therefore be relevant to all bodies that are to assess the caring ability of families; such as in child welfare and with the approval of foster parents.
The report will also be relevant to anyone interested in how parents and children generally influence each other. A challenge in research on how parents affect their children is that one cannot distinguish similarities between parents and children that are due to the parents' influence from similarities that are due to common genetics. It is also not possible to determine whether the equality between parents and children is due to parents influencing their children, or whether the children influence their parents. Adoptive families differ from other families in that the children do not share the same genes as their adoptive parents. This means that studies of adoptive families are increasingly used as a research design to investigate how parents and children influence each other because the effect of common genetics has then been removed. In studies that include information about the children's biological parents, one can also identify the direction of the influence between parents and children. It is therefore our wish that this report should also be read by researchers, practitioners and others who want to understand more about how parents and children influence each other.