Child Adoption: Exploration of its Benefits and Impacts on Adoptees and Adoptive Parents

Abstract

Child adoption has become a contemporary sociological matter in Nigeria. Once child adoption is effected and nurtured, it engenders latent and manifest consequences. The study examines the benefits and impacts of child adoption on adoptees and the adoptive parents. It is a library based research that did not involve field work. The study maintains that child adoption causes most adoptees to suffer grief arising from the loss of, and detachment from, a birth parent who may be alive, yet unavailable and perhaps unknown. The study further argues that child adoption, if not properly managed may adversely affect the identity development, self-esteem and mental health of adoptees. Regarding adoptive parents, the study submits that some, particularly those that are infertile, may suffer from post adoption depression swing and also experience intermittent feeling of being inadequate to parent a child. The study also identified possessiveness, uncertainty and concern regarding status of the adoptee as possible impact of child adoption on adoptive parents. The benefits of adoption were highlighted to include support for adoptive parents during old age and providing adoptees wings to fly and achieve their ambitions. The study recommends that given its benefits the Government and society should encourage child adoption and that potential adoptive parents should undergo counselling.