Adoption 101: What to Know About Adopting a Child

How would you react if you found out your friend, brother, or sister was adopted? How would you feel if you were adopted? Wouldn't you suddenly feel different?

Look around you; you'll see that the world does not exist in black and white but a merry mix of different hues - just like each of us. No two individuals are alike. We have similarities, and we certainly have differences. And those differences exist, whether or not one is adopted.

Adoption is about taking a child into one's family and raising him or her as one's own. It is serious business. Birth mothers make the heartbreaking decision of putting their child up for adoption for dozens of reasons. Ultimately, it's because they want a better quality of life for their child.

Adoptees can be part of a family when they are babies, toddlers, kids, or teens. Just as there is no standard adoption age, there is no standard adoptive family. An adoptee can be adopted by a foster family with whom she's already been living with, a childless couple, a pair of parents who have kids but have so much love to give, a single person, or a relative. Whatever the situation, adoption should be done only when it feels right with all of the people involved - the adoptive family and the adoptee.

There are two views on whether or not to tell the child that he or she is adopted. There is the child's right to know versus the best interests of the child. In instances when the parents choose to tell their child about the adoption, it's best to do it as soon as the child can understand. Ideally, children should learn of their adoption from their adoptive parents. This helps give the message that adoption is good and that the child can trust the parents. Anger and mistrust usually come as a result of learning of one's adoption from someone else, along with a view that the adoption is bad and shameful because it was kept a secret.

If an adopted child has a strong desire to search for his or her biological parents, he or she should be allowed to pursue it. It's also important to deal with issues related to adoption as a family, with the other siblings, who likewise affect and are affected by their adopted brother or sister.

Adopted children usually feel a sense of abandonment and rejection. They may worry that everyone else is going to reject them. This is natural because the relationship with a birth mother is a person's first relationship. It might be difficult to accept the fact that you're adopted but it is something you must learn to do, besides, there's nothing wrong with being adopted.

Though adopted children come from a different set of parents, they should be treated with the same love and acceptance we all deserve. That's the real essence of being a family.