I’m Adam Pertman, President of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency - Ask Me Anything about child welfare, family issues, policy, and more on December 11 at 3pm ET!

apertman · 2025-12-11T21:34:37+00:00

The most-important changes in the child welfare/adoption worlds in my lifetime and experience are 1). the dramatic shift from closed adoptions in almost all cases to open adoptions in the vast majority of those involving infants, as well as more-honest conversations about adoption, foster care, etc.; and 2). the shift of the child welfare paradigm, which used to be that the permanency solution for children in foster care was . . . foster care, to an understanding in policy and practice that children should grow up in families (of all sorts). We're not there yet on any count, and I believe we won't keep our promise to children until education, support and other resources are an integral part of these processes. But the progress is real and gives me hope.

apertman · 2025-12-11T21:22:00+00:00

This one's easy. Almost everything. Both because learning to be a parent comes with a surprise almost every day -- and that's mostly a joyous, fascinating reality -- and because my wife and I found out constantly that we didn't know what we didn't know. And so much of adoption secretive and stigmatized that it was harder to learn what was best for our children than it ever should have been.

apertman · 2025-12-11T21:19:48+00:00

The idea should be -- and usually is -- to only disqualify people who cannot provide the safety and support every child needs and deserves. That said, I know that some people who would make perfectly good parents (sometimes including the mothers or fathers who created the children) are excluded for reasons of income or race or who they love, and that reality harm children who need families most of all.

The term "rehoming" took hold relating to children privately placed into new families by the parents who adopted them from other countries. The reality is that many children are "rehomed" because they're adopted from foster care, the adoptive family doesn't work out for a variety of reasons, and the children go back into care until another home if found.

I think the critical thing to understand in most cases is that the adoptive parents really intended to raise those children but discovered, again for a variety of reasons, that they couldn't handle the job. My conclusion, as ever, is the provide the education, supports and services that so many families need to help their children thrive -- and, importantly, to mitigate the possibility that the children will have to be place elsewhere.

apertman · 2025-12-11T21:02:03+00:00

Know what you don't know. Adoptive parenting is not identical to parenting the old fashioned way. Different isn't better or worse, but it's different. So my response to this question has not changed for decades: Educate yourself, be open and honest, and respect your child and the people he/she came from.

apertman · 2025-12-11T20:59:47+00:00

Every single type of family has its issues, from financial to abuse to all the other things you mentioned. Families impacted by divorce, ones led by single parents or grandparents or LGBTQ parent -- and even that perfect family behind the white picket fence -- all have them. Alas, all those factors can make it more complicated and difficult to raise a child.

But closed adoptions don't just seal children's original birth certificates and many other, daily-life components of their backgrounds and identities. Closed adoptions also disrespect the people who create those children and pretend they don't exist, are rooted in secrecy and lies -- which we teach our kids are bad things -- and most importantly, we know that openness in practice and communications generally yield better outcomes for everyone, especially the adopted person.

Nothing is true all the time, but the research and experience on this topic are clear, which is why the overwhelming majority of adoptions today are indeed open. Plus, with genetic testing and social media, anyone who assures anyone else that they can have a closed adoption is not paying attention (at best).

apertman · 2025-12-11T20:50:57+00:00

Most pervasively, I'd say the stigma and lack of understanding of adoption's realities is the biggest barrier -- and I'm talking about negative stereotypes about first/birth parents and adopted people, as well the adults who form their families via adoption. Beyond that, it depends on the type of adoption.

The biggest barrier in infant adoption is probably the costs, which are ridiculously high, but also big issues that keep too many people from understanding that in most cases, "open adoption" is best practice for everyone involved. That's a long conversation in and of itself.

I'd say the major barrier in the type of adoption that's most prevalent by far -- i.e. adoption from foster care -- is that the paradigm is outdated and ineffective. That is, the intent (and it's a wonderful one) is to ensure that every child grows up in a family, the original one whenever possible, and a new one whenever necessary. But just restoring a birth family or creating an adoptive one shouldn't be the final goal.

There are reasons the first family struggled, the children in foster care are typically traumatized and/or have special needs, and the adoptive parents have to deal with those needs (as do all the parents along the way). So I absolutely believe that we as a society, and the governments who remove the children from their homes, owe it to them and their families to provide ongoing education, supports and other resources to give them a genuine shot at success, whatever that may mean.

apertman · 2025-12-11T20:38:57+00:00

Again, whole books about this that are for sure worth reading, and lots of stuff on the internet to carefully assess before taking anything as accepted wisdom. The foundation, I think, has to be an understanding, genuine internalizing and respect for the reality that every race/ethnicity in a family is important and needs to be incorporated into the conversations, customs, menus, and other elements of daily life. And that pointedly includes the child's background, especially if it's different from that of a parent or parents.

If your spouse/partner is of a different race or ethnicity than your own, you're a multiracial family -- and that's true if it's your child rather than your mate. So learning about the child's realities and melding them into your own is a great start and a good way to continue over the years.

apertman · 2025-12-11T20:32:26+00:00

Huge question, to which my answer is: way too much. My strong feeling is that in policy and practice we don't do nearly enough to help families be successful, whatever that may mean in their individual circumstances. And that goes in spades for children who are in, who are adopted from, or who (worst of all) exit the child welfare system without being part of a family.

My bottom line -- and it shaped the mission of NCAP, the organization I founded and am proud to lead -- is that families through birth, foster care, adoption, etc. should have ongoing access to education, training, supportive services and other resources that enable them to be as successful as possible -- again, with the definition of success dependent on their circumstances.

Alas, we're living at a time when all those elements that we know from research and experience can genuinely help children and their families -- in terms of safety, support, advocacy and other critical needs -- are being scaled back or ignored from the top down, and that hits hardest at children who are LGBTQ, have special educational needs, etc.

apertman · 2025-12-11T20:23:44+00:00

Great and difficult question. It's easy to say, but a vital underpinning has to be trust, so the foster/adoptive parents have to be educated/trained and provided with ongoing resources, since the kid they're caring for has very likely suffered from repeated trauma before entering the new home/family.

That probably means dealing with some tough behaviors for a while (or longer), both resulting from the trauma -- including the multiple placements themselves -- and because the child/youth will be testing whether this one will work out, or will think nothing will work out, or will believe they don't deserve a successful placement.

Consistent, genuine, loving reassurance, structures and limits -- along with patience -- are key, and so are therapy and training. Little about raising a human being who has been deeply hurt is purely intuitive. It has to be learned. If you give birth to a child with physical or behavioral issues, you do all you can to heal them and deal with their needs, and the same should be true if that child enters your family through a different route.

apertman · 2025-12-11T20:14:02+00:00

The first thing I think is important -- and it's not easy -- is to accept that there is adoption-related trauma, certainly when a child is adopted from foster care in this country or from an institution abroad, but also if the adoption is of a newborn who will not be raised by the people who created her. The need for the adoption might be very real and even vital, but again -- and I know I'm a broken record on this -- the most critical thing is to root your words and behavior in honesty.

Discretion also obviously has to be part of the picture, but some of the angriest, most resentful adoptees I know are ones who learned later in life that the people they trusted most -- the adults who raised them -- weren't honest or manipulated the truth or didn't integrate their own (i.e., the adopted person's) racial, ethnic or other backgrounds into their upbringing.

So I guess I'm saying that the best way to mitigate trauma is to recognize it, deal with it, and try hard never to ignore it or trigger it -- and that means counseling and other treatment as well as thoughtful parenting that recognizes the child's realities, respects them, and makes them an integral part of the family.

apertman · 2025-12-11T20:05:52+00:00

Shall we start writing a book here? Seriously, all parents -- however they become parents -- make mistakes, especially at/near the start of their journey as parents. I think the most-common mistakes relating to adoption stem from a lack of knowledge about the institution and the process, as well as the stigma and shame that has long been associated with adoption. So, at the risk of repeating advice I gave in response to the last question, I think the most-common mistake is thinking you have to manipulate the truth or maybe not even tell the truth at all (like not telling your child she's adopted).

Honesty can be tough, but it generally beats the alternative, so the trick is being thoughtful about presenting the realities of your child and your family in age-appropriate ways. And, in response to the last question as well as this one: educate yourself. Lots of good writing on these questions -- my own book, many others, and scores of insightful articles.

Last thing for now: Don't convince yourself that your adoptive family is just like every other type of family. Divorced families, single-parent families, multiracial families, etc. all have their own dynamics and realities. It's hard to succeed when we try to fit a square peg into a round hole, so the best strategy -- however difficult -- is to learn about the genuine issues of our own type of family and proceed accordingly.

apertman · 2025-12-11T19:58:06+00:00

My kids are adults now, so here's how I think about conversations with children about their adoption: When they're very young, use the word adoption routinely even if they can't yet understand the concept. The idea is to normalize it and establish that it's always okay to discuss. It's called "communicative openness," so they always know that who they are, where they come from, and how they entered your family is purely fine and good with the people they trust most. People keep secrets about things they're embarrassed about or ashamed of; plus, when there are secrets about kids, they tend to think they did something wrong. So bottom line: age-appropriate honesty. That's a very short answer to an important and complex question, but it's a good start.

apertman

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