Parenting Adopted Teens and Young Adults
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
03/29/23
•57m
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How does parenting an adopted teen differ from parenting teens that come to us through birth? What are some of the unique challenges adopted teens or young adults face? Check out our interview with Katie Naftzger, an LCSW, Korean adoptee, and the author of “Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years.”
In this episode, we cover:
- Why is parenting an “adopted” teen any different from parenting a child who comes to you by birth?
- What issues related to adoption come to the front during the teen years?
- What issues that relate to early neglect or abuse, or loss come to the fore in adolescence?
- In your book, “Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years,” you talk about adoptive or foster parents taking a learning stance when working with teens. What is a learning stance?
- Many of our kids have experienced early life adversity and carry the scars of this early trauma. Parents often naturally feel bad for their teens because of this. How can these feelings of pity interfere with the healthy parenting of teens? When to step in and help and when to let our teens figure out how to handle things on their own?
- Some adoptive parents adopt out of a feeling of needing to save the child. How does the savior narrative impact parenting teens?
- Birth family issues:
- Birth parents search
- Handling hard birth parent situations
- Identity formation-nature vs. nurture
- Navigating an open adoption with teens
- Identity formation as a transracial adoptee.
- Transitioning into adulthood.
- We hear that adopted teens are more likely to have mental health issues and more likely to commit suicide. How do adoptive parents support their adopted teens?
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Previous Episode
Helping Adopted Children Heal From Past Trauma and Loss
March 22, 2023
•52m
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Did your child experience trauma or loss before they came to you? Do you want to help them heal? Join our conversation with Dr. Amanda Baden, a Professor and the Doctoral Program Director at Montclair State University in the graduate counseling program and a licensed psychologist in private practice in Manhattan. She is an adult adoptee from Hong Kong and an adoptive parent of a daughter from China.
In this episode, we cover:
- What is trauma?
- What types of events/things create trauma?
- Why are trauma, abuse, and neglect so harmful to children?
- Is neglect a form of trauma?
- How trauma impacts children, and what factors influence how much the trauma impacts the child later in life?
- How to tell the difference between typical developmental behavior and behavior that is the result of trauma or loss?
- What is triangulation?
- How to break the triangle?
- Helping our kids integrate their birth, adoptive or foster, and self-identities. Many children who do not live with their birth families struggle to incorporate parts of their birth families, foster or adoptive families, and who they innately are into a whole that is their identity. How can parents help their children form a healthy, complete identity?
- Practical tips for helping children heal. Often, we do not know exactly what trauma our children have experienced. Either they don’t remember, or it happened before they were verbal, or they cannot or have not told us. How can we help them if we do not know what happened to them?
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Next Episode
A Guide to Raising Your Grandchild
April 5, 2023
•56m
Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!
We talk about raising your grandkids with Christine Adamec, coauthor with Dr. Andrew Adesman, of The Grandfamily Guidebook. She and her husband have been raising their teenage grandson since his infancy.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why are grandparent led families increasing?
- What are some common emotions that grandparents and other kin experience when they realize that they need to step in and raise their grandchildren or other kin?
- What type of decisions should you make about legal custody or permanency? How to protect your grandchild? How to enroll them in school? How to be able to get medical and mental health care for them? How to prevent the child’s parents from removing the child from your home? Becoming a foster parent? A will?
- What are some of the strains that grandparents can experience with their children (the parents of their grandchildren)?
- How to navigate the relationship with your adult child?
- Explaining the situation to the child? (“Why am I living with you and not my parents?”)
- Raising kids that likely experience trauma, including prenatal exposure.
- Adjusting to parenting in this new time.
- Some of the joys of raising your grandchild.
Resources:
- AARP has a Benefits QuickLINK tool to find out if you or your grandchild may qualify for 15 public benefits — 10 for adults and families and five for children.
- Creating a Family podcast: Helping Parents & Kids Manage Phones, Internet, & Gaming
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
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