pends on each case. Developmental theorist Eric Erikson, discusses trust issues in his theory of development. Erikson's first stage of development is “Trust versus Mistrust”, which states “if needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of basic trust” (Myers, 149). For an adopted child, placing the child early in a key ingredient to successful attachment of child to parent and vice versa (Cox, 1). Such an attachment, which is strong among the majority of families throughout the paper, is an important precursor to positive identity and psychological health, both of which are commonplace among the adolescents. Attachment can occur between adoptive parents and their older child, and it “usually is assumed that the bonding process will take time and the older the child, the longer the process will take” (Adamec, 60). This usually takes place in the first A IIIstage of Erikson’s developmental stages, but with older children, this can still take place, but will vary in the time it takes to attach between parent and child. Although Erikson has eight stages of development, the one, which forms a child’s identity, is in the “Identity versus role confusion” stages (Myers, 149). In this stage, which is the child’s teen years into their twenties, “teenagers work at refining a sense of self by testing roles and integrating them to form a single identity, or they become confused about their identity” ( Myers, 149). Adopted children do not have a biological example to follow, unless they keep a relationship with their biological family, and this can hinder the identity issue for adolescents. This is where the att...
