Adoption agencies used to refuse to place children with families who already had their own birth children, but that stipulation has been lifted in recent years. Both birth and adopted children can become part of a loving and warm blended family.

If you are thinking about adoption and already have a birth child, the first consideration is whether you will be able to bond with an adopted child as well as with your birth child. A feeling of closeness does not necessarily develop overnight. You will need to work at it, particularly if you adopt an older child who challenges you with difficult behavior, or who turns out to be quite different from you and other members of your family. Even with a baby, bonding can take a while. Your biological child will watch your behavior and listen to your words. You will need to model acceptance, love, and inclusiveness if you want your biological child to begin accepting a new sibling.

It is imperative that you analyze your reasons for pursuing adoption. If you hope to create the warm relationships your own large family had, recognize that facilitating those relationships may be a full-time job, which in the end may be unfulfilled. If you want to create a family basketball team, recognize that you cannot control the athletic abilities of your children. If that is your dream, you may need to hold back and reconsider. It is not fair to stack expectations upon a child who may have totally different abilities, either because of genetics, prenatal environment, initial life experiences, or a combination of these.

Another consideration needs to be how you will deal with relatives and friends who question why you want to adopt. Think about whether your extended family will be able to bond with an adopted child as well as with your birth child. Will they favor your birth child with more expensive presents or more of their time?

If you are unsure how your child feels about having a new sibling, it is wise to start discussing the issue. The process of adoption is a difficult one to keep from your child. After all, a social worker comes to your home, paperwork must be completed, and there may possibly be a trip to a foreign country in the planning stages. Your child may hear a discussion of people called birthparents. There is often a period of not knowing whether a new child will or will not be coming to the family. Your birth child will quickly sense that something is happening. The social worker doing your home study will want to know what you are doing to set the stage for welcoming the new child, and if you have thought about the sibling conflicts that could result. The more your child is involved, the more likely his or her responses will be knowledgeable.

If you are wondering how children raised in families–with children through birth and adoption–are able to adjust, the research studies, while small in number, are encouraging. The results indicate that adoptive placement of a child in a blended family does not affect overall adjustment of the biological child and may, in fact, have positive effects on the adopted child. It appears as though family structure, while complicating the dynamics of adoptive family life, plays a minor role in adoption adjustment. It doesn’t take a research study to know that children of certain ages and in particular developmental stages act in certain ways and feel certain things. Children develop sibling relationships long before they recognize the difference between a biological and an adopted child.

However, it is obvious that you need to acknowledge the differences between your children by birth and adoption. They know they are different, and if you pretend that they are not, the message will not ring true. You must emphatically let the children know that although they joined the family in different ways, each way is a good, valid way, and you treasure and love them all. You need to address the adoption issues with your adopted children when developmentally appropriate but not at the expense of your children by birth. Undoubtedly children in a blended family will use what is available to get what they unconsciously or consciously need at a given time. If adoption is known to get a rise out of a sibling or parent, it could be used to tease the adopted child or cause guilt in the parent. Let’s look at the situations from two common perspectives: either the adopted child feels displaced and that the biological child is preferred, or the biological child feels displaced and that the adopted child is preferred. Perhaps the biological child thinks that in his parents’ efforts to make the adopted child feel welcome and part of the family, they have totally ignored his genetic connections. He looks just like Daddy and everybody used to talk about that all the time; and now, because the new brother doesn’t look like either parent, no one ever talks about the similarities to avoid hurting the new brother’s feelings. The birth child experiences the loss of all those warm fuzzies that looking like Daddy provided. In another family, the adopted child feels left out because she knows she was the only child in the family who did not grow inside of Mommy. She has two other parents out in the world and maybe even other siblings. The brothers and sisters that she lives with are more successful at school, possibly because they dont have concerns about being adopted. Their grades are better, and Mommy and Daddy like that. It’s not fair.

Faber and Mazlish’s book Siblings Without Rivalry is an excellent resource. The ideas in this section all come directly from Faber and Mazlish’s book, which believes that parents can create an atmosphere that fosters cooperation, mutual respect, and caring between siblings. Parents’ reactions can reduce competition and allow hostile feelings to be vented safely. Parents’ attitudes and words do have power, and they can lead the adversaries toward peace and perhaps to one day seeing one another as a source of pleasure and support. Your children may not ever be the best of friends, even if that is what you are secretly hoping for. But at least you can do your best to help them become adults who will listen to another person, respect the person’s point of view, respect the differences between them, and resolve the differences peacefully, even if the only solution is to agree to disagree.

Adoption educator Patricia Irwin Johnston, in her article “Sibling Attachment,” suggests a number of ways to promote a feeling of closeness among siblings of any kind. One of these is to “do all that you can to nurture a sense of shared family culture.” Two other adoption educators, Lois Melina and Holly Van Gulden, also speak about this concept. When there are natural opportunities, find ways to emphasize and comment on things that the family enjoys together, such as silly songs, rituals, funny stories, or favorite places. Remark on similarities among family members. For example, when you go out for pizza to the family’s favorite pizza restaurant, say “Boy, we sure all love pizza!” When everyone bundles up and you assign the various jobs involved in stringing up the Christmas lights on the house, and the neighbors pass by and say how nice they are, say, “Yep, that’s the Jones family tradition…we always string the lights on December 15th.” Celebrate religious observances, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and other special days in your family’s particular way that will create lasting memories for your children.

One couple with a daughter by birth who subsequently adopted a daughter established a day they call “Sisters Day.” They celebrate the day the two girls became sisters with a cake after dinner and the exchange of homemade gifts the girls make for one another. This celebration is held instead of an “Adoption Day” celebration that calls attention only to the child by adoption and is in addition to each girl’s birthday celebration.

No matter how a child becomes part of the family, each one must be loved and valued for whoever he or she is. Loving each child exactly the same is not often possible. Children have different talents, abilities, and characteristics. Parents are bound to feel differently even about their birth children. Parents can never eliminate sibling rivalry, but they can minimize it. They can try to create an atmosphere in which each child’s contribution to the family is valued and nurtured, each child’s needs are met, and each child is encouraged to reach his or her full potential. Parents can work to create a shared family culture that encompasses all family members and surrounds them with love, respect, and security. All parents can do is their best and trust that positive, satisfying sibling relationships will result.