Adoptive parents: love the adopted child like your own?
As adoptive parents love the adopted child like a natural child? Many adoptive parents ask themselves this question, especially if they already have children of their own. Find out here why it makes no difference whether you have an adopted child or a biological child.
Presumably, parents would not adopt a child if they could not imagine feeling love for that child. They were willing to go to great lengths to qualify for adoption . But will the love be what they would feel for a biological child? Many factors play a role in the development of love.
In order to have an overview of all important decisions and possible problems, you should deal with the questions about adoption in advance. The following ten questions provide an initial overview for prospective adoptive parents:
Development in the mother’s womb
When a woman wishes to have a child, the news that she is pregnant often triggers great feelings of happiness. During these nine months you look forward to the child, you can feel how it is growing. After the exciting birth you can finally hold your child in your arms. These experiences and this time are lost with an adopted child.
You fought hard for this child!
But you waited a long time for your adoptive child, mastered many challenges and experienced the feeling of happiness that it finally worked out. Only the physical relationship and closeness needs to be rebuilt, because the physical intimacy needs to form and grow.
The age of the adopted child at the time of adoption
The age of your adoptive child determines how much of their growth you missed. If you get to know the adoptive child in infancy, change its diaper, feed it, see its first steps, hear its first words, you are hardly missing a phase of the child’s development. If you only get to know your child when it is older, you will of course always be missing certain development phases and years. The love for the adopted child will seldom be as strong in the first moment of meeting as the love for a biological child. Love can only grow with shared experiences and memories. Then you have to take your time.
The same look
The biological child will probably look like you or his father. Again and again you can recognize yourself in him and the same creates trust. Trust, in turn, breeds affection. Your adopted child, on the other hand, can look very different, especially if it is an international adoption.
The same values, ideas and attitudes characterize the relationship between adoptive parents and adoptive child
Just because you’re not very similar doesn’t mean you can’t build anything together. Because you can experience things with your adopted child and thereby create common memories that will shape your relationship and your affection. Your child will grow up with your moral standards and will develop a similar attitude and taste on many issues. So the visual similarity will not be decisive for you, but rather the same way of living and, to a certain extent, thinking and acting the same way.
More information on adoption
You can find out more about adoptive children in the article “ Do you feel ready for adoption ?” and “ What requirements do you have to meet ? ”. You can find a general overview on our “Adoption” page.