Religious Motivation to Adopt as a Predictor of Adoptive Family Structure, Parental Discipline, and Outcomes

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine religious motivation to adopt and how this relates to decisions families made while adopting, firm discipline, attachment, parent stress and affect, and child externalizing and internalizing. Within the United States, 44 internationally adopted children and their parents participated in this six-year, longitudinal study. Families endorsing greater religious motivation adopted older children and had larger family sizes. Controlling for these factors, greater religious motivation also predicted firmer discipline practices. Religious motivation did not predict parenting stress or parent negative affect. Additionally, positive longitudinal child outcomes were best predicted by larger family size, fewer baseline attachment disturbances, and less baseline externalizing and internalizing – rather than religious motivation, firm discipline, or the interaction between the two.