What to do When Your Adoptee Is Struggling With Adoption

It happened unexpectedly.  

One of my kids was focused on a worksheet in class when one of her peers seated next to her pointed to our family picture on the family poster on the wall nearby.  

"Is that your mom?" he asked.

She nodded yes.

He replied, "But she's white."  

My daughter didn't reply.

He continued, "That's weird."

The teacher had overheard the boy and immediately stepped in, telling him he was being rude and told him he owed my child an apology.  

(Read the end of this post to see what we did about this situation)

Sometimes our kids can be minding their own business, and adoption is thrown in their faces, uninvited.  

But that's how adoption goes often, right?  

The adoption conversations, thoughts, questions, and emotions can crop up anytime, anywhere.  They might be external or internal.  They can be positive, negative, or they may just be what they are.  

Sometimes they manifest into your child dramatically concluding they will run away and live with their birth parents.  Sometimes the manifestation is sadness, anger, frustration, or confusion.  Sometimes it's an adoptee fantasy of what their birth family's life is like, or they fill in the gaps of their own adoption story.  Sometimes these feelings and thoughts are fleeting, while other times, they sit and stay awhile.  

And the holidays, birthdays, school breaks, and traumaversaries can be triggering for adoptees.  You might see your child struggling more this time of year (Thanksgiving and Christmas).  

What about the hard seasons?  What is a parent to do?

1:  Review what you know. 

Pull out your copy of The Connected Child, meet up with your adoption support group, talk to your social worker, meet with that wise adoptive-mama friend, adoptee, or birth parent.  Look to the trusted people (your village) and resources you already have in place and are familiar with.   

When something challenging crops up, we often go into anxiety-mode.  When this happens, we are unable to think clearly and often forget what we already know.   This is why the very first thing you should do is pause and ask yourself, "What do I know to be true?  What do I know to be helpful?"  

If you're a person of faith, a great first-step is also to PAUSE and to PRAY.   I've had many help-me-Jesus moments with my kids when they've asked me HARD questions, and I started to internally panic.  When I said a quick prayer for wisdom, I was always granted something helpful.  

2:  Work to figure out what you do not know.

As your child gets older, new (and often surprising) struggles may crop up, leaving you wondering, "Why didn't I learn about this in our adoption training?" and "What do I do now?"   

Again, you are not helpless.  First, you have the foundation of what you already know.   Second, you have the ability to decide to seek additional resources and take action.   

You have to decide, do I channel my time and energy into worrying, or do I use my time and energy to work toward helping my child?  

3:  Find a counselor or other professional.  

Finding an adoption-competent counselor for your family can be one of the best moves you make.   This person serves as support, a sounding board, and a wise encourager.  He or she can point you to resources (books, conferences, other professionals, etc.) that can assist you in parenting your child.  

Some counselors will work with the entire family, while some specialize in just working with adults, teens, or children.  

Note:  I encourage families to do this even if their children are having no obvious issues related to adoption.  Why?  Because being proactive matters.  Don't wait until you're in crisis-mode to seek help.   

4:  Don't beat yourself up and take your child's struggles personally.

Adoptees struggling with adoption happens.

Re-read that for me, will you?

So, knowing this, your job, as your child's parent, isn't to get into an unhealthy cycle of self-blame or defensiveness.  

Your job IS to problem solve and work through feelings with your child.   

This isn't to say you aren't allowed to have your own feelings.  Many of us are "mama bears" and have BIG feelings when our kiddos are struggling.  This can be a powerful motivator to help our children, but it can also cause us to be really hard on ourselves.  If you find that your child's feelings are triggering feelings in you, figure out what you can do to help yourself.  Is it seeing a counselor?  Meeting with friends from the adoption triad?  Reading a book?  

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I talked to my daughter about how she felt about what the child said to her.  Then I asked her how she would respond if something like that happened again.  She came up with 2-3 responses.   I told her she could be funny, serious, snarky, whatever!  It's HER adoption and HER personality, so it's HER choice how she responds.  Then we did a few practice conversations in which I played another kid talking to her about her adoption and her family.   I got these ideas from this workbook for adoptees.  

How have you helped your child work through an adoption struggle?

Dear Sugar: Traumaversaries, Yes They are a Real Thing

Dear Sugar:

If you're part of any adoption communities online, especially "connective" parenting groups, you've probably hear the term "traumaversary."  

What is it?
A traumaversary is the anniversary of a traumatic event or season in a person's life.

Why is it significant?
Because traumaversaries can be really hard on a person (and those they love), manifesting in physical symptoms, mental and emotional upheaval, and spiritual warfare.

Why do we talk about traumaversaries in the adoption community?
Because adoption often stems from truama:  removal, change, neglect, abuse, time in foster care, etc.

What's your take on them?
I first came to understand a traumaversary through my own experiences after being diagnosed with an autoimmune, chronic disease.  As a result of my diagnosis, I experienced two different traumaversaries:  one predictable, the other not.

First, the predictable.   I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes after a year-and-a-half of illness.  I had progressive symptoms including:  depression, weight loss, constant thirst and hunger, numbness and tingling, exhaustion, dry eyes and mouth, confusion, and memory loss.   I sought the assistance of five different medical professionals, all of whom failed to properly diagnose me.

I was finally diagnosed (and saved) in an ER.  I arrived breathless and thirsty.   After many blood tests and lots of water and peeing (always), a doctor burst into my room, his eyes wide at the lab results cradled in his arm:   my blood sugar was 700 (7x the norm), my a1c was 16.9 (so high it wasn't on any medical chart), and I was in Diabetic Ketoacidosis (my body was eating itself alive and shutting down).    I had type 1 diabetes, meaning, I would be insulin dependent the rest of my life.

By all accounts, by all reason, I should have been dead.  

That was over 11 years ago, and every year, right after Valentine's Day, all the way until D-day (diagnosis day) at the end of March, I struggle.   I'm sad, confused, and angry.  I'm exhausted.   I experience all sorts of physical symptoms.   And I always have a ton of anxiety.  I act a bit manic: always begging my husband to whisk me away to a tropical location until March is over.  

My body remembers the date on the calendar, even when I do not.  In fact, it took me several years to realize WHY I felt so awful for 1.5 months every year.  

Now, to the unpredicatable.

About two years after I was diagnosed, I was struggling to keep my blood sugars under control, so I took a new injectable medication.   At first it made me very tired, but I soon got used to the med and had a sense of hope that maybe, just maybe, the medication would help me lower my blood sugars.

One evening, I got up sensing my blood sugar was too low.  I was shaky and my heart was pounding and I was drenched in sweat.  I checked my blood sugar in our kitchen:  50.   Then somehow, I wandered down the hallway away from the direction of our bedroom and passed out, hitting my head on the wall.   The noise was so distinct.

Though I had strained my wrist and spend a few weeks healing from that, my head was fine.   But apparently, I wasn't.  I honestly didn't think the fall was any big deal:  we dealt with it and moved on, or so I thought.  

Every time there's a "thud" of a body part hitting a surface, my heart races and I go right back to that moment I passed out.   It can be a child's arm on the counter top, the kids wrestling on the living room rug and someone bumps their head, or a child playing downstairs by hitting the metal support columns and the noise echoing to the upstairs.  

The noise is very disruptive to my senses.    And I cannot control my reaction to it.   My body tenses up and does what it does.   My immediate emotion, after panic, is anger.  It's not a fun train to ride.

All this to say: traumaversaries are REAL.  Our children cannot control them.  But if they're the predictable type, we can help prepare them and ourselves.

For some adoptees, a traumaversary could be their birthday.   It could be the day they were removed from their biological family, a different foster family, or even the day they came to be in your family. And a traumaversary can also be a season (like mine is) or more significant time period.

What can a parent do if they recognize their child has a traumaversary?
Therapy, keeping your schedule really simple, sticking to your daily routine, lowering your expectations and increasing empathy, discussing it with your child (being proactive), joining a support group, attending an Empowered to Connect training or class, and avoiding any major transitions (including a vacation, moving, attending a wedding out-of-state, switching the kids' bedrooms, etc.).  

Overall, traumaversaries suck, but by identifying them, being proactive, and understanding what works for your child, you can better navigate the challenges.

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As you work with your child, meeting his or her needs, I recommend these books on connection, trauma, and healing.  Click on the book image to learn more:



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