New research has found that children adopted into LGBT homes are not only well-adjusted in early childhood, but continue to thrive onward into their teen years.

The study was conducted by University of Kentucky assistant professor of psychology Rachel H. Farr who's spent the past decade examining various aspects of family life among straight, gay and lesbian parents and their adopted children.

Her latest research focused on a longitudinal follow-up of 100 adoptive families as their school-age children matured from early to middle childhood. Farr found that the happiness and maturity of the children stemmed from open, communicative and honest parenting, regardless of family type.

"Longitudinal research [like this] offers insight into what factors may be the best or strongest predictors of children's development, over and above information that can be gathered at only one time point," Farr explained.

"Regardless of parental sexual orientation, children...had fewer behavior problems over time when their adoptive parents indicated experiencing less parenting stress," she continued.

"Higher family functioning when children were school-age was predicted by lower parenting stress and fewer child behavior problems when children were preschool-age," the researcher concluded. "Family processes emerged as more important than family structure to longitudinal child outcomes and family functioning."

The report also debunked a discredited study claiming kids from same-sex families have major developmental problems.

The study took several factors into account (including behavior problems, stress levels, couple relationships and family functionality) and repeatedly found "no differences among [heterosexual and same-sex parent] family types."

"These results, which support many positive outcomes among adoptive families headed by lesbian, gay or heterosexual parents over time, may be informative to legal, policy and practice realms," Farr remarked.

"The findings may also help to move public debate forward about parenting and child outcomes across a diversity of family forms."

h/t: Science Daily