Birth Family and Your Adopted Teen

The search for identity characteristic of the teen years has a whole extra layer of complexity for teens who are adopted.  The adolescent quest  for “one’s self” is a philosophical, esoteric, incorporeal challenge.  For adolescents who were adopted, the question “who am I?” also has very concrete elements.  Teens who grow up in their birth families have their parents and entire biological heritage to identify with and rebel from as they figure themselves out.  Adopted teens often do not even know who they look like, the details of their ethnic origins, or why they were placed for adoption in the first place.  Whether they verbalize it or not, during adolescence, many adoptees want to know more about their preadoption backgrounds.  Most adoptive parents today have shared much of their child’s adoption story with them, hopefully adding in more detail with age.  Now that your child is a teenager he/she is able to understand more complicated information in general and is ready to process some of the nitty gritty details you may have withheld because you felt your child wasn’t ready to handle it.  These details are precious to the teenager who needs to understand where he comes from before he can decide who he is going to become.  

As adoptions have become more open over the past few decades, it is often possible to get in contact with birth family and your teenager may want to do that.  Clearly, all situations and all adolescents are different so whether or not a reunion would be in your child’s best interest is for you to decide.  You do want to respect your teen’s desire to meet their birth family and you can do so by listening and providing the reasons for your decision.  It can be helpful for your teenager to hear that you will support them when the time comes that they are mature enough to begin a search and cope with whatever the results might be.  Let your child know that you understand that their curiosity is normal and that you do not feel threatened by it.  Keeping the conversation open is key.  If your teen feels like he has to go behind your back, facebook and other technologies make finding people based on a little information quite possible.  You do not want your teen entering this emotional terrain on his own.  If he is going to do it with or without you, with you is better.   When thinking about doing a search or reunion, or you have difficult information to share, professional counseling with an adoption proficient therapist is strongly recommended. 

91 percent of moms ages 25-47 say they’ve felt like they couldn’t ask for help or admit they needed a break, with 10 percent saying this happens an extreme amount.

Read more: Sources of Mom Stress & Judgment - Redbook

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.

Coping: Teens and Hurricane Sandy

Teenagers make use of Princeton Public Library‘s Wi-Fi and electrical outlets in New Jersey on October 31 in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.  School Library Journal Nov. 3, 2012

Accounts of loss, resourcefulness, courage and despair emerge from the wreckage of Hurricane Sandy each day. Included are stories involving teenagers who lost their lives, those who were able to survive due to a combination of luck, wit and instinct, those who are now part of the effort to bring aid and comfort to others, and the resilient who cope with normalizing their lives under challenging circumstances. Today, an article describing the horrific combination of this natural disaster and poverty, mentions an 18 year old girl who climbs 10 flights of stairs to check on her stranded, physically disabled godmother . http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/nyregion/in-public-housing-after-hurricane-sandy-fear-misery-and-heroism.html The Daily News reports on an injured woman in Staten Island grieving the loss of her 13 year old daughter, http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/si-family-robbed-irene-suffers-tragedy-sandy-article while another is relieved that her son was able to escape from their home as it filled with water and swim to safety http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/teen-sandy-survival-tale-separated-family-article Teens in the less severely affected area of Princeton, NJ make do with crowding into the library for power, heat and internet as they strive to keep focused on daily pressures like homework and the SATs that are scheduled for today.

Teens, deeply affected by the plight of the hurricane’s victims, are part of the volunteer effort to provide aid. After a disaster, it is important for teens to have opportunities to feel empowered again. They can choose a project that speaks to them. Animal lovers can contact the ASPCA www.aspca.org or Humane Society www.humanesociety.org. Localities are required to have a emergency plan in place for animals. Check on the senior citizens in your community. They may have power and food, but might be isolated because of travel and communication difficulties and in need of company. Contact the Red Cross, your house of worship, or local charity organization to find out where food and clothing are needed and deliver it. Helping out can be as easy as texting, something teens are adept at. Verizon announced it would match customer text-to-donate contributions to American Red Cross relief efforts up to one million dollars. Verizon Customers can make a $10 donation by texting REDCROSS to 90999. AT&T is working with the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and the American Humane Society. AT&T has waived fees for customers to text a $10 donation to any of the organizations by texting the following: REDCROSS to 90999 to support the American Red Cross, STORM to 80888 to help the Salvation Army, and HUMANE to 80888 to give to the American Humane Society. Facebook is another user friendly way teens can donate. The Humane Society of the United States has a big effort underway in New York and New Jersey. Donations can be made via their facebook page.

Parents, you can contribute to helping your teen regain their sense of well being by taking care of your own. We are still our teenagers primary role models and how we cope with adversity provides them with a guideline for how they can rise above difficulty. Rather than stuff down fear and grief, show your children how to express it. They will learn that facing ones fears is courageous, not weak and allows one to move forward. And if you go out to volunteer, invite your teen along! This is a time of strong emotions which means there's a need for strong connection.

Acceptance: I 'm a Lousy Parent Sometimes

It's one of the great shocks of parenting to find ourselves yelling at or hurting our beloved children, when we never ever intended to do so. There are things they do that drive us nuts when they are little like whine, make messes, and fight with their siblings. When they are teens, they might talk back, dress inappropriately, get bad grades, disregard limits you have set, take risks, value their peers opinions over yours, push for independence, be too dependent (should I go on?). We each have our thresholds of what we can tolerate. If in your parenting journey, you find yourself reacting rather than responding, take time to explore your reactions and how they might relate to your past. Don’t judge yourself, accept that as a human being you have fears and things you need to work on.

The way we parent is greatly influenced by the experiences we had as children and teenagers with our own parents. More than by practicing specific strategies and techniques, we are better parents when we are aware of the ways in which our past impacts our present choices and behavior. Looking to your past doesn't mean blaming your parents or someone else for your present struggles; nor does it mean that we should feel guilty about our shortcomings. Blame and guilt have no place in the parent-child relationship. The world is not perfect, no person is perfect. We have all been parented imperfectly and we all parent imperfectly. By letting go of feelings of blame and guilt, we can accept ourselves and our children as we truly are. We can create honest, authentic relationships which are essential to the type of connection we all desire to have with our children and teens. You don’t need to be perfect to be emotionally connected to your teenager, you just need to be real.

Confession

Confession:   I’m a Football Mom

I admit it, I allow my fourteen year old son to play football.  In addition, I taxi him to and from practice, wash his uniform, and, under duress, attend his games.  In short, I enable. For some, this isn’t much of a confession.  In fact, when reading what other blogs had to say about tweens/teens playing football, I came across more than a few discussions on whether a parent should make their son play football.  Now, that was an eye opener.  My social circles are generally made up of highly educated, left leaning, better safe than sorry style parents.  Most of the mothers and many of the fathers forbid their sons to play football and made that decision before the sons were born.  I can certainly understand why.  Football is pretty brutal fare.  I never watch it on TV although I’ve had indirect exposure to it every fall for over 25 years, the length of my marriage.   My personal investment in football is nonexistent.  If I had my druthers, my son would swim, run, row, do any sport where there is no touching.  But he is a boy in the US, and a rather strapping lad at that, so despite my encouragement, guidance, and manipulation over the years, he wants to play football.

I have no fear that being a “football player” will turn Liam into an aggressive, insensitive, unintelligent lout.  His father played high school and some Division III college football and he turns that stereotype on it’s head.  It’s similar to when my sons were younger and played with sticks, toy guns,wooden swords, and the toy soldiers their grandparents repeatedly snuck into the house.  I knew they wouldn’t grow up to be war loving killers, and, so far they haven’t.

I am afraid that he will get hurt or that he will hurt someone else.  The fact is that serious injuries can take place on the football field.   I can argue that concussions and other injuries happen in all sports.  There is even evidence that forgoing team sports and engaging in individual recreational activities like bike riding, skateboarding, ice skating, and sledding may be even more dangerous www.wwgh.com/search/webpages/facts/sports .  Personally, I would never have a trampoline in my yard.  However, in making the decision to allow my child to be on a football team, I need to honest and acknowledge that statistics and common sense point to football being a riskier venture than most kid’s activities.  I also need to think about my child’s individual needs and personality style as well as the makeup of the team, the character of the coaches, and the values promulgated by the Pop Warner league.

Amazingly, there were discussions of football safety on both PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/football-high/admist-concern-about-head-injuries-pop-warner-issues-new-practice-rules/  and NPR http://www.npr.org/2012/06/07/154509586/is-football-safe-for-young-players this past summer.  Of course, I caught both shows without even trying.   (I already told you about the circles I hang with).  I learned that Pop Warner www.popwarner.com has ramped up the safety requirements far beyond anything that has existed before.  Also, Pop Warner does not honor athletes for feats on the field, but they do give awards to football players and cheerleaders for academic achievement.  My son had to submit a report card with a C average in order to join. Liam’s coaches personify the terrific values espoused by the larger organization.  They are encouraging, patient, kind, fun, and fair when losing or winning.  They love both football and kids.  Liam, suffering from early adolescent angst, hormone driven aggression and moodiness, has benefitted enormously from the physically challenging workouts and the influence of his “Unlimited” team coaches.  He has come home banged up and bruised on the outside a few times, but inside, he couldn’t be better.

 

Vulnerable

          Brene Brown's The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto posted on Huff Post Parents this past Sunday moved me and kept me thinking for days. I posted the Toni Morrison quote that Brown uses to put her parenting philosophy in a nutshell on Free World Parent's facebook page, "Let your face speak what's in your heart. When they walk in the room, my face says I'm glad to see them. It's just as small as that, you see?" It's just as small as that. It does sound so simple, so basic, so natural, but in actuality it's so hard for so many parents to do. We want “to light up” when our kids walk into the room, but instead, we become annoyed, overwhelmed, even angry. Is it because our children are messier, louder, more demanding than those of the parents with the naturally beneficent expression? Experience tells me no. Some of the messiest, loudest, most demanding children I know have parents who look upon them with a calm smile before taking care of the issue at hand in a good natured way and vice versa.

          I don't think it's the training. We can learn positive parenting strategies that can help reduce the chaos, but that loving glance must be authentic if we want our children to feel the full acceptance it is meant to imply. The Wholehearted-Parenting-Manifesto tells us that what we want our children to believe about themselves, we must believe about ourselves. We should love and have compassion for ourselves and accept our imperfections,. Again, easier said than done. How do we become such an evolved being? The key to that kingdom seems to be in the middle of the manifesto in the statements about vulnerability. We need to “learn how to be vulnerable” and “to honor our vulnerability.” But haven't we spent a lifetime putting guards up to keep our vulnerability at bay. Being vulnerable is scarey and emotionally painful, that's why we work so hard to avoid it. Maybe it's because our kids scratch at our vulnerabilities that we grimace rather than smile when they greet us with all of their imperfections.

          Even those parents who do light up when their mud covered 5 year old tramps into the living room, find themselves looking with disdain when their moody, hormonal, pimply, awkward 14 year old slumps into his chair at the dinner table. Yet doesn’t this complete manifestation of vulnerability scream out for compassion and acceptance. All the self-doubt that comes with adolescence is reinforced by that critical look given by the person they look to for warmth and shelter from the vagaries of the outside world. Perhaps if we can acknowledge that our adolescent children remind us of ourselves when we were excruciatingly self conscious, deeply fearful of rejection, mortified by burgeoning sexuality and changing bodies, we can let go of that critical inner voice that keeps us from fulling embracing ourselves and in turn, our children.

Transition

                                                   

          The mid September sunshine feels like it should never end while the crisp breeze gently transitions nature to cooler temperatures and shorter days. September is a transition month. Weekend barbecues wind down, schedules tighten up. From many years spent as a student and a mother of students, September, more than the end of December, brings anticipation of the new and a letting go of the comfortable and easy. This September, I can't help but reflect upon my personal transition from mother with a full house of children to a mother of young adults who are moving toward independence, including actual geographical separation from me.

          This didn't happen overnight. In fact, it is still happening. As August became September, a number of milestones pushed me along to the place I now find myself. My oldest daughter, after completing an Americorps year, has moved to a new city many, many miles away; a city I had never even been to before taking a 14 hour road trip to move her pared down belongings into her new apartment. In her new city, she is pursuing a new career and a young relationship. That's what 23 year olds do. I'm proud of myself for not inflicting guilt upon her for moving so far away from family or passing along anxieties about the risks she is taking. After all, she is growing up whether I like it or not. So, with a conscious effort I vow to maintain, I chose to support her decision and let her know that she is welcome to come back home (although her room might be taken over by her brother).

          A few weeks after waving goodbye to that daughter, my husband and I found ourselves driving through the just emerging autumn foliage of the Adirondacks to bring our 20 year old to college in another country. (OK, Montreal is only 6 hours away, but she is still considered an international student). Last year, after a semester at a nearby college, she decided to make a change. She moved back home for 8 months and worked part-time at a bakery and an art school while exploring her options. I got used to having a fun, young woman around. Now, I miss her. My 18 year old son is living at home and attending college locally. Luckily, I do still see his face everyday, but as befits a college student, his day is his own. I don't have a hand in choosing his classes, will never meet his teachers, and hopefully won't nag him about homework. The same goes for his job as a counselor at an after school program. I do get to delight in his delight as he recounts the antics of the children he looks after, but I promise that I won't be talking to his supervisor about how he is doing. Fortunately, I am not going cold turkey, I do still have an 8^th grade son at home who needs rides to practice, help with homework, plenty of meals and snacks, and my attention in general. Of course, at 14, he is undergoing a powerful transition of his own. As he negotiates adolescence, my job is to balance his desire for increased independence with his need for motherly love and attention and watch him grow into yet another young adult.

          September will come again, but I can't go back in time and become the center of the universe for four adorable, innocent, and funny children. On the other hand, I am confident that a parent-child bond does not have to rupture for independence to be attained. I can keep moving forward and growing too as I learn to nurture my relationships with my grown and growing children in new and different ways through seasons to come.