Dear Director,
Our adopted son is 15 now and he has been with us almost his entire life: 12 years. All of a sudden, he is talking to us with such disrespect and sabotaging happy and fun family events. We understand that he came from a tough place with serious neglect, but we don’t know what to do with this.
Please advise, Confused Parents
Dear Confused,
Adolescence is a tough time even for a birth child, with hormones going nuts and trying to figure out who you are and how to see yourself in a way that makes you feel good about yourself, all while desiring connection with peers and separation from your parents. It is all part of the normal process of Identity Formation. And, as you notice it is even harder for a youth who knows you are his parents but also is not quite “like” you even if all that they love about their life comes from life with you. What I am saying is that not all of this is about his adoption, and if you were to ask him directly, he may vehemently deny it. But, with any adopted child the thread of those unknown parents and that trauma carries into the thread of what adolescents have to do. Top that off with the way society often encourages boys to not talk about their thoughts and feelings, and you have this boiled mess of a boy.
So, start with what you do know about him. You know what he likes, and what he knows and even what he does not know. You know that this is a hard time-find me an adult who wants to go back to adolescence and I will pay them a lot of money-and also that you want him to get through it in one piece and safe. You also know that you love him, even if you do not always love what he is doing.
Then, start the hard work of trying to figure out what his behaviors are telling you. Are there themes to his complaints or are they random? Does he feel that you are telling him what to do without giving him choices-and remember that learning to choose wisely and live with the consequence is an important adult skill. Do you make rules and demands without talking through how you come to that decision-again an important skill to model and teach to teens. Have you allowed him to opt out of some family things for peer time that you know is in the vicinity of a safe adult?
And then there is the early trauma and adoption stuff. Are you blaming his birth family for the negative or challenging behaviors you see-like telling him he is like his mom when he comes home drunk or smelling of weed? Have you talked to him about what his birth family was like and what happened that he was unable to stay with them? This is an important step in identity formation-for an adopted child to know the truth about their family and both what challenged them and what positive things he may have inherited from them. It is also important for you to help him see that he has choices that will help him choose differently and-very importantly-choose a life for himself that even his birth parents would want for him. And it also gives you a chance to tell him again that his birth parents loved him even if they did not have the stability, support, and parenting to care for him safely, and to remind him that this is not his fault.
Be prepared now to talk about these things, because as with all adolescents, your opportunity to talk about any of this is not scheduled but will arise in a car ride home from football practice or on the way to a movie or after a really hard night when you pull him drunk out of that party and choose not to scold but to ask a simple question and listen until he finds the words. Remember that he is a child you love unconditionally and that together you can get him through this. But listen more than you talk, and that includes listening to what he does in addition to his words.
