Lunch & Learn: Six Stuck Spots For Teens --- BONNI GOODWIN: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our Lunch and Learn today. We will be covering the Six Stuck Spots for Adopted Teenagers. So I will turn it over to Tamara. TAMARA TILLMAN: I want to welcome everyone today to our Lunch and Learn. This Lunch and Learn is being brought to you today by a collaboration between Oklahoma Human Services, University of Oklahoma, Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work and the Oklahoma Adoption Competency Network. We appreciate everyone joining during their lunch or noon hour. We want to get started so we can make sure to respect everyone's time and the great information being discussed today. Now let's go over a few housekeeping things for our time together this afternoon. We are recording this meeting, so by participating you are giving your consent to be recorded. To help us reduce distractions so we can all focus and participate, we ask that -- we have everyone muted, to make it possible for everyone to hear the speakers. However, we want you to express your thoughts and questions, so please utilize the chat for this purpose. We will monitor the chat and questions will be touched upon during our Q&A time during the last 15 minutes of the webinar. We want to see you, so if you're willing and you can please turn on your video. If you are unable, that is fine also. To receive information about other post adoption events, please list your name and email in the chat and we will make sure to add you to our contact list. Remember confidentiality. It is vital that we protect confidential information so we will not share specifics about adoption cases, people or children. By attending this training, you're eligible to receive one hour of training credit towards the 12 hours of in-service training that you need each year. Please indicate in the chat if you would like to receive a certificate. Now I hand everything off to Dr. Bonni Goodwin, who was our statewide Coordinator of Adoption Preservation Services and today's host. BONNI: Thank you, Tamara. Welcome everyone. I'm excited to see some new faces on here. We've got some, exciting Lunch and Learns happening this summer. And we have some other exciting events coming up as well. So, if you're not yet on that mailing list, give, drop your email in the chat and we will get you on that list. We've got some more Lunch and Learns. You've also got book group, book studies. And we also have some fun family events that we are trying to plan for this summer and, for, like, a back to school kind of time frame. So I'm excited about that and excited to let you all know how to continue to stay connected, to us as a parent or a professional. So, it's been a little bit since we have had a Lunch and Learn. And so just, just to give a, brief summary of kind of what these are for, it's really to build a network, of those who are touched by adoption in some way, whether it's professionally or personally. And, so we've had parents, we've had, professional, we have child welfare professionals. We've had all different types of people on these. And so I'm very excited if, if you are new to us and new to our Lunch and Learns, welcome. I'm very, very grateful for your time. So, I today what we're what we're going to talk about. We are actually almost wrapping up, the, book club called Beneath the M--, on a book called Beneath the Mask. It's this book, Understanding Adopted Teens. It's a phenomenal book. I've been doing this work a long time, and I continue to learn things every time I go through it. So, I highly recommend. It's, it's a good book for both parents and professionals. I think I'm getting ahead of myself. I think I actually have some of this information on the PowerPoint slides. So I will go ahead and put my PowerPoint slides up. And I know that Tamara so wonderfully shared with you all to, you know, keep yourself muted, put stuff in chat. But I'm going to give you permission right now to interrupt me as, thoughts or questions or anything comes up. So please feel free. We can have a good discussion here. All right. I'm going to share my PowerPoint. [Title slide: Six Stuck Spots for Adopted Teens Bonni Goodwin, Ph.D., LCSW Oklahoma Adoption Competency Network] [Slide: Beneath the Mask - Debbie Riley, LCMFT, and John Meeks, M.D. - Understanding adopted teens and how best to support them - For parents and professionals] BONNI: What we're doing today is going through, really one of the main chapters of this book. So, the whole thing, I'm not presenting the whole book itself, especially if you are joining a future iteration of this book club. But I'm just talking about one chapter that gives six specific stuck points. If you have also, as a professional, been through the NTI training, this is, the six stuck points is something that is covered in that training as well. So it is, very, very accurate based off of the, experience of Debbie Riley, and John Meeks. Debbie Riley is the CEO of the center for Adoption Support and Education. They're, they're really a national resource. And Debbie's been doing this work. She's an adoptive parent. And she's been doing this work for over 20 years. So a lot of the information comes from her experience as well. [Slide: Risk of Adoption Breakdown 2 years 5 years 10 years] BONNI: Okay. So this is, a question I wanted to ask you guys your thoughts on. Let's start with two years. So what do you think happens to the risk of adoption breakdown? So let me let me clarify what that term means. Breakdown encompasses not only the times whenever an adoptive family, experiences disruption or dissolution, that legal separation kind of like a divorce. But also breakdown includes, what I would call informal ways for discontinuity, where the family, is breaking apart in different ways that are not officially recognized in the legal system. So, for example, when our kids, move into a residential home outside of their family, sometimes outside of our state, and they are completely disconnected from their adoptive family, hopefully they're in some type of situation where the services are focused on reunification and including the family in the work, but they're not living in the home, so it's very hard to maintain that connection. Also included are runaways. Any situation where we've got, kids who, have been kicked out of the home by getting pregnant early or having some type of criminal justice and or, issue something like that. Or any of those kind of situations where the child and the parent are no longer living in the same house. So that's what adoption breakdown is. So a question for you: two years after legal finalization -- so when the adoption is recognized legally in a court -- two years after, do you think, and you can either do, thumbs up, thumbs down or you can put it in chat, whatever you want to do, do you think the risk for breakdown goes up or goes down two years after? What do you think? Don't be shy, okay? Tamara says up, up. There's the right button here. [Arrow pointing up appears next to "2 years."] You are correct. Yes. The risk for a breakdown does increase two years after. What, about five? So if their child's been in the home for five years, do you think that risk increases or decreases? Hey, I see some more thumbs up. Correct. Yes. [Arrow pointing up appears next to "5 years."] So the risk for breakdown increases five years. What about ten? So this is when the child has lived in the home, been a part of the family for ten years, up or down. I see some thumbs down. I think Jarrod was saying, maybe stays the same. It goes up and unfortunately, it actually this risk is higher than the risk of five years and two years. [Arrow pointing up appears next to "10 years."] Also, this correlates often with some of these major ages. Whenever we see some of these challenges increase over the time of the child's life. So not necessarily exactly the same as two years after, but this is just another way to show, as the child turns eight, some of those risks increase, 12 increases it even more, and then 15 is at the highest risk of adoption breakdown. So you can see there it makes sense, right? Ten years, if a child's adopted at three years old ten years later is 13. So that's right in the middle of adolescence. So tell me some thoughts of yours. Why do these challenges increase over time, when I would think my intuition would initially think that man, the more that they're a part of the family, the more they have the opportunity to, to bond and attach and build relationship that that risk should go down over time. Why do you think it it increases over time? [Completed slide: Risk of Adoption Breakdown 2 Years ↑ 8 years old 5 years ↑ 12 years old 10 years ↑ 15 years old Why do challenges increase over time?] BONNI: That's good Sarah. Unaddressed trauma. So maybe some things that that child has been carrying with them and maybe even something that we'll talk about is as they unpack it, as their brain continues to mature and they're looking back at their story with different lenses and understanding things in a different way. Yeah. What else? Any other thoughts on why it might increase over time? Mhmm, the mental health issues that may be more complex or complicated the older the child gets or when they don't receive, appropriate or really competent services that really understand the core, the root. So on that note, I don't know if you guys have, if any of you have ever listened to me share about adoption before, you've probably watched this short video because it is absolutely one of my favorites. This is an adult adoptee sharing about her experience during her teen years. So let's listen. [Slide: What it felt like... Video: Identity Formation and Adoption - Teen years] [Video starts] [Card: Adopted: The Identity Project Real people. Real stories. Real insight for parents] WOMAN: High school is really hard for me. Teenagers are really hard for me. I had all these friends who would rebel against their parents, right? Or their family because they looked like them. And. And how dare that be? And so the way they kind of rebel is to be the opposite of that. And I boy, I, I was jealous of that because here I had these, these parents, this family that that looked nothing like me to begin with. So I, I really had I didn't know who I was or even have some solid ground in which to rebel against. So I remember that I, I tried on things for sizes. I always felt like I was kind of on probationary status, with this family, although they were lovely, it was my it was my issue. I was trying very hard to figure out who I was. And there was nothing around me that was similar in order to figure that out, nothing that was like me. No mirror of sorts. So I, I stressed out. I was a kid who tried to. I tried on lots of identities, maybe lots of, faces and masks and sizes and, and and I remember with this, with this temporary status that I felt this probationary status that I felt in this, this world that I inhabited. I would, I would, I was a people pleaser. So whatever you needed, I would, I would give you and and so I do this differently with all these people and I and it just it it got to me. Yeah. It it it it just got to me and I, and I remember almost kind of snapping and I was in therapy, all throughout high school because I, I, I don't, I don't think my parents knew what to do with my stress or my lack of feeling calm and at home in my own body. But no one knew. No one mentioned adoption. Nobody. I talked to the high school counselor I was with as of a couple different therapists. Nobody ever thought the adoption was a deal. No one single person. So I thought I was crazy. [Card: Welcome to the conversation A course to help parents understand the identity formation of their adopted children Adopted: The Identity Project Real People. Real Stories. Real Insight for Parents. www.AdoptionLearningPartners.org] [Video ends] [Slide: Specific Issues in Adolescence] BONNI: So no one mentioned adoption, right? She said that she talked to a couple therapists, a few therapists, her parents, herself, school counselors, all these different support people in her life. But no one thought about. And we don't have the information. I don't know if she was adopted at a very young age or I don't know how old she was or she was adopted at birth. I don't know that. But but no one was able to recognize including herself. Right. And that's I think that's a really important thing, is that even the child going through the feelings, how does she described them as kind of this, "I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. I don't..." So just this general sense of, lack of belonging, not really knowing where I fit, who I am. Yeah. Getting stuck in in a specific stage of grief. I think that's a really, really important point, Jarrod. There's, the grieving process. I think grieving as a child continues to grow. It gets bigger and deeper. And that's a lot of what this book talks about. Beneath the mask of how it gets more complex. And, and that can be really, a significant challenge and confusion. Right? Like, there's this general sense of ambiguity and, not knowing what really to pinpoint, to be able to start processing. So no one mentioned adoption for her. Also, she felt that struggle of who do I use to reflect off of during identity formation? So up above Tamara mentioned hormones and stage of development, identity development, identity formation. There's so much going on during the adolescent years and all of them play a role. Adoption and all of these pieces of development and growth are all connected and you can never take any of them off the table. When I was practicing, I had so many parents come to me and say, here's my child, here's the challenges that we're facing is this adoption or is this just adolescence? And I would say, yes, it's both always, always. You can never take the adoption and time in foster care off the table because it's a part of their experience and a part of who they are. Okay. Next, sense of not belonging anywhere. Well, we'll dig more into that when we get into the six stuck spots. As Jarrod mentioned, unrecognized loss and grief may be triggered as they continue to grieve. And that trauma that Sarah is mentioning earlier and then hormones, I mean, it's tumultuous for everyone, right? Whenever you're hitting that time and puberty and mood changes how it affects the way that you feel about yourself, how you are relating to or connecting to peers. There's just so many different aspects. Individualization. This is a really important piece, simultaneous, where you are supposed to be bonding and attaching, while you're also supposed to be leaving and figuring out who am I without my parents. And that is something that creates some very specific challenges. And in this last one, what we often see in adolescence is a re, reinvigorated a deeper, more complex desire for information and for the potential to search for birth, family and reconnect. [Slide: Six Stuck Spots - The six most common adoption related issues here children and adolescents may get stuck - Common for teens to move in and out of these areas as they try to gain deeper understanding of their adoption story] BONNI: Okay, so the six stuck spots are really connected to some of those things that we just talked about and what she shared and her experience, what she remembers about being an adopted teen. These are areas where, that are the most common adoption related issues and common for teens to move in and out of these areas. So that's another really key piece of understanding adoption work is that it is not this. It's not the type of work where you focus in on something for a good 6 to 12, you know, maybe a few months, you process through it and then you're good. It is an ongoing up and down, you're re-processing some things. Things come back up. If you think about grief. I really think it's a very similar thing to the processing of grief. When you have experienced significant loss, it is not you healing from that loss, and then it never being a part of what you need to process again. Grief is a lifelong change. You're never you never experience life the same as you did before that loss. And so there are times that that comes back up and with our kids as they are growing, like we mentioned earlier, their brain is changing their view, their perspective, their understanding of these complexities and how it relates to who am I all is continually changing. So it is an in and out. It's a dance of continually processing these things and sometimes needing to reprocess and, and dig back into it for a time. [Slide: 1. Reason for Adoption - Treatment helps adopted teens have greater understanding as to why they were adopted and clarify information about their adoption story - They need to know they were not responsible for adult decisions - They need assistance with identifying and coming to terms with the feelings related to their adoption] Okay, so let's start talking about the actual six stuck spots. The first one is identified as the reason for adoption. So good adoption, competent treatment support. Professional help helps adopted teens have greater understanding as to why they were adopted and clarify information about their story. So that's a big part of what really good adoption competent therapy encompasses. "Why am I adop -- why was I adopted? Why was I abandoned? Why was I rejected?" All the big why questions that are really hard and you might not even have the answer to that, but it still is a why that has to be wrestled with, that has to be confronted and not avoided. And, and allow the child to be able to have those conversations. They need to know that they were not responsible for the adult decisions that were made, which is important. But then also on the other side of that coin, this is what happened to them, not something that they had any control over. So there's a lot to unpack just in that short little statement. "I'm not responsible. It's not my fault. I wasn't too, too much to handle. I wasn't--" I had, my my mother-in-law was adopted, and she believed that she wasn't pretty enough. I mean, just just all kinds of things that adoptees, bring into their minds about the reasons of why they were abandoned, rejected, given away all of these different ways that they've understood, and conceptualized what adoption was for them so they weren't responsible. There's nothing about them that wasn't good enough. But yet, at the same time, that also leaves this sense of, "I had no choice. I had no control over this." And that's not it has to be wrestled with. And so in that process, needing, needing assistance with identifying, so recognizing the grief that might still be unrecognized or recognizing some of that trauma and the impact of it, and then coming to terms with the feelings that are related to their adoption. As we know, with grief work, feelings are messy. There's a lot of them. They're they're uncomfortable. I have mentioned before that when talking about grief, if it was just sadness, which the sadness, I'm not I'm not lessening the reality of the impact of that, especially when it moves into a pervasive depression. But in my own grieving experiences, if I could sit in sadness, I would feel more relief than when I feel the anxiety and the anger and all the other things, all the other faces of grief, there's just so much that we feel, and being able to, come to terms with the reality that these feelings are connected to the loss and the trauma and the experiences that I, that I went through whenever I was younger. And in my adoption experience. [Slide: - Adolescents demand fuller and more factual answers to the question, "Why was I adopted?" - "Nothing hurts like relinquishment hurts" - "Sometimes the adolescent is just blindly enraged about what was done to them."] BONNI: So here's one of the big shifts. These are some of the quotes directly from the book. Adolescents as they are moving into this, you know, a more mature brain that has more ability to to think abstractly. Whenever kids are younger, you know, like 3 to 5, we often as adults, all adults, not just parents, but also professionals in the child's life. We often respond to those questions of "Why was I adopted" or "What happened?" With really simple and sometimes even more fluffy responses, right? Of like, "You were chosen. You were," I mean, if you look at kids books about adoption, a lot of it is giving this story, which is important. I'm not saying that it's not good. But it's a very, it's more, I remember one specific book where it's trying to give the story of the adoption and it's, and it focuses really on the sense that the parents chose you. You were chosen by these, by these parents, for them to love you. And it's, that's a really wonderful concept, but sometimes, it leaves out the, the discussion of, "But why? Why was I even available to be chosen?" Right. So it goes even deeper. And adolescence really demands fuller and more factual answers to that question. So going back to it, going more in-depth, understanding the specific details. "Why, why was, why did I get here? Why was I ever available in the first place?" One, one adoptee. They shared one of the great things about this book is that it gives lots of, case scenarios, so specific applications. And what do these things look like based off of some specific stories and, and lots of quotes from adoptees. And one of them, the adoptee said, "Nothing hurts like relinquishment hurts. Nothing hurts like being voluntarily given away is what that feels like." And then another quote -- this one is from the book itself. Sometimes the adolescent is just blindly enraged about what was done to them. And I think the reason why I put it on the slide here is because enraged is a big word, right? Like that's not just anger, that's an experience of big, explosive anger. And that's really what the more we work with adolescent adoptees, the more I talk to adoptees, that's what I hear is the sense of rage. There's a big, overwhelming anger and frustration and lack of, frustration with the lack of control about, "This was done to me. I didn't get a choice. No one asked me if it was okay for me to be removed from my home and adopted." Those are big feelings, right? Big feelings for, our adolescents whose brain are still growing and still developing, huge feelings to, to wrestle with. [Slide: "It is interesting that the death of a parent is less harmful to future development than voluntary separation such as divorce or abandonment." (Kendler et al)] This is a quote also from the book. "It is interesting that the death of a parent is less harmful to future development than voluntary separation, such as divorce or abandonment." So obviously this author was talking about not talking specifically about adoption, but it is the same type of voluntary separation. What do you guys think does that how does that hit you that "The death of a parent is less harmful to future development than voluntary separation?" It's big. AMY: You know, Bonni, that that is such an impactful, you know me in my journey. You know, I look at that and I feel those emotions. And, you know, I honestly can kind of relate when you, when you, especially if you don't know what it looks like or what it feels like, you know, you don't know why that you were left or given, but there is a reason why that they passed. So you can actually validate in your own mind, and actually have closure, I think like for me, I have no closure. I don't know why, but it you know, what was the view of me? Did I do something, you know, was I viewed as or did I do something wrong, even as a as a baby that you made you not want me? So I think that, you know, from looking at it even as an adult perspective, I think closure is such a key piece. Even if it is with, you know, "I couldn't because of," at least there's some value of closure and connection that could be versus an absolute unknown. BONNI: Absolutely. Thank you. Amy. Thank you for sharing, your own experience of those feelings as well, that yeah, it's it's having anything. And that's really why connecting back to that, that is one of the main goals in adoption competent therapy with our adolescents is helping them gain the information and then wrestle with it, understand it, process what this what feelings come up when they have the information, even if it's really, really hard and complex? But the reason for why all this happened is foundational. It's the number one biggest, most challenging thing to wrestle with for our kids. [Slide: Having a safe, consistent therapeutic setting with a therapist who is familiar with the pain of adoptive loss allows children to bear the pain and continue to grow.] BONNI: So having a safe and consistent therapeutic setting with a therapist who is familiar with the pain of adoptive loss. So all the things we're talking about, the complexities, the different angles of it, allows children to bear the pain and continue to grow. I loved this quote. I felt like it just gave, It gives a really good goal of we can't just, we can't fix it right? We can't give enough information. We, we can't make the information sound fluffy and pretty enough. You know, like, we've tried so many different ways in the history of adoption work to try and lessen this pain of what adoptees express and feel and in reality, what we need to do is just recognize this is a part of the process and to come alongside to bear the pain and then continue to grow and continue to find and shift towards. In fact, I was just talking to another, friend of mine who just experienced a very, very significant sudden loss, and he was just expressing just today this sense of, "I cannot find grounding anywhere, like I can't, I just, the numbness is wearing off. And I didn't even realize how helpful that numbness was until it's gone. And now I'm realizing everything. It's like it's like coming up out of, a storm shelter and seeing the, you know, looking around and seeing the damage. I feel." Like, right? Like it's, you're, you're, you've survived, with the numbness and the denial and things like that. And then when you start to wake up, then you start to recognize, oh my gosh, this is different. This is different. This is broken. This is, I can never have this again. You know, like it's a it's a process of kind of peeling away the layers. So really good support and therapeutic professional help are those who recognize that don't try to ignore or gloss over that and sit with, sit with, in the midst of it and help to continually point towards growth and hope for the future and allowing the true expression of all of those different feelings. I've, I've heard a another video that talks about, the need to use the emotions, use the tears, and some of the words and expressions to cleanse that moment. And I just love that idea of how it's cleansing. It's not, ignoring or just getting over, but it's, it's letting it be. [Slide: 2. Missing or Difficult Information - Birth parent histories of abuse/neglect, substance use, mental illness, incarceration, death - Sometimes the information is unobtainable - Adolescents want detailed facts and information, not broad generalization] BONNI: Okay. So number two, missing or difficult information, I'm going to, speed up a little bit because I just realized it's 12:32 and I know we've got a certain amount of time. So as we were talking about reason for adoption being number one, this one obviously connects and, weaves into that when we don't have the information to give. Then what? So sometimes those birth parent histories of abuse and neglect, substance use, mental illness, incarceration, death that leaves us often with gaps, pieces to the puzzle that are missing. But they still want as much information as possible with facts and information, not broad generalizations. [Slide: - Correct timing of sharing difficult information? - Each child's temperament and emotional/intellectual maturity influences their readiness - By adolescence, all details known by parents should be shared] BONNI: So it can be really hard to identify. Identify when is the correct timing of sharing the most difficult information. Some of our kids have been through some really, really extensive, horrific things, and they were too little to know exactly what happened. Right? But we know that that still impacts them. If you remember back to the video and the adoptee sharing about her experience of those feelings of just feeling disconnected, she didn't know, she wasn't able to pinpoint exactly why she was feeling those things and exactly. And what was the cause, the root cause of that. It's hard to answer this question for parents because every child's temperament and emotional maturity is different, right? So readiness is, is a fluid thing depending on the child, depending on their experiences, depending on their cognitive development process. But overall what we can say, is that by adolescence, most -- all details that are known by the parents so that are obtained and able to be shared should be shared. So by the time a child is 13, 14 years old, they really should have all those pieces to the puzzle that we have available. So if they don't yet have those, then that's the first thing to do in in support with that child is to look at how can we start sharing some of these details. Let's talk about what are what is the, what is going to be our process? What are some of the first action steps of giving the pieces of the puzzle to the child? All right. [Slide: 3. Difference - Feeling different than peers - Feelings of difference can negatively affect a child's sense of self-worth and security in their adoptive family - In biological families, resemblances are taken for granted. In adoptive families, differences are in the forefront.] BONNI: The third stuck spot is Difference. Feeling different than peers. So we were talking about in the adolescence process and the what adolescent developing through and experiencing peers connecting friends. My, 13 year old will go to their her friends to talk about the thing that happened to her today instead of mom first. It's really hard, but it's normal, right? Like that's a part of individualization. It's a part of separation. It's a part of the whole, the whole process of them preparing themselves for how to be themselves separate from parents and from family. So in that process, a lot of times our adoptees experience this really powerful and kind of highlighted experience of difference. My life has been different than all of my friends. I know my parents in a different way. I don't have all these pictures that all of my friends have. I have a different skin color than my parents and all of those differences are highlighted during the adolescent time. So because of that, these feelings of difference can potentially negatively affect a child's sense of self-worth and security within their adoptive family. So that's really where we get some of that familial impact, where the whole system becomes impacted because our our adolescents respond in different ways to this, right? Some of them shut down and get really quiet and kind of internalize some of them, externalize and, connect to their anger and frustration and all of that, that rage. And it comes out on the family, the adoptive family, because, "I didn't get to choose this. Someone else chose this for me. And you're a part of that, and you're the only adult that I have access to. So you're going to get all my anger and you're going to get all the blame." And that is where a lot of our families that we talk to who are struggling and when their kiddo hits adolescence, it's that type of externalized behavior, the relational challenges, the aggression, defiance, even violence, that's happening. A lot of it can come back to this root cause. In biological families, resemblances looking like each other, having, temperaments, personalities, even cognitive ability, you know, so many times people talk about, oh, you're so much like your mom or you're so much like your dad. Those things are taken for granted. But in adoptive families, that is really when those differences are highlighted again. So here's a quick video of, adoptees being interviewed about what does it feel like to be adopted? And they're all in the adolescent time frame. [Slide: What if feels like... Video: How Does It Feel to Be Adopted] [Video starts] [Card: Pact, An Adoption Alliance ADOPTEES SPEAK Hosted by Angela Tucker] ANGELA TUCKER: What do you wish that your classmates knew about how it feels to be adopted? CALEB, 12: I wish they'd have a little more sympathy. I wish it wouldn't be so hard to be around people that aren't adopted. They used to ask. Oh, your mom used to be Chinese, right? Or like they used to ask the race of my parents and like, oh, like, why did they give you up? And. Yeah, used to be hard. ANGELA TUCKER: Yeah. MADELINE, 15: I was put in foster care and then I was adopt -- and then I was adopted and my life is not tragic. I guess. I think that it's kind of something you're never going to completely, like, be like, this is what it means to be adopted. But. I guess you just kind of figure it out, like, a little bit and you're like, yeah, that's that's cool. Still confused, but that's cool. WILLIAM, 15: I haven't had really any negative things, it's just more people are surprised when they find out I'm adopted. ANGELA TUCKER: And when you tell them, "No I'm just adopted." Like does that feel like, empowering statement or like a put down or just neutral? WILLIAM: It feels like a good statement. I tell my mom, sometimes I feel like I have a second chance because of all the opportunities her and my dad gave me and my very fortunate life. And so I'm able to try new things and go new places that I feel like I wouldn't be able to go without them. ISABELLA, 15: For me, it was never a big deal. I was like, yeah, okay, I'm adopted. And everyone was like, what? Really? And I was like, yeah. ANGELA TUCKER: why do you think they're surprised and excited? At first? ISABELLA: Because it's like it exciting. I don't really know. I wouldn't know because I'm just like, oh, that's cool. Yeah. But I guess I think it's like exciting and new and like, interesting. ANGELA TUCKER: How about teachers? Are there any assignments that are ever given that make you talk about your family history? JASMINE, 11: Yeah. Like we have to do baby pictures and stuff like that. And usually they're like, do you have a baby picture? Why didn't you bring one in? And I have to describe why I don't have one. And the reason why I don't have one. And then when I do that, they all start acting really sad toward me. And weird. ANGELA TUCKER: Do they assign an alternate? JASMINE: They tell me to draw a picture. ANGELA TUCKER: Draw a picture of yourself as a baby instead of bringing one in? JASMINE: Yeah. ANGELA TUCKER: How does it feel when your classmates all bring in pictures of themselves as a baby, and you have a picture that you drew of yourself? JASMINE: It feels kind of like different to like, know that, everyone else can have these pictures and I'm just stuck with this drawing because, like, you want to fit in, you want to be like everyone else, but you just can't. [Card: PRODUCED BY Pact, An Adoption Alliance HOSTED BY Angela Tucker / @theadoptedlife FILMED & EDITED BY Bryan Tucker] [Video ends] [Slide: 4. Permanence - Is permanence really permanent? - "I've lost one set of parents; I could lose another." - Especially those children who have experienced multiple moves prior to adoption - Therapy helps children understand how behaviors reflect their sense of insecurity] BONNI: So you can tell in a lot of their experiences and how they describe it, that sense of difference that all the different ways that our kids, have that kind of spotlight put on them of that this Oh, you're different. And some of them described it in positive ways. Right. Like of, people get excited, it's new, it's different. It's interesting. But still just that sense of like, my story is different, makes it obvious that there's something different about me. And that gets really complex and hard for, for our adolescents to process, because it's I mean, you know, you you were an adolescent. All of us were. And that sense of, I want to be an individual, but I want to be an individual based on what I choose to make me different, not on something that I didn't get a choice. And it's just a part of who I am. It's also in adolescence where you start to say, "Man, I wish I had straight hair when I had curly hair, I wish I had different eye color," you know? I mean, like everything that we have are now given to us is hard sometimes to accept. If there's something that we can do and choose to be different than that feels better. So it can be a really challenging, challenging experience. The fourth stuck spot is Permanence. So this question is it of is permanence really permanent? Is this really going to be my experience? I've lost one set of parents. I could lose another, especially for our kids who have experienced multiple, multiple moves prior to adoption. So the therapeutic intervention helps children understand how their behaviors reflect their sense of insecurity. So connecting like with our with our, adoptee that we listened to at the very beginning. She needed someone to help her understand that the feelings. And when she said she just snapped, she didn't explain what those behaviors were. But snapping usually describes that there was an explosion of some sort. So whatever those behaviors were, she needed help connecting it back to, "I feel insecure." Right? She, even as an adult, described her, growing up in her adoptive home as probationary like there were many ways that she expressed that permanency was an issue for her without being able to really have that help at that time, to connect it back, that that was a that was a challenge. [Slide: Emily's Story From Beneath the Mask, p. 86] BONNI: Okay. I'm going to read to you one of the excerpts from the book that talks that it gives another perspective of this challenge with permanency. "During individual sessions with Emily, therapist learned that the parents had told her that as soon as she went to college, they planned to sell their house and move to a retirement home at the beach. Exploring Emily's feelings about this led to tears. Emily said she could not tolerate the fact that the home she grew up in her whole life -- she was adopted at a very young age -- would disappear along with all of her belongings, her room, and most importantly, her parents. 'I feel I'm losing everything. Don't they know how hard this is for me?' she asked. In fact, Emily's parents had not realized how strongly their plans would affect their daughter. They thought she'd be happy that they could move on with their dreams of retirement, and she was moving on appropriate-- appropriately with her life plans. They never imagined that Emily would construe this as abandonment, and that it would rekindle tremendous loss issues for her. So Emily and the therapist explored together her terrified feelings of losing yet another set of parents and therapist helped her to understand the vulnerabilities connected with separation. It was critical to help Emily express her fears and anxieties to her parents, so they could affirm that they were not abandoning her. It was also important to educate and normalize this reaction for everyone. All of them needed to understand that it was not, a weakness of Emily's that she was feeling this way, but it was connected to and informed by her experience. Emily was not overreacting. In fact, her reactions were quite appropriate given her life experiences. With help from her therapist and parents, she was able to separate the past from the future and look forward to her new challenges." [Slide: 5. Identity - Who am I and where did I come from? - How am I similar/different from my adoptive parents? How am I similar/different from my biological parents? - Therapy must support adopted teens in the integration of a cohesive self] Okay, the fifth stuck spot is Identity. We mentioned earlier identity formation. All of the different aspects that are wrapped up into that who am I and where did I come from? How am I similar or different? Not only from my adoptive parents, but I've also got another set of parents to process here. How am I similar or different from my biological parents? All the cultural difference. If there's racial difference, skin color difference, hair difference. Right. Like all those different aspects, I now have the double, a double amount of people that I'm trying to figure out. How am I similar or different that have to reflect off of like our, adoptees stated? Good adoption-competent therapy must support adopted teens and the integration of a cohesive self. So all those different people roles, relationships must culminate in a cohesive sense of self. How? And that can be a challenging process, a complex process of bringing all of these different people, cultures, heritages, cognitive abilities, all those things and pulling them in together. It's not just the biological parents, it's not just genetic. Right. But that's important. It's not just experience and nurture, but it's, but that's important as well. So it has to incorporate all of the above. [Slide: Imagine...] BONNI: So imagine just for a moment, imagine what it feels like to not know anything about the people who brought you into the world. You do not know what they looked like, where they came from, or what their lives were like. You have no idea what their personalities are like, their moods, temperament, intellectual capacities, strengths or weaknesses. How would you then do what we just said? How would you reflect off of something that you, someone that you have no idea about any of this information, of who they are? That's the that's the challenge when you're looking into a mirror and you see nothing, there's no ability to reflect and see the difference. And that's a deep need. It's an urgent need because of the developmental process of our adopted kids. So that's why identity formation is such a critical piece and a stuck spot for adolescents. [Slide: How I Feel About Being Adopted By Ann] AMY: I think that's when kids start to lie and make up stories so that they have a validated piece. And then you create, even if you don't know, you start to create or envision what that could have or what they did look like or what they might have done. Or maybe you hear a couple of words, "Well your parents..." or, "Your dad..." or "Your mom..." and then you just build an imaginary world off of that if you don't have any foundation. BONNI: Yeah, yeah. Amy, thank you for bringing that up. That's such a critical piece of understanding the adoption journey. And another term a lot of times we, we say fantasize, you know, and really, there are times whenever I've had adoptees share these really complex and elaborate stories that I know that they have, they have pulled some imagination into it. But I also am like, you know, imagination can be a powerful tool whenever we don't have a way to fill in the gaps with any type of facts. And so helping a ch-- an adoptee kind of talk about what is the reality that they might have created out of imagination and, and let's, let's, let's put that on the table. Let's talk about it. Let's process why some of those things, they sought and how do they make them feel like, for example, my mother in law, I shared with you she was adopted from foster care in Oklahoma, and she believed that she wasn't pretty enough. She believed that she was cried too much and was really obnoxious, and that she was the youngest of a whole slew of children. And, so all of that fantasized experience that, that she doesn't know if that was real. Real or not. You can read, you can hear the, the sense of rejection and abandonment and some of the insecurity that she carried with her throughout her life, from the story that she created to fill in the pieces of who I am, how she was trying to develop, who she was going to be. And so it's telling, it's important, and it's also very natural for the for the creativity, the imagination to fill in some of those spaces. But it's also important to put that on the table and think through and listen through, kind of like cognitive behavioral therapy. What you believe about something impacts the way you feel about you and about who you are. And so talking about that, can be a really powerful thing. I'm going to read one more thing to you from the book. This is a poem that was written by Ann, an adoptee, sharing about how I feel about being adopted: "I really do not know how I feel. I know I am confused at times. Sometimes it hurts when I think of how things could have been for me. Maybe things would have been different if my birth mother did not give me up. At times I imagine that if I were with her, things would be better for me. Right now, I don't enjoy being adopted. Why? I do not know. I am basically very confused and don't know who I am. Everyone has a goal in life and mine is to find my mother and confront her." I just thought that was such a powerful expression of all the things: confusion, loss, anger, right? Like all those things were in that one poem. And she just the thing that she's focused on is I want to find her and I want to confront her. And so sitting with her and processing that and letting her feel those feelings and continue to write about it and express is the best response, rather than saying, you know, I think so many times societally we think anger is so negative and so bad, and it's going to lead to bad things. So when you hear that her goal is to confront, then I can see this natural reaction of somebody saying, "Oooh, let's talk about that anger. How can we how can we fix that?" When in reality the best thing to do is to be to let her continue to express it and continue to talk about why she's angry, where the anger comes from, what it feels like. So writing more poetry. [Slide: 6. Loyalty] BONNI: Okay, the last one, the last stuck spot is Loyalty. Many teens experience guilt related to their frequent and intense thoughts and feelings about birth parents, so therapy must help to remove the teen's guilt and normalize the feelings they may hold for their birth parents. [Slide: Some Typical Thoughts] BONNI: So these are some stats from or I'm sorry, some some typical thoughts. So, "I have so many questions about my birth parents. But if I ask my parents, will they get upset?" So I don't really want to talk about everything that's inside of me right now, because I don't want to offend or upset my adoptive parents. "I know things were bad at home when I was a baby, but I wonder about my mom and grandmother. Maybe I will live with them again someday. So how can I really feel like my adoptive parents are my family?" So that kind of, I am being raised by my adoptive home, but my goal is to find birth mom and then maybe I'll live with them again. So who is my family? And that's that divided loyalty feeling. And then this last one, "I think about my sister who was not adopted. I love her so much." So it's birth parents. But then there's also siblings in the mix. [Slide: Survey Data] BONNI: There. This is some data from a survey of 74 adopted children. This was done by case. 91.3% of 74 said they still felt their birth mother, in their mind or heart (psychological presence), and 63.4% said the same of their birth father. So the majority 91.3%. So nine -- over nine out of ten still felt birth mom in there every day, and 56% said they felt birth mom in their hearts or minds daily. Every day. These feelings are deeply rooted and do not simply go away over time. Time does not heal. It's processing and being able to talk about and express. [Slide: "Joining this Journey"] So, "Joining this journey with the adopted adolescent is both complex and challenging, and at times it can be daunting. It requires a deep understanding of the inherent developmental tasks of adoption," So that's why adoption competency is such a huge thing, "and how teens can become burdened by the complexities of the emotional significance of their adoption experience." So that's the last quote from the book. I'm going to leave you with just the underline of how critical it is to really understand all the different things about what adolescence is, what child development processes bringing up, and how adoption relates to. And, complicates all of these different things. And then also how do we help? [Slide: Join Us! Oklahoma Adoption Competency Network Where adoptive parents, adoptees, biological families, and adoption professionals come together for learning and support. - Lunch and Learn Webinars - Book clubs - Professional training & coaching - Family events - Support groups - Resources & information] BONNI: So I know I'm going to I'm gonna go ahead and stop sharing because I know that, Tamara will put into the chat that QR code, to let you that will lead you back to our OACN website. So you can continue to stay in touch with all the different Lunch and Learns. We have another one coming up in a couple weeks. And Lacey, I think we're talking about Life Books right? LACEY SORRELS: Yes. That's correct. BONNI: Awesome. So being able the what the tool is of a Life Book, how to utilize it for, for our kids and our adolescents and helping them understand and process their adoption story. Okay, we've got four minutes. I'm sorry. I went a little over. There is a survey link. Thank you, Tamara, as she put into the chat. That is for you to give us some feedback and some other ideas of other topics you'd like to talk about in our Lunch and Learn. So if you wouldn't mind taking a few minutes to complete that survey, we would really appreciate it. Any questions or thoughts before we hop off today? LACEY: While you're thinking about that, just a quick reminder. If you do need a certificate or training credit for today, please drop your email in the chat and we will get that sent to you. STEPHANIE: How do you reconcile the -- one of the things that I hear from former adoptees sometimes is just like not talking poorly about birth parents, but at the same time, giving that factual information. And to me, those two are like, BONNI: hard to reconcile, STEPHANIE: real things, but they're very touchy. BONNI: Yeah, yeah. Good question. Because it is so critical for us to, to have honor and respect of biological family, because what we say about them translates into "Who am I? Because that's a part of my blood. And, and you know, of my background." I think that's a really good question and challenging. But I think the key aspect of, walking the adolescent or the child through understanding the details of their story, even whenever it's, very, very, traumatic and, and really hard things and challenging decisions were made. I think it's all in how you prepare the child for that conversation, saying, "Okay, it's time. We're going to share some more of the pieces to your history because we know how important that is for you to have all the understanding. You've been asking these questions and it's and we you are, we believe you're ready to hear some of the details of why and the reason for your adoption." So helping them understand the reason why you're now sharing, telling them and supporting them and saying we're going to be a part of this process. And I also need, need you to understand that some of these things are going to be really hard to hear, but, and then just kind of laying a foundation of support of saying, your if, you know, "Your adoptive family is here and they're going to walk through this with you, they are, ready and big enough to experience all the feelings that come from you. They can they can handle it. And so all the feelings that come, you're not going to be abandoned. You're not going to be, rejected. If you feel anger, if you feel fear, those type of things would be normal." And that would be a part of, you know, like, so normalizing it and saying, "Yeah, this is some of what might be expected." And then I think being able to, as you are telling the story and, and sharing it using language where it talks about decisions being made, not people being, kind of like how we talk about how to help kids. And, when we're managing difficult behaviors, we're not saying stop being so blah, blah, blah, but it's, you know, what are the decisions that you're making separating the behavior from the person? I think that's an important piece of doing it. But then also at the end, reinforcing the concept of that, you know, your biological parents made some tough decisions, based off of their experience and some of the challenges and the hurt that they had carried through their life. And it and it was, not safe. I think it's important to say specifically, it's not safe. When there was abuse, it wasn't okay. You know, like, reinforcing those things of saying that you did not was not okay to do those things to you or to your family members. So balancing that continually on both sides of having compassion and empathy, while also supporting that, this was not okay, and that that's a part of the reason why you were removed from home and also why you were eventually adopted. Does that help, Stephanie? That was a good question. STEPHANIE: Yeah. BONNI: Thank you for thank you for asking that. It's one of the very complex things to, to walk through. All right, y'all, it's 1:01. Thank you so much for your time. And hopping on here is great to see faces and some familiar and some new. Let us know if you need any, any other help. Or also again, let us know what, other topics you'd like to, to talk about or learn about on our Lunch and Learns. Have a great day.