It’s finally summertime and the living is easy…or not. For many families with teens, the living isn’t easy because the “leaving” isn’t easy. One of the major tasks of adolescence is the need to master the psychological separation from parents. It is an ongoing process and life transition that ultimately culminates in the teen’s physical separation and actual “leaving home” whether to attend college, or live independently for other pursuits. All families experience some degree of tension related to this process – typically our culture reflects the difficulty parents have letting go…there’s the television advertisement for cell phones in which the parents are in the car saying good-bye to their teen who is beginning college – the teen leaves, turns around to see the car hasn’t left…the message of course, is how hard it is for the parents to let go.

While adoptive parents may certainly experience ambivalence about seeing their children growing up in preparation to leave the nest, it is often the adopted adolescent who may have difficulty with separation because of unique feelings related to adoption. The ad where the parents seemingly can’t wait to renovate their child’s room/house/garage as soon as the child leaves may not be all that humorous to adopted teens.

Debbie Riley in her recently published book, Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens discusses the special challenges faced by adopted teens around separation and leaving home. The following is an excerpt from her book….

Like all children, adopted children need and want to know that they are loved and that the love is forever. However, adoptive parents may need to be encouraged to reinforce the issue of permanency more often. It may seem a little confusing to parents to do this when they are striving to help their teen leave the nest. Reassure them that it only appears to be a paradox. It is always easier to launch a daring adventure from a secure base.

Parenting adopted teens who are moving toward emancipation, leaving home for college, work, or other opportunities, presents some unique challenges. Often in late adolescence, the teen begins to ponder the longevity of the parent-child relationship and to think that because the adults have almost completed their job of raising them to young adulthood the relationship will soon come to an end. It is the responsibility of the parents to prepare the launching pad without creating fears of abandonment. We ran a support group that helped parents to more fully understand the underpinnings of separation and how the adopted teen may be especially vulnerable to separations of any kind. Listen to a few of the parents’ observations.

Sam’s mother was getting exasperated. She didn’t understand her son. “I can’t believe that I still have to tell Sam that I will be home at a certain time. He is almost eighteen years old and he seems to think one day I am just going to leave and never come home. I read about adopted kids worrying about losing yet another parent, but come on now, he should know after eighteen years I am not going anywhere.”

Lynn’s mom was also incredulous. “We were sitting one Sunday morning reading the paper and talking about how much fun it would be to have a place in the mountains. Lynn, age fifteen, came down the stairs and apparently had been listening to our conversation. As she approached us she had tears streaming down her face. She said, ‘I knew you would leave me one day.’

“Leave her? Come on! We were just fantasizing about our dream retirement home! Where in the world would she come up with the idea that we would leave her?”

Another parent volunteered, “Three weeks before college applications were due, I walked into my daughter’s room and she was sit-ting on her floor with papers strewn all over. She looked up at me and said, ‘I can’t do this.’ I said, ‘Do what?’ She said, ‘Go away. I don’t want to leave you.’ And then she started to cry. I did not know what to do. I felt so helpless. I was so surprised by my daughter. Everything was going along so smoothly.”

Another father spoke up. “Our daughter has expressed negative feelings about her birth mother from time to time but mainly in the context of, ‘How could she do that to me — abandon me like that?’ A few months ago, she couldn’t locate us. She tried calling all of our various phone numbers and she left messages. When we picked up one of her messages, we called her. She scolded us for not being available. She said, ‘You know I have issues with abandonment.’”

Educating parents of teens about these dynamics can often pre-vent late adolescents from making some poor decisions that could have a negative impact on their future. Adoptive parents who are sensitive to these issues surfacing can open dialogue with their adolescent to affirm that they will always be their parents — no matter what. The wonderful children’s book written by Robert Munsch begins with a mother holding her new baby singing these words:

I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be.

Munsch depicts beautifully the permanency of a mother’s love for, her child. At the end of the story the mother is very sick and frail, and the son goes to his mother, picks her up, and sings:

I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living
My mommy you’ll be.

Excerpted from “Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens” written by Debbie B. Riley, M.S. and John Meeks, M.D. Debbie Riley is the Executive Director of The Center for Adoption Support & Education, Inc.

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