Parenting Adopted Adolescents: Understanding and Appreciating Their Journeys

INTRODUCTION

The mere mention of adolescents pushes some people, particularly parents, immediately into panic mode. Moms and dads constantly ask me, If he’s like this at six, what will I ever do with him when he hits fourteen? Their fear of what might happen eight years down the road is indicative of how powerful the image of teen has become for some parents. Their assumption that they will have a completely unruly, rebellious, sexualized junior adult on their hands often paralyzes them. Their perceived impotence renders them unable to realize that while most adolescents have some rough spots, they do not automatically stumble into the out-of-control persona characteristically described in the media. Most adolescents don’t even come close to being as bad as their parents think they could be.

Adoptive parents often find themselves wondering if their child will start to become more like his birth family during the identity-seeking adolescent years. If he came from an abusive background — complete with criminal activity, drug or alcohol addiction, or other kinds of dysfunction — their fear may be even greater. After all, adolescence is the time when children start to morph into young adults. They make bold, confident proclamations about who they are, what they like, what they know (and they’re convinced they know a bundle), and what they will become. Although such statements of brazen independence tend to throw parents into a spiral of terror, these assertions are actually rather benign, even useful. Their purpose is to help the adolescent begin to establish a sense of self that is separate from his family’s identity.

Throughout this book, I will address issues based on the following assumptions:

•   All adolescents have some things in common, such as stages of development.

•   Some adolescents have some things in common, such as gender, race, culture, and socioeconomic class.

•   All adolescents have unique qualities that they share with no one.

Of course, the same assumptions apply to adoptees. The only difference is that the child who has joined his family via adoption must address both adolescent-developmental issues and adoption-related issues, either simultaneously or alternately. Amidst the psychological and physiological transformations, the adolescent might appear to be intentionally driving his parents crazy — at least from their perspective.

It is important for parents not to overreact to the changes that arise during adolescence. Turning each new and questionable behavior into cause for controversy not only complicates the adolescent’s life but also compromises the parents’ capacity to be what their child needs them to be: parental yet friendly. I will talk more about this later because I can already hear some of you saying, I’m not here to be his friend! But please note that I didn’t say friend; I said friendly.

Parents often believe that controlling their adolescent is critical, and they are afraid of losing the power to be the boss. In some cases, they overcompensate by becoming hovering micromanagers of their adolescent’s life. The fact is, control is elusive. The only behavior that people can truly take charge of is their own. Most individuals are not in control of anything beyond their own responses to others. It therefore follows that parents have the freedom to be creative, thoughtful, fun, and, yes, friendly toward their adolescent. Once parents come to understand what they don’t control, they are free to figure out precisely what they do control: themselves.

Adoptive parents sometimes feel a heavy burden to be the perfect parent, even though there is no such thing. They are well aware that they are held to different standards than are birth families. Adoptive parents consistently report that they experience being judged by professionals, extended family members, and the community at large in a manner that sees them as different from real families.

In spite of such perceptions, the truth remains that all families are real families regardless of how they were formed. Adoptive parents must stand up for themselves and become comfortable with the task of addressing the second-class-citizenship issues each time they are presented. If a school report describes the meeting with Sean and his adoptive mother, Sean’s mom has every right to point out to teachers and administrators that adoptive is an unnecessary and prejudiced distinction. After all, would a teacher note that she had a meeting with Sean and his overweight mother? With Sean and his badly-in-need-of-a-haircut mother? Somehow I doubt it.

Sometimes parents cannot see their adolescent as others do, and an adolescent does not see his parents as his peers do. Even his own friends may not think his parents are as weird as he does. While there seems to be a societal assumption that adolescents do not want to be around adults, I do not believe this to be true. Adolescents often develop very close relationships with coaches, teachers, members of the clergy, and the parents of their friends. They act as if they don’t want to be around their own parents, but it’s perfectly okay — and maybe even cool — to hang out with other kids’ parents.

Because other adults do not have the kind of connection to an adolescent that his parents do, they are able to interact with him as a person, not as the child he used to be. People outside the family perceive him without all the nuances his own parents often cannot shake. Others can laugh at the adolescent’s irreverent jokes without feeling they need to correct him or give him a tutorial on the real world.

Parents sometimes are so consumed with making sure that everything the adolescent says or does is world-appropriate that they forget to enjoy his emerging self. They may not see the process of the developing person if they are overly focused on ensuring propriety. I believe that parents want to enjoy their children and adolescents. I also think they are a bit afraid of enjoying their kids too much, lest they lose control — which they probably don’t have anyway.

Some adoptive parents may experience feelings of not being good enough: Is my child’s pulling away related to adoption? To loss? If this were my birth child, would he be seeking an identity so separate from mine? As these thoughts and concerns are disturbing the parents, their adolescent may be having a parallel experience: Would my birth parents be this awful? This strict? This controlling? He might think that if he were with his birth family, they would understand him better.

The truth for both sides is that things would probably be very similar under just about any set of circumstances. Adolescents who were removed from their birth families as a result of abuse or neglect would almost always be facing huge challenges if they had remained in their homes of origin. History continues to be the best predictor of the future, and if an adolescent grows up in a situation where he is maltreated, it is probable that he will have significant difficulty moving into a productive young adulthood.

In Parenting Adopted Adolescents, we will take a look at the adolescent in general and, more specifically, the adolescent who was adopted. I will visit a diversity of adolescent and adoption issues and help to simplify their intertwined relationship as it becomes more complicated and exaggerated over the course of time.

As you read each chapter, you will find sense emerging from your confusion. You will discover humor blessedly rising up from your pain. And you will experience some relief when you realize that most of us made it through the energized years of adolescence to return to what could be called normal.

The journey through this book will give parents hope. It will give professionals the insight to help parents and adolescents in a manner that will allow them to remain close even while their relationships are being challenged by biology, sociology, and psychology. Professionals will see that all adoptive families have some things in common, some of them have some things in common, and, finally, each family has its own uniqueness. In helping parents and professionals, this book will give adolescents the kind of adult guides they need to steward them through what is a traumatic time for many of them — an experience that most of us would not choose to relive anytime soon!

While Parenting Adopted Adolescents is theoretically based and sound, I have made an effort to write this book in a casual and conversational tone. My intent is to enable readers to feel as if they are involved in an exchange of ideas, as opposed to being subjected to countless endnotes and theoretical references. It is my hope to stimulate thinking and creativity that can be translated into effective interactions between parents and their adopted adolescents.

ONE

ADOLESCENCE

What’s It All About?

Adolescents are often referred to as teenagers. That will not be the case in this book because adolescence, as a discrete developmental stage, encompasses more than the teenage years. Studies continue to indicate that the onset age of puberty is much earlier than it was thirty years ago. I contend that puberty is when adolescent development begins, and recent research about the adolescent brain suggests that it may not be adult-like until the midtwenties.

The adolescent brain is very much a work in progress — just like the adolescent himself — and is responsible for both fueling and dousing the fires that are so typical at this age. One part of the adolescent brain, the limbic system, is responsible for impulsivity, risk-taking, sexual drive, and emotional responses. Another part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is responsible for emotional and behavioral regulation, task accomplishment, organization, planning, rational thinking, and decision making. Imagine that these two components are engaged in an ongoing tug of war throughout adolescence.

Brain research is exploding, and it is revealing that the prefrontal cortex — the reasoning regulating device — is not fully developed until after age twenty. As a result, it’s easy to see what is happening in the adolescent brain. The seat of emotion, the limbic system, is fully fired up, and the prefrontal cortex that’s supposed to mitigate what the limbic system produces is still asleep at the wheel, not fully capable of doing its job. No wonder adolescents sometimes appear not to have any good sense at all, and no wonder they calm down dramatically in their twenties. That’s just the way the brain is wired to work.

So if parents expect good, solid judgment and decision making from their adolescent, they may be disappointed. However, if they know that the adolescent’s brain is not working at full capacity to regulate his behavior, they will realize they need to step in and serve as the adolescent’s training wheels until he is able to function properly by himself.

The teenage years span a total of seven, while true adolescence may be more like thirteen years. I’m sorry to disappoint those of you who might be looking forward to having your almost-eighteen-year-old leave the nest in a few months. Although he might threaten to flee, he probably won’t mean it. And if he does opt to spread his wings, there’s a good chance he’ll be back.

I feel like I’ve lost my little girl, one mother said. She used to love going shopping with me, and we enjoyed walking through the mall and having lunch. Now if I manage to persuade her to join me, she either lags behind or tries to lose me. My advice: Just wait.

SEPARATION AND INDIVIDUATION

The role of the adolescent is to leave behind his childhood identity and develop a new self. This is called separation and individuation. All healthy adults have done this, and it should not be seen as complete rejection of the parents. Instead, it represents the adolescent’s attempt to embrace things that define him in new ways.

A young child’s identity is clearly an extension of that of his parents. He likes to spend time with them and may even want to grow up to be just like his dad. In childhood, this is fine. No one thinks he is uncool for wanting to mimic his father. In fact, this relationship is laying the foundation for what will happen later on in childhood, adolescence, and finally in adulthood.

In a typical situation, this foundation will be strong enough to withstand the separation and individuation process, and it will serve as a solid base that remains intact throughout the life span of the family. So while it may appear that the adolescent is trying to tear down the foundation, he is actually developing a new self on top of the structure that already exists. In some ways, the adolescent is putting some of his parents’ values in storage — we hope for just a short while — while he experiments with the new him.

An adolescent who was adopted will probably have additional components in his separation and individuation process. Unless the child was adopted at birth, he probably has had some level of trauma — either minor or profound — which impacts the quality of the relationships he develops. If his original foundation was laid in a chaotic family, relationships will be somewhat fragmented. If he has a developmental foundation that was created by both a birth family and an adoptive family, the separation process will be more complicated. He may, in fact, be able to separate more effectively from the adoptive family than from the birth family. He may retain the birth family’s component because it keeps him connected to their familiarity, and he may even use it as part of his individuation process. If that occurs, the adoptive parents may feel as if they are being replaced by the adolescent’s family of origin. In the case of an adolescent identifying with a dysfunctional or criminal birth family, the adoptive parents would have legitimate concerns regarding their child’s choices.

Some adolescents engage in the individuation process like a whisper, while others go through it like a shout. Figuring out the difference is simple: Growing extra-long hair is a whisper; dying it bright green and adding multiple facial piercings is a shout.

Adam had been experimenting with a new image for a couple of years. At the point when he was dressing in all-black skin-tight clothes, complete with chains and flaming-pink hair, he decided to steal some beer from a convenience store late at night. Of course, he got caught. His appearance was a shout, and there wasn’t a person in the store who didn’t notice him.

Functional individuation involves engaging in productive activities that further one’s identity. In situations in which the separation and individuation process occurs in an uncomplicated way, adolescents may involve themselves in sports, the arts, employment, career exploration, service projects, youth groups, and student council. Anything that the adolescent uses to further define himself — for his own sake and for others — could be considered individuation.

Individuation would also include negative behavior, such as drug dealing and using, vandalism, bullying, and fighting. To be a bad boy has its benefits within certain social contexts. The problem with becoming your own person in this way is that it has lasting moral and legal consequences. Identities such as these have little utility in the pragmatic world, and parents must actively intervene to correct this kind of identity seeking.

Chad, seventeen, was adopted by a family who lived in close proximity to several of his birth relatives. Because he was an adolescent when he was adopted, he knew where everyone in his birth family lived and he spent time with some of them.

His birth mother was in prison on a variety of criminal charges, including possession of illegal substances, possession of criminal tools, and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. Chad had no contact with her, but he had clear memories of her and the atrocities she subjected him to. She had allowed him to be sexually abused by many of her male friends, who paid her for access to her son. Chad was angry with her, yet he was trapped into thinking that she might change one day.

He had heard from his relatives that she was scheduled to get out of prison about six months before his eighteenth birthday. When she was released, Chad reconnected with her. He was no longer the little boy she remembered, and she was no longer the mean, abusive person she once was. While this was confusing for Chad, he liked the fact that they had a new kind of relationship. They began to spend time together, more as peers than as mother and son. Chad liked this newfound friend, and the two proceeded to spend most of their time smoking marijuana and drinking beer together. Wow! She was lots of fun!

During this time, Chad began pulling away from his adoptive family. He talked about his birth mom all the time, and his parents suspected that she was exposing him to harmful things. When they attempted to set some boundaries about how much time he could spend with her, Chad started leaving home without their permission so he could meet up with his real mom, as he referred to her.

For about five months, Chad’s new identity mimicked his mother’s. He would say to his parents, "This is who I really am. I’m more like her than like you, and she says that when I’m eighteen, I can live with her." His parents were deeply concerned and hurt, and they could only hope he would change his mind and come to his senses before he ended up in trouble or, even worse, became addicted to something.

Chad did leave his home on his eighteenth birthday to move in with his birth mom. Within a very short period of time, she began to expect him to get a job and support her. She also began to demand the respect she felt she deserved as his mother. Their relationship changed dramatically, and they were in constant conflict. When Chad refused to give her his entire paycheck, she kicked him out of her apartment. He was devastated — hurt and rejected once again by the one person he felt should love and protect him.

Chad called his parents and asked if he could move back home. Without hesitation, they said he could. Although he was legally an adult, he felt like the hurt little boy he once was as all of the old memories came back to haunt him. He had been seeking to redefine himself, and now he had lost what he had so desperately latched on to.

However, all was not lost by this experience. Chad realized that the bad memories about his birth mom were accurate, and he understood what his parents meant when they cautioned him about getting so involved with her. The time he spent living with his birth mom allowed him to get a reality check, and although it was hurtful, Chad was able to move on from it. He developed a new appreciation for his adoptive family and felt less intense about having to pull away from them.

DEPENDENCE VERSUS INDEPENDENCE

The individuation process does not happen in a steady forward motion. There are times when the adolescent retreats into a state of dependence and abandons his separating and individuating process. When he takes a break from redefining himself, he is more relaxed around his family. He accepts affection, is cooperative, and acts like he used to. His parents are thrilled! They may even think they are over the hump.

I encourage parents to enjoy these periods of time and take advantage of them (in a positive way). These retreats to dependence are times of receptivity, reciprocity, and emotional neediness. This is not the time to insert remarks along the lines of, Look at how much fun we’re having now that you’re acting like a normal kid again. Such a comment is certain to throw the adolescent back into independence mode — precisely what his parents were hoping to avoid or eliminate.

During tranquil periods, parents can begin to enjoy their child in new and different ways. This may be the best time to open discussion on a variety of topics, such as social, political, and spiritual issues. The interaction can become more collegial — the questions open-ended and not instructional or tutorial.

A parent might make a statement such as, I spoke with Mrs. Stanton today. She’s concerned about Phil because she found him smoking pot in his bedroom. If the subject is broached without any editorial comments, the remark might start a conversation that will give the parent some insight into what her child thinks about marijuana. This is not the time to launch into a lecture about drug use.

Actually, most issues that are important to the parent should have been discussed long before adolescence. If they weren’t addressed earlier, the message may not be well received at this stage. I often tell parents that if their child has not heard the word no prior to adolescence, it may be nearly impossible to start setting limits in the middle of these challenging years.

Because the dance between dependence and independence is guaranteed to occur, the adults in the adolescent’s life must be able to determine when to attempt to engage him and when to take pause and wait for an opportune moment. Adolescents like to initiate interactions and quickly respond to them. How they do so is determined by their position in the dependence/independence dichotomy. There will be many times when they will toss out a hook in an effort to see what kind of response they can elicit.

Sometimes this process looks impulsive; other times it seems like a scripted moment. If the parents perceive that the remark is scripted, they may attribute negative intent and respond with defensive fury, particularly if the remark is antagonistic. This kind of response is certain to end in a nonproductive manner for the parent. However, if this response validates the independent status of the adolescent, he may feel that it worked out just fine for him. So while the outcome of the interaction is shared, the meaning is completely disparate.

The issue of intent is one of great importance. It is possible to consciously do something without having the intention that another person attributes to the act. Adolescents often do things simply because they want to, and their goal is not necessarily to bring about discomfort for their parents. I work with many families who demonstrate extreme anger because their adolescent intentionally did something to upset them. That is rarely the case, even if the behavior was done on purpose.

To better understand this concept, let’s look at a couple of parallels. A new puppy joins the family. He intentionally grabs the end of a roll of toilet paper and then runs as fast as he can, seemingly having lots of fun in the process. It is the dog’s intention to play, but it is not his intention to waste toilet paper or inconvenience the person who has to clean up after him.

Similarly, I recently saw a disciplinary referral from a teacher about a student who was one of my clients. In a large scrawl that reflected her anger, she wrote, It is his intention to make my life a living hell and keep me from doing my job. Now, this teacher was mad and understandably so, but I sincerely doubt that the adolescent had the specific intent she accused him of. Yes, he probably did everything he did quite deliberately, but it is highly unlikely that his plan was to keep her from doing her job.

When adopted adolescents reject others, their intention is usually not to cause hurt but to avoid being rejected themselves. They have already been cast off by their birth families, and they have no desire to go through that again. When parents and professionals accurately identify the real issue as fear, they can respond differently than they would if they assumed rudeness to be the intention. An empathic response makes the adolescent feel understood, and it might be somewhat constructive in terms of helping him identify his feelings.

About six months after Juan, age seventeen, was placed with his family, his parents began to notice that he frequently attempted to keep