title: Parental stress and factors for success in older-child adoption.
abstract: By examining normal parental needs in child raising, the enormity of the task of adoptive parents taking older children become apparent. Predicting success is as yet unreliable, but it is possible to identify a set of characteristics found in successful adoptors. Although many of these qualities (or the lack thereof) are innate in families, agency philosophy and methods can affirm and enhance those that will best help parents cope. Creative parental survival is our best guarantee of healing and recovery in the children we place.
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000300:Adoption; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D006801:Humans; D009289:Narcissism; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications*