Parenting the Adopted Teenager

More of this Feature • Overview • Identity Formation • Fear of Abandonment • Issues of Control • The Feeling of Not Belonging • The Need to Connect With The Past • When Parents Should Become Concerned • Where to Find a Support Group  From Other Guides • Adoption

Teens raised in their birth families can easily see ways in which they are like their family members. Their musical talent comes from their grandmother…Their father also has red hair…Everyone in the family wears glasses. Sometimes adopted teens have no such markers and, in fact, are reminded frequently that they are different from their nonadopted friends.

This feeling of being different often begins with their physical appearance. Friends frequently look like one of their parents or another relative. Teens who were adopted may not have a relative they resemble. Friends who comment, "You look like your sister," often make an adopted teen even more aware of his or her "outsider" status, even if he or she happens to look like the sister. Sometimes, adopted teenagers won't even correct friends who comment on a family resemblance. It is easier than having to answer the questions that are sure to follow: Who are your real parents? What do they look like? Why didn't they keep you?

"People who note a family resemblance are really trying to say that the child has taken on some of their parents' mannerisms," says McCabe. "In some families, it can become an inside joke. For other children, it can expose a raw nerve."

Teens who have been adopted into a family of a different race (transracial adoption) often feel more alienated from their families than they did when they were younger. They become highly conscious of the obvious physical differences between themselves and their families and they struggle to integrate their cultural backgrounds into their perceptions of who they are. Some adopted teens may doubt their authenticity as "real" family members and, therefore, feel uncertain about their futures.

Adoptive parents can help transracially adopted teens to feel they belong by making sure that the family frequently associates with other adults and children of the same ethnic background as their teen. They should celebrate their own and their teen's culture as a part of daily life. They should talk about race and culture often, yet tolerate no ethnically or racially biased remarks from others.

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Source: National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.