Adolescence, Adoption, and Acting Out

In honor of National Adoption Month, my posts for November will explore the intertwine of issues related to both adoption and adolescence.  

All teens ask “who am I?”  Identity formation is an important developmental task of adolescence.  They try on identities, experiment with clothing, style, musical taste, and sometimes, more seriously with alcohol and drugs.   Teens feel safe conforming to the the standards set by peers, yet want to be considered unique.  The cultural and psychological push to move away from their parents can be frightening for adopted teens who have already been separated from their birth families. Most teens typically have periods of regression, they will whine and act out.  Adopted teens sometimes regress to the extreme and you may see them alternate between clinginess and defiance.

Adolescents test limits, but they need them and feel safer with them. The testing of how bad can I be before you reject me that many teens experiment with, can hit some very deep and painful cords for adoptees. Hair dying, nose rings and tattoos may be ways of asking “do you love me even though I am so different from you, even though I'm adopted?” Remember that adoptees are sensitive to separations and may be testing how far they can go before you abandon them too.

Adolescents often will reject their parents values as they become aware of the wide variety of opinions in the larger world. This part of the adopted teens effort to separate  can be difficult for adoptive parents who didn't give their children their genetics, but feel they did pass on good values.  It can feel like a rejection of them as parents. Try to remember that all teens question their parents' beliefs and value systems while you continue to be clear about what your values are.   Forcefully imposing them will backfire. Your teen may stray for a while, but will drift back to the foundation they were raised with eventually.