Adding a second child often prompts a debate, or at least some deep and careful thought, in all families, and adoptive families are no exception. In fact, the discussion may be much wider ranging when issues of domestic vs. international, infant vs. older child, boy vs. girl, Ethiopia vs. Ukraine, special needs vs. none, and such ... much less, the "Can we afford the process again? question ... must be brought to the table in addition to the usual questions about sibs and spacing and all that come about, but nonetheless the debate occurs in families that have no adoption experience at all.

With the reality of adoption often meaning that our kids come to us having already sustained some damage from whatever circumstance has them adoptable in the first place, careful thought must be given to adding another set of special issues to the mix and how those can be dealt with while still attending to the needs of a first child.

This study looking at results of parents treating children in the family differently is interesting.

Not surprisingly, it's communication that levels an uneven playing field:

Even when children reported that they and their siblings were treated differently, they often didn't agree about exactly how or why they were being treated differently, Kramer said. One thing, however, was clear: siblings got along better if they had a shared understanding of why parents treated them differently and believed the treatment was fair.

Although not included in examples given, it would follow that special attention given an adopted child to encourage bonding or to deal with institutionalization or pre-adoption traumas does not need to create a rift if the reasoning is clear: "A brother or sister can usually understand that even if it means that they get less parental attention."

Smoothing sibling ties and how the media isn't doing a good job of passing along known wisdom is the subject of this report.

For example, a lot of the popular focus is toward optimum spacing between children and how to prepare an older child for a new arrival, but the advice doesn't go far enough, according to the professor in charge of the study.

"We find that when that second child is born doesn’t account for a whole lot of difference in terms of how well children get along." Much of her research focuses on factors that set the stage for positive sibling relationships. Older children learn to respect a younger child, she said, when they are coached both on the changes a baby will bring and on how a baby will be a new person "with its own needs and ideas and feelings."

And for more on helping our little ones develop great relationships between themselves, here's a study that shows how encouraging your child to make friends will help him adjust positively to a new sibling.

This rings true on an intuitive level, but I'd never before seen science pointing out the fact that what kids learn from building a friendship will be used when connecting with a sibling. This 13-year study suggests a very strong link between children who had positive interactions with a friend before the sibling's birth and a later positive relationship with the sibling.

And not just with sibs:

"For children, just knowing that someone likes them is validating. That confidence, and the experience they've gained from participating in a friendship, can really pay off later in life in terms of beneficial relationships with brothers and sisters, friends, and other personal relationships."

True for all of us: parents, kids, adopted or otherwise.

Bloggers, even ...