The Family ProclamationBetaScriptures · Scholarship · Stories

← All essays

Essay

Adoption and the Sealing Power

Plan of SalvationChildrenSealingCovenants

If you are an adoptive parent—or hope to become one—you may have wondered: Will this child really be mine forever? Does biology matter more in eternity? What if my child wants to know or love a birth family someday? Is a temple sealing after adoption somehow different from being born in the covenant?

Those are important questions. Let’s start with the clearest answer: an adopted child who is sealed in the temple to adoptive parents can receive every blessing of belonging to that eternal family. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint teaches that children who come to a family through adoption or birth are equally precious blessings and that temple sealing gives an adopted child the full blessings of eternal family life.

What Does Scripture Teach About Belonging by Covenant?

Paul taught the Saints in Rome that through Jesus Christ they had received “the Spirit of adoption” and could become “joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15–17).

King Benjamin taught something similar. After his people entered into covenant with God, he told them that because of that covenant they would be called “the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7).

This helps us understand something important about adoption. Scripture shows that covenant creates real and lasting relationships. Biological relationships matter, but they are not the only relationships God binds eternally. Through priesthood ordinances, He has provided a way for parents and children to be joined by sealing power.

What Does the Family Proclamation Teach?

The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

That helps explain why adoption is about more than providing a home. Children need family relationships where they can be loved, taught, protected, and helped toward eternal life.

The Church’s teaching on adoption says it plainly: “Loving, eternal families can be created through adoption.” It also teaches that children sealed to adoptive parents can receive “every blessing” of belonging to their eternal family.

Barbara Morgan Gardner Thoughts About Her Children

Barbara Morgan Gardner and her husband, Dustin, adopted two daughters and were sealed as a family.

Years later, Barbara remembered an international conference where people asked her what adoption meant for her daughters’ birthright. She explained that the gospel had helped her see it differently: because her daughters had been adopted and sealed, “they actually received their birthright” as if they had been born in the covenant. (followHIM transcript)

Listen to Barbara explain what she learned about adoption, birthright, and sealing:

Research Shows That Strong Family Bonds Can Grow Through Adoption

Research gives us a hopeful look at how those relationships can develop over time.

In a long-term study of children adopted between ages four and eight, researchers followed them into adolescence. The young people showed increased attachment security and decreased disorganized attachment over time. Secure attachment in their adoptive mothers was also associated with greater attachment security in the adolescents.

Another longitudinal study of 146 internationally adopted children followed families from infancy to age seven. Researchers found that the quality of the parent-child relationship—including sensitive parenting and secure attachment—predicted stronger later social and cognitive development, even though the parents and children were not biologically related.

What Does the Sealing Give an Adopted Child?

President Russell M. Nelson taught that “exaltation is a family affair.” The goal is not simply individual salvation but becoming an eternal family—endowed, sealed, and prepared to live with God. Church teaching specifically explains that this opportunity belongs both to children born in the covenant and to children adopted and sealed to their families.

President Joseph Fielding Smith also taught that children who belong to the covenant have claims upon blessings of guidance, protection, and inspiration from the Lord. The Church has applied those same covenant blessings to children who are sealed to parents after adoption.

That is why the temple matters so much. Legal adoption creates a family recognized on earth. Through the sealing ordinance, Jesus Christ makes it possible for that family relationship to continue beyond mortality.

Does Biology Still Matter?

An adopted child’s biological heritage still matters. It may include ancestry, culture, medical history, personality traits, and relationships a child may understandably want to know more about. Loving an adoptive family does not require pretending that a child had no history before adoption.

The Church’s teaching about adoption and family history recognizes that an adopted person may feel drawn to learn about both an adoptive family line and a biological family line. That interest does not make the sealing weaker.

An adoptive parent might still wonder, If my child loves a birth parent, does that change my place in my child’s life? An adopted child may wonder, If I want to know more about where I came from, am I being disloyal to the parents who raised me?

A child can value biological roots and still belong completely to an adoptive family. Heavenly Father is capable of honoring every righteous relationship while making temple covenants fully meaningful.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

  • If I am an adoptive parent, how can I help my child feel secure enough to ask questions about biological heritage openly?
  • If I am adopted, how might the doctrine of sealing help me understand my place in my family?

What the research shows

Children adopted between ages four and eight, followed into adolescence, showed increased attachment security and decreased disorganized attachment over time. Secure attachment in their adoptive mothers was associated with greater attachment security in the adolescents.Long-term study of children adopted between ages four and eight, PubMedFollowing 146 internationally adopted children from infancy to age seven, researchers found the quality of the parent-child relationship — including sensitive parenting and secure attachment — predicted stronger later social and cognitive development, even though parents and children were not biologically related.Longitudinal study of 146 internationally adopted children, PubMed

Real stories

Alo & Ashley MoliAfter infertility, a married couple refused to let a sibling group of six be split up in foster care — and adopted all six, giving them one stable home with a mother and a father.LDS LivingRichard OdenAbandoned at six and moved through ten foster homes, Richard was finally adopted into a permanent two-parent family. As an adult, he and his wife adopted three foster siblings to give them the same.Deseret NewsAshley Rhodes-CourterAfter fourteen foster homes before a loving couple adopted her, Ashley and her husband became foster and adoptive parents themselves — adopting a son and fostering twenty-plus children, paying forward the stability she finally received.Guideposts

References

Try asking

Ask: If my child is adopted, are they fully mine in eternity?Ask: What if my adopted child wants to find their birth family?Ask: How does a sealing work for an adopted child?Ask: How can I help my adopted child feel secure?

Keep reading

← All essays