How Do Children Feel About Being Adopted?

For adoptees like Diana, adoption meant growing up knowing that her birth parents chose a family they believed could give her the life they wanted for her.

Years later, she can look back on that choice and the family she grew up with with deep gratitude.

“Thank you not just for choosing to place me for adoption when you knew it would be the hard but right decision, but also thank you for giving me this family. Out of all the places I could have wound up in the world, this is where I ended up, and I’m so grateful for that.”

Watch Diana share more about growing up adopted and the family her birth parents chose for her.

Every adoptee’s experience is their own, but Diana’s story shows what adoption can make possible: A child can grow up deeply loved while knowing that their birth parents’ love helped shape the life and family they have today.

Adoption gives you the opportunity to choose the family and future you want for your baby.

You can choose adoptive parents who can provide the love, stability and opportunities you want for your child. Through open adoption, you can also remain part of their life as they grow.

Browse waiting adoptive families, or call 1-800-ADOPTION or fill out our online form to speak with an adoption specialist.

How Do Children Feel About Being Adopted? 

Children who are adopted can have many different thoughts and feelings about adoption, and those feelings may change as they grow. 

For Diana, growing up adopted meant experiencing the everyday love and involvement of parents who had waited and prepared for the opportunity to raise a child.

“[My parents] were at every school event. They helped us with homework. They read and told us stories every night. I grew up able to travel the world, and I learned piano...” Diana said. “The love is unconditional and it’s constant, and they will always make it felt.”

Our co-founder, Scott Mars, knows personally what that can mean for a child because he was adopted himself.

“I was the centerpiece of their life,” he said about his adoptive parents. “My mom and dad were a couple who weren’t able to become a mom and dad without adoption. Of all the people in this world, they deserved to be parents.”

For Scott, the impact is something he can summarize simply:

“Because of adoption, my life was filled with love and opportunity.”

He shares his story here and explains what adoption means to him.  

American Adoptions has helped create families through adoption for more than 30 years, and our staff includes people with personal connections to adoption, including adoptees, birth parents and adoptive family members.

When you work with American Adoptions, an adoption professional can help you think through what you want for your baby's future, find families who fit those hopes and create the type of open adoption relationship you want.

What Does Research Say About Children Who Are Adopted?

The statistics back up stories like Diana’s and Scott's. 

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report, "Adoption USA," compiled data from the National Survey of Adoptive Parents. Among its findings:

• 85 percent of children who are adopted were in excellent or very good health.
• Children who are adopted were more likely to have health insurance than children in the general population.
• Children who are adopted were less likely to live in households below the poverty threshold.
• 68 percent were read to every day as young children, compared with 48 percent of children in the general population.
• 85 percent participated in extracurricular activities as school-age children, compared with 81 percent of children in the general population.
• More than half were reported to have excellent or very good performance in reading, language arts and math.

These statistics can't predict your child's individual experience. They can, however, provide important context as you think about the kind of childhood and opportunities adoption could make possible for your baby.

Adoption Is Growing and Changing (for the Better!)  

Although only a few decades ago, the norm for adoptions was to have a closed relationship, a study from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute titled “Openness in Adoption” reports that only 5 percent of today’s adoptions are closed, and the remaining 95 percent are open. The study also cites benefits for children who are adopted who have continued contact with and access to their birth parents after they are adopted.  

“I’m a happy, well-adjusted adult (or at least as much as any of us are!) because I grew up with an open adoption,” adoptee Diana said. “I’m so lucky to have such a fantastic relationship with both my birth and adoptive families. I wouldn’t be the person that I am today without both of those sides of me. Open adoption gave me that.” 

American Adoptions supports and encourages this shift toward increased openness in adoptions given the research that has shown benefits for everyone involved, especially adoptees.  

Contact with birth families allows children who are adopted to maintain access to medical, genealogical, and family histories. Youth in open adoptions also have a better understanding of the meaning of adoption and more active communication about adoption with their adoptive parents.  

Adopted teens who had open adoptions described a range of benefits, including:  

• understanding the reasons for their adoption.  

• being able to identify where personal traits came from.  

• having information to help them with identity formation. 

• having positive feelings toward their birth mother.  

The happiness of children who are adopted can be linked to the healthy development of their identity. Children who feel secure in their relationship with their adoptive family and understand and accept their adoption are able to lead happy, healthy, and well-adjusted lives.  

• American Adoptions screens and selects our adoptive families to ensure children who are adopted will be raised in safe homes with attentive parents who can provide a lifetime of love and opportunities.

• We use our personal adoption experience to select only the very best adoptive parents for our program, giving you peace of mind you are making the best decision. 

To gain more firsthand experiences from adoptees, you can read these testimonials of those who have shared their own stories about what it feels like to be adopted. Understanding adoptees’ thoughts and feelings toward adoption can provide peace of mind knowing that their lives have been happy and changed for the better.  

• Having concerns about how your child will grow up and what they will think about being adopted is natural.

• Because you are making such a brave, life-changing decision, you want to be sure they have the life you dream of.

• American Adoptions can help ensure that happens.  

If you are still looking for more information about what it’s like to be adopted, give us a call at 1-800-ADOPTION, or get free adoption information by filling out this form. 

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