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Options Magazine
Options Magazine
No sooner do your children begin to understand
the wonders of biology than their own bodies begin the surge of growth toward
puberty and the awesome stage of adolescence. Adolescence, for all its
newness—it was not considered a distinct stage of life until after the first
World War—has quickly acquired a reputation as a difficult and trying period
for children and parents. Physical growth changes the person from a child to an
adult, in preparation for procreation, but mental and emotional development may
take years to catch up with the body. Adolescents' behavior is in transition
and not fixed; their feelings about the world and their place in it are
tentative and changeable, like a chameleon's.
The adolescent's primary task is to establish
a secure sense of identity; the process is arduous, time-consuming, and
intense. Establishing a stable identity includes being able to live and work on
one's own, to maintain a comfortable position in one's family, and to become a
contributing citizen in one's community.
It is the nature of all adolescents, adopted
or not, to question everything and everyone. It is also in their parents'
nature to worry about their children's futures and their own survival in this
period. Almost everyone agrees that, although often extremely difficult, open
communication can smooth the process.
Adolescence is a time of trying on and
choosing in all aspects of life. Two major aspects of adult identity formation
will be choice of work and choice of a partner to love. Teenagers look for and
imitate role models. They critically examine their family members (as they did
in elementary school), peers, teachers, and all the other heroes and
anti-heroes the culture offers from rock musicians and movie stars, to ball
players and politicians, to grandparents and peers' older brothers and sisters.
They idolize and devalue people, ideas, and religious concepts. They often bond
tightly with peers in small groups that are intolerant of all outsiders. They
vacillate between criticism of others and harsh self-criticism. They are
sometimes supremely self-confident and often in the depths of despair about
their abilities and future success.
If normal adolescence involves a crisis in
identity, it stands to reason that adopted teenagers will face additional
complications because of what some have called "genealogical
bewilderment" (Sants). The fact that the adoptee has two sets of parents
raises more complicated questions about ancestral history now that intellectual
development has assumed adult proportions. The search for possible identification
figures may cause the adolescent to fantasize more about birth parents, become
interested in specific facts about birth relatives, or wish to search for or
meet them.
Although all adopted adolescents have to
struggle to integrate their fantasies and future goals with their actual
potential and realities, foreign, biracial, and other cross-cultural adoptees
(as well as teenagers with physical or emotional disabilities) have additional
challenges. They may suffer more from what Erik Erikson calls "identity
diffusion," i.e., feelings of aimlessness, fragmentation, or alienation.
They may appear outwardly more angry at adoptive parents, and more critical of
what their parents did or did not do to help them adjust to their adoptive
status. They may withdraw more into themselves, or conversely feel they need to
"set off to see the world" in hopes of finding their true identity.
Adolescents often express their reactions to
loss by rebelling against parental standards. Knowing that they have a
different origin contributes to their need to define themselves autonomously.
According to Dr. Nickman, "An adopted son or daughter cannot be expected
to be a conformist. If he is, he may be inhibiting an important part of himself
for the sake of basic security or out of a sense of guilt or responsibility to
his adopters."
It probably helps a child to be told by
adoptive parents that they understand their son or daughter's need to take
control of his or her own life, and that they stand ready to assist in any way
that they can, including giving their blessing to a child who needs to "to
go it alone" for a while. Of course, a youngster under 17 years of age
might be asked to wait until s/he could realistically manage in whatever
environment would be encountered.
Searching for Birth Parents
Current adoption practice has mixed opinions
about whether, when, how, and with whose help, adoptees should look for more
information about or try to initiate a reunion with birth parents. Information
on this process is available through the Clearinghouse. Adoptive parents tend
to think about their children's wish to search when they first adopt, and again
when confronted with their angry toddlers. The topic resurfaces in adolescence,
either raised directly by the child, or when rebellious, defiant behavior such
as threats to run away, makes parents wonder if their child is wanting or
needing to contact a birth parent. It takes a parent with sturdy self-esteem
and more confidence than most of us have to withstand the stony silences and
stormy confrontations with teenagers in turmoil.
Parents are often tempted to escape perhaps by
abandoning their teenagers who are having toddler-like tantrums, but you and
your family will benefit more if you remain calm, stand up for the values you
have taught, and continue communication efforts. For some adolescents,
searching can be useful, while for many, the urgent activities and decisions of
daily life are so pressing that they feel uninterested in or unable to confront
such a heavy emotional undertaking. Waiting till they have reached adulthood
when their lives will be more settled may be better for the latter group.
Anger, Sex, and Aggression—Again!
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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