Adoption Parenting: Teenage Years

Teens

Oh, the teenage years… the need for independence, the self-absorption, the crazy feelings and emotions, raging hormones, the “my parents don’t understand me” stage. From “you’re ruining my life!” to “I feel so ugly” or “I must be the greatest gift to the teen world since video games” Out of all the years your child has lived, the adolescent years may seem to be the most difficult.

Your child is older, more mature, and a little more self-reliant, but for some reason, you worry about his or her well being all the time.

Peer pressure seems to be an issue for your son, while his sister struggles with self-esteem issues. Your daughter’s conversations on the phone concern you, and you find the language, clothing, and overall look of your son’s friends disturbing, and sometimes offensive. “Where did I go wrong?” you ask yourself. Interestingly enough, each child, even when raised by the same parents, has his/her own personalities and characteristics. Often, parents notice these differences as children advance from stage to stage, but they seem most pronounced during the teen years.

As your teens grow older, you will find that your “babies” seem to be pulling away from you. They begin to create their own identity, whether it be by piercing their tongues, getting tattoos, dying their hair, etc. Their bodies are changing at a rate they cannot explain. As they adjust to puberty, they become irritable, self-conscious, and their moods seem to change without reason. Your teenagers would like more privileges and independence away from home, and try their hardest to get you to entrust them with more privileges without assuming any responsibilities. The more you want to be their “friend,” the more they push you away.

Anger, Sex, and Aggression

Adopted adolescents have the same trouble searching for a comfortable identity as do non-adoptees. Problems involving aggression, sexual activities and pregnancy, delinquency and substance abuse, social isolation and depression are the most common ones faced by teenagers and their families. Although there appear to be more adoptees percentage-wise in adolescent psychiatric treatment programs than nonadoptees, the majority of these patients tend to be the multiply placed children whose problems stem from a variety of sources, often the least of which is their adoption.

Although sexual identity is an issue for all adolescents, adopted girls have the additional burden of conflicting views of motherhood and sexuality. On one hand there is their perhaps infertile adoptive mother and, on the other, the fertility of their birth mother who did get pregnant and chose not to keep her baby, or possibly had her child taken away from her.

No matter how open communication has been, it is often next to impossible for adolescents to discuss their feelings about sex with their parents. Additionally, the adopted girl, unless she has close friends who are adopted as well, would have difficulty finding an ear understanding and sophisticated enough for this discussion. This may be a time to encourage meeting with other adopted teenagers, either through an organized group or informally, to provide your child with support for some of these sticky issues. Looking for solutions outside of the family is also appropriate for an adolescent for whom one major developmental task is to learn to separate and live independently.

As adolescents move toward greater autonomy, a parent's most difficult task is to create a delicate balance of "to love and let go." Although there are many times when you could encourage your toddler—"me do it myself"—or elementary school-aged child to "try things alone" or learn a new skill, an adolescent needs to assert his/her independence by establishing differences from you, and real distance. The adolescent needs to take his or her independence or autonomy, rather than be given it.

This often means a period of estrangement, lessened communication, or outright strife. You may want to listen and talk to your friends who have weathered adolescence with their biological children to note the similarities, and as you have tried to do all along, to understand the differences, acknowledge them, and try to work on them with your child.

No matter how much you wanted to be parents, there are many times during the years of child rearing when you might ask, sometimes in humor, and sometimes in sadness, "Why did I ever sign up for this job?" Sometimes you can only reply feebly, "Well, it sure makes life interesting." But finally, you must have faith that the bonding that occurred in the early years between you and your child, the trust that has built as s/he grew up, and the communication that you have established, will come full circle and provide rich and rewarding relationships for you and your adult children.

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