Perceived Child-Parent Relationships and Child Adjustment in Families with Both Adopted and Natural Children

Abstract

The personal and social adjustment and perceptions of child-parent relationships of members of families having only natural children, families having only adopted children, and mixed families having both natural and adopted children were studied to determine whether the children in mixed families encounter unique adjustment difficulties and perceptions of their relationships with their parents. Although the effect was small, children in all-adoptive families reported lower adjustment scores than children in natural families; however, the adopted children in mixed families were similar to the natural children in both the mixed and natural families on all measurements. In addition, natural children in mixed families did not differ from the children in natural families. These results suggest that the placement of an adoptive child in a mixed family does not affect the overall adjustment of the natural child and may, in fact, have positive effects on the adoptive child.