Secret Adoption
Sometimes a couple comes to the adoption centre with a request for secret adoption.
Taking the welfare of the child into consideration, secret adoption can not be encouraged. A vigorous counselling is required to bring change in attitudes of these couple's community and relatives so that they give up the idea of secret adoption.
Special cases
Single Parent Adoption
Single parent adoption has emotional, social and legal implications. For normal and healthy development, a child needs to identify with both parents.In the absence of a parent of one sex, the child does not get the experience of a complete family life.
Requests by single parents for adoption in India are usually from unmarried, separated, divorced women or widows, and rarely from single males.
The possibility that a single mother or a single father is very committed to parenting and adoption and will provide care as good as any adoptive family. Sometimes a single mother can supplement a father using a surrogate father figure, who may be a friend or relative and hence the child need not be deprived.
In fact, the law is supportive of single parent adoption. Both under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act and the Guardians and Wards Act, a single parent may adopt. One major criterion is that there be a maximum of 21 years age difference between the adopted child and the parent, if the two are opposite sexes. This is to ensure that the bond that develops between the two is one of parent and child. Sometimes it is also required that a relative or a friend agrees to become guardian to the child, in the event of an unforeseen crisis, such as the death of the single parent.
Adopting an older child
For stong bonding and attachment most of the adoptive couples request for an infant.
Most of the couples want to adopt a child as small as possible so that they can create a family as close in nature to a biological one.
If the adoptive parents are advanced in age, then adopting an older child is advisable. The age difference between the parent and the child should not exceed 45 years. Sometimes young parents/ single parents also find it easier to adopt and care for older children.
Infants adapt more easily to new parents and a new home(environment). But the adjustment process of older children is a more challenging task for adoptive parents. They have already undergone negative life experiences which make it difficult for them to accept a new situation.
The "special needs" child
The 'special needs' child is one that is awaiting adoption but who is hard to place because he or she has some health or medical problem, physical or mental handicap or having major behavioural disorder.
The adoption of such children in India is not difficult but impossible. In India, couples mostly go for adoption when they do not have anyother option or by any sort of treatment getting a biological child is completely ruled out the couple decide for adoption. Mostly the 'special need' children are adopted by the foreiners.
Combination Families :
A combination family is one that has one or more biologically born children as well as one or more adopted children.
A couple may have a biological child either before or after they go for an adoption. Many couples first have a biological child and then take a decision to adopt, firmly beleiving that there are a lot of destitute, homeless children who need a home and they would prefer to adopt one of them rather than have a biological child.
The legal aspects of combination families also address the equal rights of inheritance and future security.In the absence of a uniform law, some communities in India cannot adopt a child legally and hence the child holds only the status of a ward; so that the parents should ensure, in their will or through other legal formalities, that the two children have equal rights.
Inter - country adoption:
All over the world, in-country adoption is promoted and preffered. Ideally, all adoption centers must follow the convention of putting in-country adoption before inter-country adoption because only then will they make sincere efforts to motivate Indian parents to adopt.
On the other hand, in recognition both of the child's right to a family and of the United Nations Declarations on the Right of the Child Inter- country adoption, all child welfare activities must be geared to ensure that the physical, social, emotional and educational needs of the child are met in a secure family environment. If this cannot be provided in the child's own country of origin, then the next best option is rehabilitation through inter-country adoption.
