Adoption is a beautiful blessing, but as a parent who already has biological children, you have to consider how a change to your family structure and dynamic doesn’t just affect you. No matter how well-received the idea of adoption is by your biological children, this is a life-altering experience for them.
Realizing this challenge may make you wonder: Will my biological child feel pushed aside? What if this is harder on them than I expected?
Don’t worry—it’s not too late to learn how to support your biological children as part of the adoptive family journey. With patience, faith, and intentional support, you can help your biological children thrive in this new family dynamic.
At the Free Will Baptist Children’s Home, we witness both the highs and lows of siblings adapting to new additions to their family dynamics, and we’re here to provide the advice and educational resources you need.
Understanding the Unique Emotional Experience of Biological Children
Why Adoption Can Impact Biological Children
Getting Less Attention Than Before
For their optimal development, especially in the socioemotional category, ALL children need their parents’ attention. However, it is much harder to ensure your well-adjusted biological child gets the same level of attention and consistency they’re used to when you adopt a new sibling into the family. Adopted children tend to have more needs that require your dedicated time and attention, such as:
- Unhealed/untreated trauma from having an abusive/neglectful family in the past
- Disabilities (specific learning, physical, intellectual, psychological, developmental, etc.)
- Challenging behavior
- Needs to learn or develop specific skills (social behaviors, self-care, household chores, self-discipline, etc.) that children their age usually already have/know
- Adapting to life in a new environment
Less Consistency
Another need all children have is consistency, especially within the family unit. With a new family member with higher needs, consistent parts of family life like routines and schedules, the amount of quality time spent together, activities, required errands, and traditions are bound to change.
Negative Exposure
An adopted sibling can expose biological children to trauma, grief, or even bullying in ways they never understood or experienced before, particularly within the home.
How Adoption Impacts Biological Children
Without the same stability, consistency, and attention they’re used to, because you’re having to redirect it to your newly adopted child, biological children can feel overlooked or “invisible.” They may also feel pressure to be the “easy” child or peacekeeper and have difficulty naming or expressing complicated emotions that they need help processing.
Common Concerns Biological Children May Carry
Due to how and why your biological child may be affected by the introduction of a new sibling into the family through adoption, they may carry concerns or feelings like:
- “Will I still matter as much?”
- A fear of saying the wrong thing about adoption
- Anxiety when parents feel overwhelmed
- Resentment or jealousy toward the new sibling
These concerns are not abnormal and are understandable responses to change, but it is essential to address them by providing the proper support during this transitional period.
Practical Ways to Support Biological Children in an Adoptive Family + Mitigate Negative Effects
Helping Your Biological Child Feel Secure
- Reassure biological children of their place and importance. Since your biological child may feel a lack of stability and consistency when you introduce a new adoptive sibling to the family, it is essential to support them with reassurance that, no matter how the family dynamic changes, your love and support for them will never change, and that you are proud to have them in your life.
- Address birth order, shifting roles, and sibling comparisons. No matter the age gap between your biological child and newly adopted child, the family dynamic changes. It can change your children’s birth order, roles, responsibilities, and how they perceive their contributions to the family.
- Celebrate your biological child’s special moments (like birthdays, achievements, milestones, and engagement with their interests) with the same level of effort, love, and attention as you do for their adopted sibling and as consistently as possible, just as you did before the adoptive sibling entered the picture.
Have Safe, Honest Conversations About Adoption
Your biological child’s ability to adapt and embrace having an adoptive family is highly dependent on their ability to express how it makes them feel, stage by stage. Encourage openness and allow them to ask any questions, letting them know that there’s nothing they need to hesitate to ask or discuss with you privately and that there’s no need to feel fear or guilt, even if it feels “wrong,” resentful, or selfish to say.
After you encourage them to be radically honest with you and themselves about their difficult questions and emotions, you must keep your word that your one-on-one discussions with them are a safe space by responding calmly, with validation and acceptance, and without judgment.
Just remember that accepting and validating your child’s more negative thoughts and feelings doesn’t mean you’re agreeing with them, encouraging them to maintain them, or permitting them to externalize them; it just means that they have the autonomy to feel that way and express it healthily in private without you shaming or punishing them for it.
For more advice on talking about adoption and how it works with children, in general, check out this blog, where we advise good ways to address it with adoptive children.
Protect Connection Through One-on-One Time
For children, especially those with secure or anxious attachment styles, closeness with their parents is crucial. If your biological child is used to having your undivided attention and bonding time, introducing an adopted child into the family may make them afraid that they’ll lose that.
To help reassure your biological child, you must make intentional efforts to show them you will still have a close connection, no matter what. You can do this by setting aside one-on-one time to enjoy bonding activities, whether that’s watching a movie, going for a scenic walk, or putting a puzzle together—just the two of you. The adoptive sibling should get one-on-one time with you, too, so both children understand that your time spent with the other doesn’t take away from or devalue their own time with you.
Post-Adoption Counseling
Post-adoption counseling is a proactive and healthy resource that helps anyone in an adoptive family embrace and adapt to their new lives, emotionally, socially, and mentally. However, many parents do not realize how important it is for the children who were a part of the family before the adoption, not just the adoptive child or the parents.
Getting post-adoption counseling for your biological children is one of the best ways to support this significant change in their lives; they’ll learn healthy ways to understand and express their feelings and have an unbiased environment to work through the more difficult ones.
If your family is local to our Home and needs post-adoption support, please feel free to ask us about our on-campus counseling services; we offer this service not only for families in active post-adoption or foster crises, but also for any families in the area who are adapting to life with adopted children.
Click here to learn more about The Benefits of Counseling for Foster Children and Families.
Encouragement and Support for Parents
For parents who have concerns about their biological children’s feelings as they grow their family through adoption, we would like to close out our advice by sharing some encouragement for you.
You Are Not Failing — You Are Responding
Please know that you aren’t the first parent(s) to be worried about your biological child while simultaneously overjoyed to have a new addition to your family. Concern and adjustment are part of healthy parenting, and your reading this guide now to learn how to support your children shows just how great a parent you already are.
It is also more than okay to need support, guidance, and some grace, and it’s not a sign of weakness or not “being enough” for your family as you are. Consider it proof of your devotion to being the best parent you can be.
You Are Not Alone
Thank you for reading this detailed guide to supporting biological children in your adoptive family. Remember: don’t rush the process; progress is never linear. Kids will go through moments where everything seems great and the next day everything is distressing again—all of which is entirely normal and doesn’t have a set timeline. With faith, patience, and commitment to growth, your adoptive family will thrive, and we are here to cheer you on!
At the Alabama Freewill Baptist Children’s Home, we are dedicated to providing ongoing support for adoptive families. To learn more about our counseling services for adoptive and fostering families, please click here or contact us today for additional resources.
And if you’re here to simply support our ministry, we are so grateful for you reading this, and we encourage you to give as you can. Your donations ensure that children in crisis have a safe, loving home and that adoptive and foster children and families in our community have the support and guidance they need to flourish in Christ.