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Written by Rachel Fishman
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Monday, 21 November 2011 19:36 |
Adoptee Holiday Grief
 Giving the Gift of Acknowledgement
The holiday season ushers in countless opportunities for reflection and remembrance. Many of us remember past holidays with loved ones that are now deceased, friends and family that have moved away, or treasured things that have been lost. While we can find joy in reflecting back, it is common to simultaneously experience feelings of grief and loss. Children are not excluded from experiencing these conflicting feelings during the holidays. Adopted youth in particular may experience amplified feelings of grief and loss surrounding the holidays. Therefore, the holidays provide adoptive parents with unique opportunities to care for their adopted children.
One way parents can care for their adopted youth during the holidays is through giving the gift of acknowledgement. Children may say they need the latest Lego kit or the newest I-Pod. However, what they really need may be something they don’t know how to verbalize. Giving the gift of a tradition or ritual that acknowledges an adoptee’s past can be priceless. This gift has the potential to both decrease adoptee distress as well as provide memorable moments for your entire family.
Before deciding to give your adoptee the gift of acknowledgement, it’s important to first understand how children experience loss. Childhood loss, in comparison to adult loss, occurs on a very fundamental level. Adult loss often involves the absence of someone or something where affection was present. Childhood loss, however, can involve loss of safety, comfort, or familiarity. Grief counselor Donna O’Toole, in her book Helping Children Grieve and Grow, describes six major categories of childhood loss: relationship loss, comfort loss, loss of familiarity, loss of self, loss of confidence, and loss of predictability. Many youth adopted in early childhood have experienced most of these losses.
Another loss experienced by adopted youth, especially those adopted as infants, is ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss can be defined as grief paired with confusion. Adoptee ambiguous losses are particularly challenging because they are unique to the adoptee life cycle and experiences. Many of their losses are not formally acknowledged by society through rituals or traditions (e.g. funeral ceremony, mourning period). The lack of acknowledgement by society makes it confusing for adoptees to recognize that they have experienced loss and to allow themselves to grieve. Common ambiguous losses for adoptees are having knowledge of birth family whereabouts but no relationships, and questioning what their life would have been like if they weren’t adopted.
It is clear that childhood and adoptee losses differ significantly from adult losses. Therefore, we can assume the manifestation of these losses also differs. It is important to refrain from expecting adoptees to express their loss as adults would express loss. Asking youth if they are experiencing feelings associated with loss can be very helpful. However, if adopted youth do not seem to be responding to direct conversation about feelings or loss, parents may want to watch for grief masks.
Grief masks are ways children indirectly express feelings of grief and loss. Grief masks commonly appear when children do not have the breadth of coping skills or developmental maturity necessary to directly address their grief. Since the majority of adoptees experience significant loss at an early age, it is likely that many young adoptees will be unable to directly express their loss. When this is the case, adoptee grief may manifest in the following grief masks: hyperactive behavior, unpredictable emotional upheaval, sudden changes in eating and appetites, physical pain (stomach aches, headaches), developmentally atypical separation anxiety, perfectionism, controlling tendencies, intense anger, guilt and self-consciousness, indecision, and increasing difficulty with routine loses (e.g. moving, end of the school year, death of a pet). Grief masks specific to the holiday season may include difficulty enjoying themselves, constantly trying to please parents or others, criticizing gifts or the gift givers, intense anxiety, daydreaming, withdrawal from activities, and minimizing the holiday and its importance or grandeur.
 Consider giving your adoptee the gift of acknowledgement if grief masks are present in your adoptee’s day-to-day life or during the holiday season. Parents taking the initiative to acknowledge grief send powerful messages to their adoptee. All family members can be involved in this process of acknowledging grief since experiences of grief and loss are not unique to adoptees. Through family modeling (demonstrating a behavior or expression), adoptees can begin to learn that everyone experiences loss, that it is okay to grieve, and that grief and loss are safe topics in the home.
Many parents hesitate to model grief out of fear that their child is not ready to address loss, specifically the loss of birth family relationships. In the same way that children show indirect signs of grief through grief masks, they show indirect signs of discomfort. Consider ways your adoptee generally shows discomfort in everyday situations. Be a keen observer of your child. A child psychiatrist, Dr. Joshua D. Sparrow, captures the benefits of observation well. “Their body language will tell you if they can handle any more. If they nod silently and make eye contact, you might continue. If they turn away, whimper or become agitated, that’s all they can take right now. If you respect their pace, they’ll let you know when they’re ready for more. Slowly, patiently putting words to the experience organizes it, and makes it less scary than when it is shrouded in silence, or when there are no words for the feelings.” Keen parental observation prior to broaching the topic of grief and loss or initiating a new ritual can help you gauge your child’s readiness, know when to pursue the topic, and when to revisit it at a later time.
Observation is integral for effectively giving the gift of acknowledgment. However, acknowledging your adoptee’s loss should not be attempted without extensive thoughtfulness. Apply the same thoughtfulness you use when purchasing them a gift. Take time to think about your child’s age and stage, interests, and comfort zones when considering avenues for acknowledging their loss. Thorough thoughtfulness will communicate love and connection to your adoptee as well as will increase the chances that your adoptee will respond positively to your gift of acknowledgement.
Below are a few specific ways you can give your adoptee the gift of acknowledgement this holiday season.
- Create a loss box or a grief box with your adoptee. Every holiday add something to the box that reminds your adoptee of a particular loss or losses.
- Make a family tree that includes birth family (potentially add previous caregivers such as foster parents or orphanage workers, foster siblings, or best friends far away). Hang the family tree up year round or just during the holidays. Start a tradition where each family member says something about one member on the family tree.
- Include losses of your adoptee in holiday celebrations (bring out framed pictures, drawings, etc.). Involve the other family members by including their losses (remembrances of deceased family members, pets, previous homes).
- Have family members write letters to people or things they miss. Share them with each other or make a family mailbox where everyone can put their letters each holiday.
- Create a chronological book made up of letters or pictures your adoptee makes for their birth family each holiday. This becomes extra special if your adoptee reunites with their birth family at an older age and has a book of special occasions to share with them.
- Share a story or a comment about someone/something each family member misses or wishes could be a part of the holiday celebration.
- Light a candle or candles every holiday to represent different losses of your adoptee. Extend to other family members to model the diverse forms of losses that exist.
- Recreate how the holidays are celebrated by allowing each family member to chip in an idea, tradition, activity, etc. Anonymity with each idea may help your adoptee feel comfortable to participate.
Written by Rachel Fishman, MA, LAPC, NCC
Contact Rachel at
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Written by Rachel Fishman
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Monday, 22 August 2011 21:54 |
 What is Adoption Counseling?
Often people do not know what adoption counseling entails. Sadly, it is unfamiliar to most because very few mental health professionals focus on addressing the needs of adoption triad members (adoptees, adoptive parents, and birthparents). I discovered this fact of unfamiliarity regarding professionals with adoptions expertise while I was employed as a social worker. For example, during my time as a social worker, when I was providing support to foster care and adoptive families, I noticed unique psychosocial difficulties in families and children who had experienced adoption. Many of these adoptive families would request support and part of my job as social worker was to connect them with resources in the community that could provide the support they needed. However, I soon realized that many professionals were unaware of unique issues surrounding adoptions and were therefore only minimally helpful. Although counselors were often needed, there was a lack of professionals well versed in the area. Unfortunately, after years of referring families to a variety of different counselors across metro Atlanta, my list of adoption specific counselors dwindled to three professionals. The fact that this shortage of clinical support for adoptive families existed in a city as large as Atlanta blew me away.
Through graduate research, I further explored the existence of and need for adoption specific counseling. Consider this quote from Theresa Kennedy Porch in the Handbook of Adoption (2007) chapter titled Counseling Adoption Triad Members.
Because it involves deep-rooted emotional issues that may significantly affect individuals throughout their lives, adoption is very likely to be a focal area for triad members who seek counseling. Therefore, adoption issues are relevant for counseling practitioners of both individual and family counseling. Yet despite the potential importance for clients, adoption generally has not been recognized as a significant area of exploration for counseling practitioners, and many counselors are unaware of the potential impact of adoption on clients.
While this sounds surprising, I challenge you to ask adoption triad members you know about their experiences in counseling. Unfortunately, it is very likely that they’ve felt this way not only toward counselors, but also toward many other people in their lives that lack the knowledge or awareness necessary to grasp the impact of adoption on their life.
 Adoption in the U.S. has grown tremendously over the last decade, yet the impact of adoption is often still frequently misunderstood or unacknowledged. One demonstration of inadequately acknowledging the impact of adoption is seen by the omission of an adoption member status where other status information is represented (e.g., age, race, gender, socioeconomic status). Thus, society has not recognized this to be an important characteristic of a person or family’s makeup. Omitting adoption as part of someone’s status has left adoption triad members feeling silenced about their adoption and it’s impact on their identity and life. Failing to acknowledge their adoption status as a major aspect of their identity (as age, race, gender, and status are – regardless of if we want them to be or not), promotes a tendency to disregard the life altering aspects of being raised in a family that is not their own or raising a child that is not their own. I think most would agree that these categorizations listed above often effect, to some degree, our concept of who we are. Therefore, if adoption members continue to live under a silent or inadequately recognized status, how does this affect how they know who they are? Numerous research and case studies validate that most adoption triad members feel discouraged from allowing adoption to define who they are and what they experience in life. Nevertheless, adoption issues should be discussed, interpreted, and evaluated openly to facilitate healthy family life and individual development.
Let’s consider the potential importance of adoption counseling for both adoptive parents and adoptees. Adoptive parents may experience a spectrum of emotional responses when they welcome adoptees into their home. While some feel they are family from the moment they meet (or the moment they saw photos), others struggle to feel the attachment they long for with their adoptee. Experiencing these challenges in bonding with the adoptee can produce overwhelming feelings of guilt, inadequacy, despair, and grief. Consider then the effects of failing to acknowledge the uniqueness of this parent’s adoptive parent status. Often unrealistic expectations to experience parenthood as birthparents do and desires to have an immediate bond flood the adoptive parent and can actually worsen their ability to cope and adapt. Adoption counseling provides an avenue for these adoptive parents to address their struggles with a professional well versed in the systemic, societal, and mental health challenges unique to their status as adoptive parents.
In the situation of adoptees, their status, if it is acknowledged, is often introduced as being special. While specialness can be helpful in the development of self-esteem, as some adoptees report it to be, specialness can also become unnerving to children that desperately want to be like everyone else. Specialness as a status can increase adoptees feelings of aloneness. They can easily feel unlike their families, unlike their peers, and unlike those raised in their birth family’s environment. Although they may know other adoptees, their origin and adoption journey is unique and often still separates them from others that are supposedly similar to them. As children, this confusion and dissatisfaction regarding their identity often remains undefined and unexplored due to difficulty expressing themselves. As a consequence, these hidden struggles often manifest in behavioral difficulties, emotional outbursts, withdrawal or overcompensation, attachment challenges, social skill deficits, and educational struggles. Adoption counseling provides an avenue for these adoptees to learn effective ways to express themselves and begin to explore their adoptee identity with a professional well versed in the systemic, societal, and mental health challenges unique to their status as adoptees.
There are many well-trained adoption caseworkers and adoption agency support staff that walk families through the adoption process. Adoption counseling aims to support families at the next, deeper level. It supports adoption triad members in a way that sheds light on their unique identities as adoption members and encourages the embracing and development of that identity. It is my hope that through adoption counseling, adoption numbers will continue to grow and more and more children in need of homes will be cared for. After all, adoption is greatly needed. However, if we continue to let families say yes to a journey that others are not adequately preparing them for, than adoption numbers will not increase. Some results of failing to address this critical need of adoption specific counseling include adoptive families getting discouraged, adoptees feeling alone and misunderstood, and birthmothers changing their minds about adoption being the next best option. Let’s work together to make adoption a beautiful, lifelong, and healthy process.
Written by Rachel Fishman, MA, LAPC, NCC
Contact Rachel at
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Written by Jordan Yates
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Monday, 23 May 2011 15:44 |
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 Restoration Counseling of Atlanta now features services to families and children who have experienced a traumatic event or have experienced severe grief/adjustment that have interrupted social, behavioral, and/or academic functioning. A majority of the treatment process will be conducted through TF-CBT (Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), an empirically-supported, structured practice for treating trauma in its various forms.
For more information contact Jordan R. Yates.
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Written by Jordan R. Yates
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Wednesday, 22 September 2010 23:40 |
SEVEN-PART SERIES
 Never Underestimate the Power of a Timeout
We’ve all heard that cooler heads always prevail. Only problem is it’s not always easy to keep a cool head. Lucky for sports teams and families alike, we all have timeouts at our disposal.
In sports, the concept of a timeout is pretty well understood. On the football field, whenever a team is in disarray, caught off guard, or something just doesn’t look right – an astute football coach won’t hesitate to signal for a timeout before potential disaster occurs. That way, his players have a minute to rest, regroup, and review the initial game plan before heading back into action.
In baseball, timeouts are even more intentional in its purpose. On the diamond, all of the timeouts are done through the nauseating “meetings on the mound,” which usually occurs when a pitcher either can’t find the strike zone or isn’t missing too many bats. The pitching coach, always methodical in his approach, usually strolls out to the mound and calmly addresses the pitcher and the infielders, sometimes even cracking a joke to ease the tension of the situation and calm the rattled pitcher’s nerves. More often than not, the pitching coach leaves the mound with a more focused and upbeat pitcher on the rubber than the pitcher he did at the onset of the meeting.
So, it’s no mystery why coaches these days get paid the top dollars for their ability to make the appropriate game time decisions such as knowing when and where to call a timeout. In fact, some might even argue that the art of knowing when and where to call a timeout is just as important to being an effective coach as motivating and relating to players.
 Unlike managing a sports team, managing a family can be a thankless job. However, the rewards for managing a family go beyond any level of monetary compensation, especially when it’s effectively done. And, if cooler heads do in fact prevail in nearly all situations – than implementing timeouts within families might just be an effective way of managing interactions before they also become disastrous.
Usually whenever timeouts are thrown into the discourse of parents and their children, people think about an out-of-control pre-K or elementary-aged child being placed into a corner until enough time elapses for the child to recognize the consequences of his actions. But, another underlying purpose of a timeout, even in this case, is to help de-escalate the emotions of the child as well as – and this is what some often fail to acknowledge – the emotions of the parent.
The feeling of powerlessness and disappointment many parents feel when they observe their child behaving in a manner that is either out of the child’s character or out of the character of how they raised that child to behave can ironically put the character of that parent in question with how he or she chooses to react to the situation at hand. Fortunately, putting that child in timeout not only calms the child down, but also calms the parent down, reducing the chances of either the parent or child doing something to make matters worse. Due to this, timeouts continue to be the standard for parents and school teachers alike for intervening in undesired behavior.
Unfortunately, when those pre-K and elementary-aged children grow up, their defiance doesn’t necessarily ease up. And, when those terrible twos become terrible teens, they appear as if their better equipped to defy their parents’ authority with 100x the vocabulary the once had, an even stronger sense of entitlement, and a new theme of what they believe to be “fairness in the world.” And, there will be times when a timeout could be used as a tool even then, without necessarily physically putting your teenager into a corner like in the old days, but implementing a break in the discourse with the same premise of de-escalating both the parent and child’s emotions.
 In order for this to work, however, there is a six-step process that should be explained to and used by all family members – including children – who are old enough to understand the concept of a timeout.
- Simply identify the fact that you are feeling angry. Physical warnings of feeling angry include an increased heartbeat, clenched fists or teeth, as well as heated sensations in the limb or face area.
- Admit to yourself and whoever you are interacting with that you’re feeling angry and would like to “take a break,” or “call a timeout.” Also, calmly remind the person that the issue will be readdressed once you’ve had time to cool off.
- Take the timeout. Since the concept of the timeout has already been explained to everyone in the family, it should be respected by all family members.
- Leave the area for 30 minutes to an hour – no more and no less – and do something that typically relaxes you. Try to think about something else outside of the stressful event you just encountered. (Much like the pitching coach who cracks a joke with his pitcher and infielders to take their minds off the on-field issues)
- If your go-to relaxation measures aren’t working, use other relaxation techniques that have been empirically proven to help control stress and tension such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation.
- After the 30 minutes to one hour is up, contact the family member or members and ask them if they’re ready to readdress the issue and begin talking again.
At first, calling a timeout might come off as awkward and contrived but – just like anything else – the more it’s done, the more natural it will come off to you and your family.
Written by: Jordan R. Yates, MAMFT, LAPC Children, Adolescent and Family Therapist at Restoration Counseling of Atlanta
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Written by Jordan R. Yates
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Saturday, 11 September 2010 23:39 |
SEVEN-PART SERIES
 Support Community Support
The days of it taking a village to raise a child may have lost some of its appeal these days, but the need for it in today’s community has not waned. Never did that become more apparent to me than through observing a clear transformation at Lithia Springs High School several years ago where a new head coach came up with the brilliant idea of eliciting community support for a football program in desperate need of a resurrection.
When a young, inexperienced Steve Horton entered the scene in 2006, the Lithia Springs Lions just suffered through another year of poorly attended home games, won just one game the previous season, and were the laughingstock of Douglas County.
In a matter of months, however, Horton rallied support from local department stores, supermarkets, and the local community as a whole that ended up garnering brand new and used workout equipment, new uniforms, and free catered breakfasts once a week for players during mandatory study halls. Horton, still unknown to the Lithia Springs community at that time, even got community members to build a top-of-the-line fieldhouse and weight room facility one year into his tenure. And still, just in his first year of coaching at Lithia Springs, Horton wasn’t done yet in eliciting community support as he tirelessly made phone calls to several Atlanta radio stations and somehow got 95.5 The Beat – a favorite of his players – to set up shop at one of their games that season for a pre-game pep rally.
That season, unfortunately, the Lions only won one more game than they did the previous year, but Horton injected a never-seen-before electricity into the Lithia Springs community that the whole city believed that they were a part of.
 That following season, crowds began packing in Lions’ field stands like never before and the Lions were on their way to their first playoff berth in nearly a decade, winning four of their first seven games. For the first time in a long time, the city had a product on the football field that it could be proud of – and even better – a product that the city felt it had a part of with its countless contributions to the school’s good fortune. Lithia Springs ended up missing the playoffs that season, but no one involved in the Lions’ season that year missed out on an exciting, unforgettable season – including me.
One of the reasons why I became so connected to the team – sadly, making the journalism cardinal sin of losing nearly all objectivity in covering a team – was because coach Horton made it a priority to leave messages on my phone weekly, if not daily, pretty much forcing the local newspaper to take notice of all of the Lithia Springs’ happenings. Now, in his fifth year at Lithia Springs, that winning culture atmosphere Horton has established with his team, school, and community has his Lions off to a 2-0 start in the young 2010 season.
Two-income households, latchkey children, and disconnected, uninvolved families these days look a lot like Lithia Springs did pre-Horton era. And, since a sense of community is ingrained in all humankind, it’s no wonder today’s children desperately find community in unsecure venues such as social networks the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and such as well as cell phone exchanges the likes of text messaging and, even worse, ‘sexting.’
 When in isolation, individuals and families are at their most vulnerable. On the flip side, when connected to community outlets the likes of city and county parks and recreation leagues, church groups, school clubs and activities, and even neighborhood events, families have the tendency to flourish. And, if ever that family flourishing hits a rut and turns into family dysfunction – due to a traumatic event or due to just regular, old life events – a connected family is resilient enough and socially aware enough to pursue the necessary resources to get them back on track.
Family therapy is always a solid option and some families that are connected to their churches often receive funding from their church for therapy to counseling services the likes of Restoration Counseling of Atlanta. The same goes for families and schools. With increasing teacher-student ratios, teachers and school administrators can’t always spot underlying issues leading to a particular student’s change of behavior or misbehavior, but school administrators are aware of and hold the keys to several resources that can dedicate the time to effectively intervene with these same children and families. Some schools will also offer financial assistance for families who are in unique circumstances or who are just having a difficult time adjusting. Parents and families that make it a point to be connected to their school’s administration, faculty, or fellow school parents are simply in a better position to access and receive whatever assistance they need.
Simply put, families cannot establish a winning culture on their own. Much like coach Horton, if a family is to truly obtain and maintain a winning culture, it will have to make use of available resources, keeping that family out of the vulnerability of isolation and into the security of community.
Next week: Never Underestimate the Power of a Timeout
Written by: Jordan R. Yates, MAMFT, LAPC Children, Adolescent and Family Therapist at Restoration Counseling of Atlanta
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