Adaptive challenges are harder to define because they are rooted in people’s beliefs, values, and assumptions. Overcoming them requires new learning, different expertise, or a change in behavior.

Often we aren’t aware of why we believe what we believe or how our experiences have affected our worldview. That is especially true in matters concerning children and families because we all have personal experiences as children, parents, and family members. The responsibility for ending one family and creating a new one through adoption is a weighty one, and professionals may struggle with their own sense of the appropriateness of the decisions and actions that have to be taken.

Judges must determine whether TPR and adoption are in the “best interests of the child,” knowing that adoption involves complex issues of identity and belonging for the adopted child.