Thursday, February 23, 2012

The source I chose for this section of my research is a book titled "The Psychology of Adoption."  It is by David Brodzinsky and I found it in the Google Scholar database.  I find this source credible because there is an extensive list of contributors.  It does not give a works cited page but that is only because there are only certain pages being shown.  The information found is very accurate to what I have found in my other research as well.  I researched the author and he has written a couple books on adoption, so he himself is very credible.  I focused on one section in chapter one to look more closely at. The section is titled "Appraisal of loss among adopted children: Developmental Changes."  This source is good for my research because it helps me look at the effects of adoption on younger children and not just older children.  It gives a good base for why adopted children when they're older have psychological and emotional disorders.  It helps me expand and look into the idea of loss when children and teens are adopted.

The section starts off by talking about children being placed in adoptive homes when they are young is not alone the main cause of "loss" in the child.  It then goes on to discuss that when the child is preschool age and their parents begin to tell them they are adopted, it does not affect them adversely.  Most times, they're excited to be adopted and loved.  When the adopted children approach the elementary school age there thoughts begin to shift.  As children grow older they begin to realize and think about the idea of loss.  This idea is often a cause in "behavior, emotions and attitudes." (pg 13)  The older the child gets the stronger the feeling of loss.   At the end it states that the children until they are mature enough to understand the concept of loss and adoption it will not negatively effect them.

I think this article was very helpful in my research.  I only focused on a part of it for this entry but as a whole the book is full of very useful information regarding adoption.  I liked that it talked about young children and not being able to grasp the concept of loss.  The older the child is the more they are able to comprehend that they were adopted and the more they may begin to remember things that have happened to them before.  This chapter focused more on children being adopted from birth but it showed that they too may struggle with the idea of being given up.  Thus, giving off a negative effect when it comes to things of a psychological nature.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for providing specific information about the section of the book you used so I could find it easily. You notice a number of credibility factors that are accurate. I did want to point out that Google Scholar is not a database. It is still a search engine though it will provide you with higher quality sources than those found by a generic Google search.

    In your summary, you did a good job picking up on the big picture of the article, which was that children can't understand losses associated with adoption until they reach a certain developmental stage. I would have liked to see you go a little more in depth about the loss that children do understand as they develop, namely as they start to define family in different ways and as they start to understand that the birth family had to relinquish them for the adoption to take place.

    In both your response and the statement of usefulness, you mention that you liked that this source talks about young children. Since you talked about older children and adults with some of your earlier sources, I agreed that this source brought a nice balance to the project.

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