"I'm gutted. We tried to win the game, a home game, and be positive," said Adkins.
"We tried to be adventurous but the top and bottom of it is, the result stands.
"I think as a team we're evolving and as players we're improving. We've got to keep the belief about ourselves but how many times you can you say that?
"It's difficult. But as the leader, that's what I've got to keep doing. We have to keep picking each other up.
"Everyone needs to keep a smile on their face. It's a festive time and I think we produced some festive football.
"Tthe result stands and that's life. We said from day one that it would be difficult and it shows what a magnificent start to the season we had that we've only just gone into the bottom three.
"But we need to get some points on the board. If we'd have won we'd have been ahead of schedule, but as it stands we're a point or two behind. But it's still all to play for."
Norwich boss Glenn Roeder paid tribute to the Iron's battling qualities.
"At times it wasn't pretty, but then again I didn't expect it to be," he said.
"That isn't meant to be negative against Scunthorpe, who I think have done terrific. They play a certain way and it's very hard to play against.
"They try and wear you down and you just need one slip. They made it difficult for us but you cannot accuse us of not giving in. We kept going and I think that overall we deserved the three points. I was disappointed in the first half, we didn't play as we can but it was better in the second."