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Adolescent’s attitude to foster or adopted children
The way how sibling relationships are formed in foster and adapting families (next – “foster”) seems to be
an important issue for study. Among other things, sibling relationships play an important role in the
formation of personality and persist throughout life longer than other close relationships. We studied
through theoretical and qualitative methods the aspects of the relationship of biological adolescent
children to their foster siblings, as well as to the adoption situation in general and to the phenomenon of
orphanhood. First, 61 adolescents from 12 to 18 years old (M=15) gave their free associations to the
concept of “adopted child” and definitions of the concept. We analyzed the obtained associations with the
method of prototypical analysis by P. Vergès; the definitions were analyzed by the method of
phenomenological content analysis. Next, 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted about the
adolescent’s experience of living in a family with a foster child. Additionally, the modified Sachs-Levi
“Incomplete Sentences” technique was used with following phenomenological content analysis. We also
used a modified version of the self-assessment method by Dembo-Rubinstein and the “Family
Sociogram” method by Eidemiller. We have found that adolescents’ social ideas about the concept of
“foster child” vary depending on their experience of living in a foster family. The representations of the
biological children from foster families were more objective, detailed, and associated with real facts and
feelings. These ideas are somewhat more emotionally charged; they combine both positive and negative
emotions. Teenagers from foster families better understand both the characteristics of foster children, the
circumstances of their lives, and their parents’ motives for fostering or adopting a child into the family, as
well as the responsibilities of foster families. The attitudes of biological children - adolescents towards
foster siblings are generally friendly, but ambivalent. Biological children - adolescents from foster
families associate their negative experiences with foster children with unrealistic expectations due to lack
of information, as well as with limited personal space and the inability to discuss their experiences
regarding changes in the family openly. Adolescents in a foster families experienced some changes in
their family structure, for example, they perceive their parents as having become closer to their foster
child and pushing their biological child to the periphery of their family system. The results of the study
allow us to develop special therapeutic techniques to help foster families.