Dated 2013, before Same Sex Marriage became legal in all states.
POLICY STATEMENT
Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents
Are Gay or Lesbian
abstract
To promote optimal health and well-being of all children,
the American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) supports access for all children to (1) civil
marriage rights for their parents and (2) willing and capable foster
and adoptive parents, regardless of the parents’
sexual orientation.
The AAP has always been an advocate for, and has developed policies
to support, the optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-
being of all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In so
doing, the AAP has supported families in all their diversity, because
the family has always been the basic social unit in which children
develop the supporting and nurturing relationships with adults that
they need to thrive. Children may be born to, adopted by, or cared for
temporarily by married couples, nonmarried couples, single parents,
grandparents, or legal guardians, and any of these may be hetero-
sexual, gay or lesbian, or of another orientation.
Children need secure
and enduring relationships with committed and nurturing adults to
enhance their life experiences for optimal social-emotional and cog-
nitive development. Scientific evidence affirms that children have
similar developmental and emotional needs and receive similar par-
enting whether they are raised by parents of the same or different
genders.
If a child has 2 living and capable parents who choose to
create a permanent bond by way of civil marriage, it is in the best
interests of their child(ren) that legal and social institutions allow
and support them to do so, irrespective of their sexual orientation.
If
2 parents are not available to the child, adoption or foster parenting
remain acceptable options to provide a loving home for a child and
should be available without regard to the sexual orientation of the
parent(s).
Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian
Adopted children thrive in same-sex households, study shows
October 2010, Vol 41, No. 9
Print version: page 48
New research shows that children adopted into lesbian and gay families are as well-adjusted as children adopted by heterosexual parents, and follow similar patterns of gender development, said Charlotte J. Patterson, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia.
Patterson discussed the results of a study in press in
Applied Developmental Science at an APA Annual Convention symposium on same-sex marriage.
Patterson and co-authors Rachel H. Farr, a psychology doctoral student at UVA, and Stephen L. Forssell, PhD, of George Washington University, studied 106 families — including 56 same-sex couples and 50 heterosexual couples — who adopted children at birth or in the first few weeks of life.
In the study, parents assessed their own parenting styles and relationship satisfaction. They also filled out the Preschoolers’ Activities Inventory, which assesses whether gender role behavior conforms to expected patterns or not, and the Child Behavior Checklist. Teachers and day-care providers were asked to complete the Caregiver-Teacher Report Form, which assesses a child’s somatic complaints, anxiety, depression and withdrawn behaviors.
By looking at parents’ self-reports and reports of others, the researchers found that the children of gays and lesbians were virtually indistinguishable from children of heterosexual parents.
Patterson and her co-authors point out that while numerous studies have documented patterns of healthy development among children born to lesbian and gay parents, very little research about adoptive gay and lesbian families has been reported. With an estimated 100,000 children waiting to be adopted in the United States as of 2008, the research indicates that policies in states that forbid gay and lesbian couples from adopting need to be re-examined, Patterson said.
[the APA stands for American Psychological Association]
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/10/adopted-children.aspx
Gay Parents As Good As Straight Ones
MED prof’s finding comes as Supreme Court weighs same-sex marriage
04.11.2013 By
Rich Barlow
The best study so far, Siegel tells BU Today, is the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, begun in 1986. The study has followed 154 lesbian mothers and recently checked in on 78 adolescent children, comparing the mothers’ and kids’ self-reported status against national standardized samples.
The lesbian mothers’ reports of their children “indicated that they had high levels of social, school/academic, and total competence and fewer social problems, rule-breaking, and aggressive and externalizing behavior compared with their age-matched counterparts,” Siegel and Perrin write. If you might expect parents to say that, consider their kids’ testimony: “The self-reported quality of life of the adolescents in this sample was similar to that reported by a comparable sample of adolescents with heterosexual parents.”
Siegel and Perrin’s report also cites three studies done in the United States and Europe—two involving lesbian mothers and the third one involving men and women whose adult children reported they’d had a parent involved in a same-sex relationship. Those studies similarly found no difference in outcomes for the children as compared with children of heterosexual parents..."
Gay Parents As Good As Straight Ones | BU Today | Boston UniversityGay Parents As Good As Straight Ones | BU Today | Boston University
