ABSTRACT
The extant literature on adoptive parenting has found parenting processes to have significant implications for the well-being of adopted persons and overall family functioning. While parenting behaviors have been the subject of much scholarship, also important among these parenting processes is how adoptive parents think about their roles as parents of their adopted children. The current chapter discusses research and theory on cognitive parenting processes particularly relevant to adoptive parents as well as their relation to adoptee and family outcomes. These include attitudes toward differences between adoptive and nonadoptive parenthood, attitudes and beliefs toward ethnic and racial differences between parent and child, and thoughts and feeling of entitlement to parent adopted children. The chapter closes with a discussion on how existing literature on these topics can inform adoption agency and clinical practice.
