ABSTRACT
It is important to examine the correlates of intercountry adoptees’ behavior problems and to study the life stages in which they may particularly struggle with adoption issues. The above-mentioned meta-analysis showed that age at adoptive placement was not a significant moderator: intercountry adoptees placed in infancy presented the same levels of behavior problems as intercountry adoptees placed after their first or second birthday (Juffer and Van IJzendoorn, 2005). What did matter was the developmental phase of the international adoptees: in middle childhood they showed more behavior problems than in adolescence. We may speculate that intercountry adoptees start struggling with adoption and identity issues relatively early because racial and cultural differences between adoptive parents and adoptees are often obvious and visible (Juffer and Van IJzendoorn, 2005). It could also be assumed that some behavior problems are related to processes in the family, including understanding and interest in adoption, and communication about adoption and the birth culture. In this chapter we discuss outcomes from our studies on children’s interest in
adoption and in their birth culture in families with transracially adopted children from several countries of origin.
