It’s a scary story on its surface. A Minnesota psychologist finds that adopted kids are twice as likely to have behavioral disorders that carry daunting names like conduct disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, and attention deficit disorder. Those are diagnoses that hint at debilitating anger and disconnection. You can read the story here.

Adoption agencies go to a lot of trouble to warn parents about what they might face as their kids hit the emotional gauntlet of adolescence, the age when kids struggle to create their unique identity. For adopted kids who lost the parents and families they never knew that can be particularly difficult.

“It’s all about loss,” said Jennifer Wilson, a social worker from Children’s Home Society who counsels adoptive families and adopted children. In adolescence “it’s a double challenge, separating from your parents, and separating from a birth family that you may never meet.”

But Margaret Keyes, the psychologist who conducted study, takes a larger view. True, adopted kids are somewhat more likely than non-adopted ones to have emotional problems, but really, the rates are quite low, she said. And, after all, what child doesn’t face some risk, anything from violence in the media to as of yet unidentified genes to divorcing parents or addiction. From that perspective, being adopted doesn’t seem like much of a risk at all.

Somehow, most adopted kids find their way through it. Sometimes, they end up with some of the most interesting stories of all. If you have one about being adopted or the child you adopted, will you share it?

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm and is filed under adolescence, adoption, behavioral disorders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.