Developmental Differences Between Adopted and Non-Adopted Adolescents - Essay Example

Do adopted teens fare the same or worse than their non-adopted siblings and peers The debate over whether there exist real developmental differences between adopted and non-adopted adolescents is increasingly become controversial, with different studies emerging that shows that there are some developmental problems associated with adopted children (). However, further studies that have been undertaken to establish the relationship in the developmental characteristics between adopted and non-adopted children have produced mixed results, thus leaving the question answered. The major controversy arises from the fact that the studies that have found adopted children to be more prone to developmental challenges than their non-adopted counterparts have been based on small clinical samples, which then makes the findings of such studies unreliable and difficult to infer the results to the overall society population (). Brand & Brinich (1999) argues that while there seems to be a positive relationship between the clinical mental health challenges and the adopted of children, there has not been any identifiable relationship indicating that adopted children have behavioral problems more than the non-adopted children. Consequently, while a high percentage of studies undertaken to establish whether adopted children have more developmental challenges that their non-adopted counterparts, the nature of the developmental challenges has not been agreeable. This is because; some studies have found a positive relationship between adopted children and emotional instability, while others have found the relationship to be positive between adopted children and mental health challenges, and even others arguing that the positive relationship only exists between adopted children and behavioral problems (IJzendoorn, Juffer, & Poelhuis, 2005; Miller, et al., 2000). Therefore, this discussion seeks to assess whether there exists developmental differences between adopted and non-adopted adolescents. Nevertheless, it is can easily be concluded that there exists more developmental in adopted adolescents than their non-adopted counterparts. Adopted children fare worse than their counterparts The health aspect is a major area where adopted children have displayed a huge deficiency. Adopted children are over-represented in mental clinical studies, despite the low population of the adopted children globally, compared to the non-adopted population. Statistics have indicated that adopted children forms 2% of the global population (Brand & Brinich, 1999). However, mental clinical studies have indicated that 24% of the clinical mental health cases addressed in the last two decades in the USA are associated with adopted adolescents (Nilsson, et al., 2011). The developmental challenges depicted by the adopted adolescents range from emotional to social, cognitive functioning and behavioral, most especially for adolescents at around the age of 10-11 years (Brand & Brinich, 1999). Nevertheless, while such a high disparity in the developmental challenges is observed in the adopted children, the challenges seems to lessen with growth in age, but where the change does not occur, then such adopted children tend to become overly non-adaptive to required social behavior, while tending to display the extremes of both emotional and psychological instabilities. Further studies have indicated that there is a difference in the developmental challenges associated with adopted children, based on the age at which such children were adopted. Thus, the children who were adopted at a later stage tend to show a high level of behavioral and developmental deviance, compared to the ones who are adopted earlier (Escobar, Pereira, & Santelices, 2014). Nevertheless, the bottom-line is the fact that whether such children were adopted at an early stage or at a later stage of life, both categories shows some developmental and behavioral challenges compared to the children that are brought up in their families of birth. However, the high percentage of the social deviance behaviors observed in the adopted children was highly attributed to the control behavior of the adoptees, which as opposed to streamlining the behavior of the adopted children tended to move them more astray (Roskam & Stievenart, 2014). The dating and romantic relationships for adopted children also depict a certain identifiable problem when compared to the non-adopted adolescents. While behavioral and developmental challenges have been highly associated with the adopted children in most of the clinical cases, stress and stress coping mechanisms of the adopted children have been found to be worse than the average coping mechanisms of rational adolescents (). Thus, the adopted children have shown a high level of mal-adaptability to stressful conditions, often responding to such situations in behaviors and mannerisms that exacerbate the problem rather than resolving it. It is this behavior that has then been found to account for the overrepresentation of the adopted children in the clinical mental health cases. The mental health challenge identified in the adopted children is quite alarming, considering the fact that studies have shown that between 10% and 15% of the children that are found in the residential psychiatry care facilities in the United States are accounted for by adopted children (Brodzinsky, 1993). On the educational aspect, the adopted adolescents have been found to fair even far much worse compared to their non-adopted counterparts. The educational challenge associated with the adopted children is not so much of a performance problem in a class or examination setting, but more of depicting educational deficiencies at a far higher rate that the non-adopted adolescents. A study seeking to assess the educational challenges of children in different schools within the United States produced statistics that put the adopted children on the top of the poor educational performance in all aspects. According to this study, 7.2% of all the children who were found to perform poorly in class work as a result of a condition that was categorized as being emotionally disturbed was accounted for by the adopted children (Brodzinsky, 1993). Further, the adopted children were also found to account for a higher percentage of the students whose mental perception of education was lower. The level of understanding of such children was found to be significantly lower during any class lesson, thus 6.7% of the adopted children were found to account for the poor educational performance associated with a condition categorized as neurological impairment, while 5.4% of the adopted children accounting for the poor educational performance were categorized under the educational impairment category of the perpetually impaired students (Brodzinsky, 1993). No difference between adopted and biological children The fact that adopted adolescents have no significant developmental or behavioral challenges compared to their non-adopted counterparts has been backed by various studies, which have sought to disprove the notion that the adopted adolescents are worse off both in developmental and behavioral aspects. A study seeking to assess the difference in educational performance between the adopted and the non-adopted children indicated that there is hardly any noticeable difference. The study indicated that adopted children between the age of 6 and 10 years were rated to have behavioral challenges, but did not display any aspect of social competence deviation or even educational competence when they were compared to their non-adopted counterparts (Brand & Brinich, 1999). In this respect, there comes an argument that adopted adolescents have no behavioral or developmental challenges, but the only noticeable social deviance behavior can be accounted for by the initial environment that the children were living in before adoption, which were characterized by neglect, lack of motivation and positive mental stimulation, as well as maltreatment and emotional abuse (IJzendoorn, Juffer, & Poelhuis, 2005). Thus, considering that most of the adopted children are either from dysfunctional families or do not have biological care at the time they are adopted, the initial stigma caused by the negative environment can cause such children to show emotional, social or behavioral anomalies, while also failing in social interaction and romantic relationships (). Therefore, the behavioral and developmental challenges that are observable in a high percentage of adopted children is not a factor of innate developmental or behavioral problem per se, but a function of healthy adjustment to the new environment that is characterized by a more positive behavior enhancing surrounding, than their previous environment. This argument has been backed by a study that indicated that; while the behavior of adopted children might be characterized by both developmental and emotional instability challenges when such adopted children are young, the trend tends to change as the children grows towards adolescence, and by the time they are between the ages of 11 and 15 years (Brand & Brinich, 1999). Further, the argument that adopted children are more prone to behavioral and developmental challenges has been disproved by the fact that studies have shown that adopted adolescents at the age of 12 to 17 years are likely to be referred or taken to the psychiatric and other mental health facilities more frequently than their non-adopted counterparts (Brodzinsky, 1993). The effect of this finding is to show that, while most adopted children are over represented in clinical mental health care, it is more of a social perception, rather than actual developmental and behavioral deviance that contributes to the problem. Finally, the control behavior of the adoptees has been found to contribute to the behavioral, mental and emotional challenges associated with adopted adolescents, considering that the adoptees bare found to exert more pressure to the adopted adolescents to conform to their established social norm like their no adoptive counterparts, thus causing the adopted adolescents to stray further behaviorally (Roskam & Stievenart, 2014). Conclusion The fact that most of the adopted children have been found to exhibit characteristics associated with developmental and behavioral challenges is not in dispute. The overrepresentation of the adopted children in the clinical mental healthcare attests to the fact that there is a certain problem associated with the adopted children that does not feature as much in the non-adopted children (Brodzinsky, 1993). The problem is far more represented in the children that are adopted at a later stage of their life, compared to the once adopted at an early stage in life (Escobar, Pereira, & Santelices, 2014). Nevertheless, there are various factors that can contribute to the deviant behavior demonstrated by the adopted children, which many not necessarily be innate problems. Brand & Brinich, (1999), observes that the developmental and the behavioral challenges can be manifested by adopted children at the age of 6 to 11 years, but such challenges eventually disappear at the age of 15. Therefore, it is conclusive to state that adopted children are more prone to both developmental and behavioral challenges compared to their non-adopted counterparts. Read More