Parenting Your Adopted Teen

Parenting your adopted teen as he or she comes to terms with the big questions:
Who am I?  Where do I belong?

by Gloria Hochman & Anna Huston, National Adoption Center

Adopted teenAdolescence is a trying time of life for both teenagers and their families.  The main challenge for teenagers is to form their own identity.  In forming an identity, most adolescents try on a variety of personas.    Ultimately, they must come to terms with the big questions:  Who am I?  Where do I belong?

As children come into adolescence, parents ask themselves:

  • Will my child become confused about his or her identity?
  • Will a sense of abandonment and rejection replace feelings of security and comfort?
  • Is my child behaving in a way that reflects inner turmoil about the past?

Each of these questions leads to a larger issue:  Will being adopted make adolescence harder for my child?

These questions don’t have simple answers.  However, there are two points on which experts agree:

Being adopted is an undeniable part of a teen’s history and should not be ignored

Adopted adolescents can successfully confront and resolve their special developmental issues.

Adoption and Adolescence

Adoption adds complexity to parenting adolescents. Adopted teenagers may need extra support in dealing with issues that take on special meaning for them, specifically in identity formation, fear of rejection and abandonment, issues of control and autonomy, the feeling of not belonging, and heightened curiosity about the past.

Identity Formation

Identity issues can be difficult for adopted teens because they have two sets of parents.  Not knowing about their birth parents can make them question who they really are. It becomes more challenging for them to sort out how they are similar to and different from both sets of parents.

Adopted teenagers may wonder who gave them their particular characteristics. They may want answers to questions their adoptive parents may not be able to provide: Where do I get my artistic talent?  Was everyone in my birth family short? What is my ethnic background? Do I have brothers and sisters?

Some teens may feel more angry at their adoptive parents than they have ever felt before. They may be critical of how their parents helped them adjust to their adoptive status. They may withdraw into themselves or feel they need to stray far from home to find their true identity.

Fear of Abandonment

Jayne Schooler, author of Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child: Making Sense of the Past, writes that it is not unusual for adopted teenagers to fear leaving home. Leaving home is scary for most adolescents, but because adoptees have already suffered the loss of one set of parents, it is even more frightening.

Issues of Control

The tension between parents who don’t want to give up control and the teenager who wants independence is the hallmark of adolescence. This tension may be especially intense for adopted teens who feel that someone else has always made decisions for them: the birth mother made the decision to place them for adoption; the adoptive parents decided whether to accept them.  Parents may feel pressure to control their teens, sometimes motivated by concerns that their teens have a predisposition toward antisocial behavior — especially when their teens’ birth parents have a history of alcoholism or drug abuse.

Parents worry, too, about their teens’ sexual behavior. What if their son or daughter becomes sexually active, becomes or gets a partner pregnant, or gets AIDS? Adopted girls may have particular concerns about sexuality and motherhood. On the one hand, they have the adoptive mother, frequently infertile, and on the other, the birth mother, who had a baby but chose not to raise the child.  How do adoptive parents help their daughters come to terms with these different role models?

Because of their fears, many adoptive parents tighten the reins precisely when their teenagers want more freedom. “Kids see it as – You don’t trust me,'” says Anne McCabe, post-adoption specialist at Tabor Children’s Services in Philadelphia. “It can strongly affect the trust level between parents and their teens.”

McCabe advises that parents and teens work together to identify options for building trust in important areas such as schoolwork, chores, choice of friends, choice of leisure time activities, and curfew. Parents and their teen can come to an agreement on what constitutes trustworthy behavior in each area. They can determine what privileges or consequences will be earned if the teen either demonstrates or doesn’t demonstrate the behavior in an identified time frame. Both parties have input, and there are fewer power struggles.

The Feeling of Not Belonging

Teens raised in their birth families can easily see ways in which they are like their family members. Their musical talent comes from their grandmother. Their father also has red hair. Everyone in the family wears glasses. Sometimes adopted teens have no such markers, and, in fact, are reminded frequently that they are different from their non-adopted friends.

This feeling of being different often begins with their physical appearance. Friends frequently look like one of their parents or another relative. Teens who were adopted may not have a relative they resemble. Friends who comment, “You look like your sister,” often make an adopted teen even more aware of his or her “outsider” status, even if he or she happens to look like the sister. Sometimes, adopted teenagers won’t even correct friends who comment on a family resemblance. It is easier than having to answer the questions that are sure to follow: Who are your real parents? What do they look like? Why didn’t they keep you?

“People who note a family resemblance are really trying to say that the child has taken on some of their parents’ mannerisms,” says McCabe. “In some families, it can become an inside joke. For other children, it can expose a raw nerve.”

Teens who have been adopted into a family of a different race (transracial adoption) often feel more alienated from their families than they did when they were younger. They become highly conscious of the obvious physical differences between themselves and their families, and they struggle to integrate their cultural backgrounds into their perceptions of who they are.  Some adopted teens may doubt their authenticity as “real” family members and, therefore, feel uncertain about their futures.

Adoptive parents can help transracially adopted teens to feel they belong by making sure that the family frequently associates with other adults and children of the same ethnic background as their teen. They should celebrate their own and their teen’s culture as a part of daily life.  They should talk about ethnicity and culture often, yet tolerate no biased remarks from others. To increase the feeling of belonging for an adopted teen of the same background as his or her parents but who may look very different,parents should point out any similarities that exist between family members. Statements such as “Everyone in our family loves to sleep late on weekends” or “Dad and you are both such Rolling Stones fans, you’re driving me crazy!” should be made whenever appropriate.

The Need to Connect with the Past

As adopted teens mature, they think more about how their lives would have been different if they had not been adopted or if they had been adopted by another family. They frequently wonder who they would have become under other circumstances.  For them, the need to try on different personalities is particularly meaningful. In addition to all of the possibilities life holds, adoptees realize the possibilities that were lost.

For some adopted teenagers, the feelings of loss and abandonment cause them to think and want more information about their original families. Sometimes they are looking for more information about their medical history.  Has anyone in their family had allergies? Acne? Heart disease?  Cancer? As 18-year-old Christopher kept reading more articles about the genetic nature of mental illness, he worried that his mood swings might be an indication of bipolar disorder that could have been present in his birth family.

Adopted as a baby, Sally, now 15, says, “It’s impossible for someone who has not been adopted to understand the vacuum created by not knowing where you came from. No matter how much I read or talk to my parents about it I can’t fully explain the emptiness I feel.”

Some teenagers want to search for their birth parents. Others say they would appreciate having access to medical information, but that they have made peace with their adoptions.

When Teens Were Adopted at an Older Age

Issues for teens adopted at an older age are even more complex. Often they endured abuse or neglect, lived in several foster homes, or moved from relative to relative before finding a permanent family. Their sense of loss and rejection may be intense, and they may suffer from seriously low self-esteem. They also can have severe emotional and behavioral difficulties as a result of early interruptions in the attachment  process with their caregivers. It is no wonder that it is hard for them to trust adults ― the adults in their early years, for whatever reason, did not meet their emotional needs.

Teens adopted at an older age bring with them memories of times before joining the adoptive family.  It is important for them to be allowed to acknowledge those memories and talk about them. Parents of teens adopted at an older age can expect that they and their teens will require professional guidance at some point, or at several points, to help create and maintain healthy family relationships.

When Parents Should Become Concerned . . .  What They Can Do 

Adopted teens may experience strong emotions, especially related to their adoption. It would be unusual for their adopted status not to affect them. A teen’s sense of abandonment, quest for identity, and need for control probably do not have their origin in poor parenting by the adoptive parents.

If a teen decides to search for his or her birth parents, it is not necessarily an indication of a problem. Research indicates that some adoptees simply have a strong need to know about their biological roots. “One of the misconceptions [that adoptive parents have],” says Marshall Schechter, M.D., professor emeritus in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, “is that they have done something to make their child want to search. They haven’t.  Everyone needs to know that they are part of a continuum of a family. As more is learned about genetics, scientists are discovering that many talents or personality traits have a genetic basis. So it should not be surprising that teenagers who focus on developing an identity should begin thinking about their origin.”

It is more likely that a teen will have problems in families “where the parents insist that adoption is no different from the biological parent–child relationship,” says Kenneth Kirby, Ph.D., from the Department of Clinical Psychiatry at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. Teens know that it is different. Teens do better when their parents understand their curiosity about their genetic history and allow them to express their grief, anger, and fear.

If your family style is one of open communication, you may be able to deal with these issues without professional help. Educate yourself through books or workshops run by agencies that provide post-adoption services. Join an adoptive parent support group, which can be a valuable resource for families. Support groups also exist for adopted teenagers.

Chances are that if you have not been comfortable discussing adoption issues with your child in the past, it will be difficult to begin now.  Even if these discussions have not taken place earlier, it is up to the parents to initiate discussions about adoption issues with their teenagers, Edgar advises.

Many families benefit from seeing a therapist who specializes in working with adoptive families.  Adoptive family organizations, and adoption agencies in your area may be helpful in suggesting knowledgeable therapists. Additionally, a life coach can give you support in reaching the goals you desire for yourself and your family.

As with all teens, you should seek professional help if you see any of the following behaviors:

If adoption is part of the problem, openly addressing adoption issues will improve the chances that the treatment will be effective. Parents who recognize that their teens have two sets of parents and who don’t feel threatened by that fact are more likely to establish a more positive environment for their teens, one that will make them feel more comfortable to express their feelings. Secrets take a lot of energy.  When there is freedom to discuss adoption issues, there is much less of a burden on the family.

Conclusion

Adolescence can be a confusing time for teens. Adopted teens may have special issues connected to identity formation, rejection, control, and the need to connect with one’s roots. It helps when parents are understanding and supportive. Questions surrounding these issues are not a reflection of adoptive parents’ parenting style. Wanting to know about their birth family does not mean that adopted teens are rejecting their adoptive family.

If your family has a long-standing history of openness, honesty, and comfort with adoption, chances are that you will be able to help your teen work through adolescence.

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