When do children really understand what "Adoption" means?
Today most Scientists & Adoption Agents are of the opinion that
parents should inform their adopted children as soon as possible
about their status. The issue should thereafter be discussed
more often at various points in time to give the child/children
a chance to grasp their special status and the opportunity to
ask questions. Only an early introduction to the subject will
give parents and children a chance to develop an open and
trusting relationship between each other.
There are two sides to the process of informing a child about
it's adoptive status: First of all the information has to be
passed on to the child and secondly the child has to understand
the information it has been given.
It is more than likely that a 4 year old child can be made to
refer to itself as "adopted" and further tell that it has grown
in another woman's womb before being adopted by it's present
parents. This however does not go to say that the child has
understood what an adoption really means. More so it has to be
assumed that due to the child's use of very specific vocabulary
related to the issue of adoption the parents are lured into the
false belief that their child fully understands the concept of
adoption. By doing so, the cognitive capability of a small child
is highly overestimated. It takes approximately 10 years for an
adopted child to fully grasp the information about its adoption
which they have been given at the age of 3 or 4. This knowledge
was the result of the scientific research by BRODZINSKY and his
colleagues during the "Rutgers Adoption Project" (1986). The
scientists examined 100 adopted children in comparison to 100
non-adopted children. There were 20 children in each age group:
4-5 years old, 6-7 years old, 8-9 years old, 10-11 years old and
12-13 years old. All adoptive children were adopted within the
first 2