How to help unattached teen who's left home

March 12, 2013

My husband and I adopted an older child, a son "J". Jay was 15 when he came to us. He's 19 now, though seems much younger than that emotionally. I would say that he is partly attached to us. There is definitely mutual love there in the relationship. However, the attachment also seems very fragile and it's been difficult for him to let go of his protective shield. Jay moved out of home almost a year ago in order to pursue the studies that he wanted to do. He lives very far from us and is staying with a relative of ours. It was his choice to leave and we supported it. He was nervous about it so we did what we could to help him with the transition. He seems happy there and gets on well with our relative.

While Jay has been away, we have tried to communicate with him regularly by email and skype calls. For a teen, I would say his communication has been pretty good (about twice a month), though we would prefer more!

Over Christmas and New Years, Jay came to visit us for a month. His behaviour was strange. He seemed very uncomfortable in our presence. Thing started out reasonably well but quickly deteriorated. We barely saw him for the last three weeks of the visit. He spent most of his time outside of the house or in his room with his door closed, only choosing to stay home and relax on days he knew we would be out. When we tried to show an interest in him and what he was doing, he would lie, so that it got to a point that we dared not ask him any questions for fear it would just encourage the lying. He would share things with our friends about what he was doing and tell them not to tell us. It was fairly clear he was not doing anything particularly wrong, just normal things you would expect a teenager to do. It was also clear that he was not angry with us about anything, just uncomfortable to be around us.

Jay is back at the relatives place living away from us and the communication is still about twice a month. But he now struggles to give more than a one syllable answer to questions. I don't think he's angry with us and would like to be able to communicate better but does not know how.

Our friends tell us that he's just a teen and it's normal for teens to not communicate and therefore we should not be pushing for communication. They say he just wants the freedom to do things without us prying and that if we give him space, then he can choose to communicate when he feels like it. I've been trying to do that but am worried that slowing down communication with him is just going to make him more uncomfortable whenever we do communicate. I'm worried what attachment he does have is going to be lost if I don't push somewhat for communication to continue.

Can anyone give advice on this? Do you think I should be pushing for communication or backing off? Is attachment something you are supposed to work at even once a child has left home? How do others of you handle the need for a grown child to gain independence at the same time that you help them to retain an emotional bond to you as parents? And do you think a lack of communication (with someone who has never fully attached) likely to result in them no longer feeling a part of your family?

jeffw

March 13, 2013

I can tell you that I, a normally raised fully attached and healthy person, had a similar experience during that phase of my life--when I came home for the summer after my first year of college. I regularly went on long walks into the mountains or drives to nowhere in particular, purposefully without telling anyone that I was going. My parents didn't do anything wrong. They didn't try to treat me like a child in any way. I think I was just changing my own mindset on the relationship from parent-child to adult-adult. This didn't have any effect on our long term relationship. My parents respect me like an adult and now when I visit I generally tell them when I'm going somewhere. The difference is internal to me. Now it feels like I'm telling, not like I'm asking.

I don't know if this is what is happening, but if it is then I think you don't need to worry about the long term as long as you can accept and support the transition from a parent-child relationship to an adult-adult relationship. Show interest in what is happening in his life. Show empathy, never judgement. Be careful about giving advice. Only do so in ways that you would use for any other adult. If he doesn't want to talk then respect that and call less often. His short answers may be his way of telling you that you're not going to be privy to that level of detail in his life anymore. Everyone draws a line somewhere. I don't tell my parents much about day to day happenings and if they were to call at regular intervals then I would probably get annoyed and might give one word answers. They only call a few times a year just to talk. But because of that, when we do talk, we talk well. I still know they are always available to me and I still feel like I am accepted as part of the family. I think boys tend to be tighter lipped than girls and many mothers don't like it.

Whatever you do, don't schedule calls ahead of time and expect him to make himself available. That would be a major relationship killer to an independent minded young man.