CASE:eNewsletter

IN C.A.S.E.
The Center for Adoption Support & Education
January E-Newsletter

Dear Friend,

Happy New Year. With the start of the new year, C.A.S.E. is focusing on some very important initiatives. We are very proud of our involvement in cutting-edge, critical, adoption-related research to increase our understanding of what transracial adoptive families need to succeed, as well as what constitutes “best practice” in the adoption field. Through a partnership with the University of Maryland, Department of Family Science that began in 2010, we have been conducting a significant study on transracial adoptive families that includes both parents and youth. Preliminary findings have enhanced our knowledge of family characteristics that positively impact the overall adjustment, self-esteem and positive racial identity in transracially adopted youth.

Last year, Dr. Leigh Leslie and I presented two webinars on transracial adoptive families and were pleased to share some of the preliminary findings from the research with parents and professionals. We explored the current challenges facing parents and their transracially adopted children. The research has provided us with invaluable insights that we hope will lead to improved services and resources for transracial adoptive families.

Parents of transracially adopted youth tell us all the time that they know that their children’s needs around race are important but they just aren’t sure what they should be doing. They have many questions including: “How can I help my child cope with racial discrimination? How do I help them communicate what they are experiencing? What is the most effective way to parent a teen that is a different race than me? When it comes to my child’s self-concept, does living in a diverse community make a difference?”

Dr. Leslie and I want to thank the many organizations and participants who have increased our ability to provide answers to these and other important questions of transracially adoptive families. However, we need more teens and families to participate in our study. We are continuing to recruit families to ensure that our preliminary findings are indeed conclusive. We would appreciate your assistance in helping us to spread the word to colleagues, friends and others in the adoption community.

If you know or are a Caucasian parent of at least one racial minority child who was placed or adopted by the age of 4 and who is now between the ages of 14-18, we would greatly appreciate your taking the time to participate in this important study which involves a 20 minute completely confidential survey for both parent and child. For more information, please contact Dr. Leslie at 301-405-4011 or lleslie@umd.edu.

Please help us make a difference for families like yours.

Thank you very much,
Debbie Riley, LCMFT CEO C.A.S.E.

OUR HOME OUR FAMILY: A New Way to Strengthen Foster and Adoptive Families

Parenting is a rewarding but challenging job. Whether adopted in infancy or at older ages, our children may exhibit emotional, physical, developmental and/or behavioral difficulties that make parenting extremely stressful.

Stress can take its toll. We may find ourselves feeling frustrated, angry, and helpless with everyone in the family, including our spouse. Disagreements related to parenting responsibilities or discipline is NOT uncommon. We may feel caught up in a terrible cycle where conflict with our children results in conflict with our spouse and vice versa.

As parents, we set the emotional tone for the entire family. We are supposed to model good communication and good problem-solving skills. But when our marital relationship is in distress, it is difficult to parent effectively. We may know that our children’s difficulties will likely escalate in response to the problems we are having with our spouse, and we feel stuck.

To break this cycle of family distress, Adoption Resources of Wisconsin in conjunction with Loving Couples, Loving Children in Seattle, Washington, created Our Home Our Family (OHOF), a research -based program focused on improving couple and family communication and relationships. The curriculum was piloted in the Milwaukee area and was rigorously tested for outcomes and effectiveness over 5 years. 97% of couples who participated in the program reported that their families were functioning at a higher level.

Other significant results were conclusive: families reported an increase in confidence in addressing their children’s behavior, improvement in sibling conflict, decrease in anger, decrease in children’s troubles at school, and increase in finding support from other parents. The Our Home Our Family (OHOF) program is described by one participant as “one of the best things that happened to us as a couple and a family.”

In December, C.A.S.E. therapists, Ellen Singer, LCSW-C and Lisa Dominguez, LCSW-C traveled to Adoption Resources of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and were trained as OHOF facilitators to be able to bring this unique, effective program to the DC area. C.A.S.E. is pleased to offer the Our Home Our Family Program.

WHEN: The program will begin on Saturday, March 23rd.
WHERE: Details regarding schedule and location are TBD. 9 two- hour sessions will be covered in a 5-6 week span of time.
Fees: $50 per COUPLE per two hour session, and a one-time materials fee of $50 per PERSON. The cost of this program may be covered through grant funding, reduced fee through scholarship funding, and may be reimbursable through your insurance.

If you want more peaceful, harmonious relationships with your children and your spouse, this program is for you. Participation in OHOF will expand your support system of other parents who share your struggles and concerns – further benefitting your family’s overall well-being. Please contact us at 301-476-8525 or singer@adoptionsupport.org if you are interested in participating in the program and/or want more information. You can also learn more about OHOF at www.ourhome-ourfamily.org. To learn more about the research that the program is based on, please visit The Gottman Institute: Making Relationships Work video at www.gottman.com

LEAPing to Success
By Danielle Wollner, LEAP Program Coordinator and AmeriCorps member

Through LEAP (Leadership, Empowerment, and Action Program), C.A.S.E.’s youth development program, small steps forward sometimes have the biggest meaning of all. The teens in the LEAP program benefit from recognizing that others share their thoughts and feelings and they are not alone. As peer relationships become more important during the middle school years, the creation of this unique bond is especially significant. Adopted teens who may struggle with issues around self-esteem and friendship feel understood and supported.

C.A.S.E. is working to help young teens like Alyssa, who was adopted with her older brother, at the ages of 4 and 7. When she began participating in LEAP she was a quiet, withdrawn, subdued adolescent. It was a struggle for her to be part of the team, and it seemed as though ‘leaving’ was her favorite part of the day.

C.A.S.E. has created collaborative and innovative activities to specifically build teens’ confidence and self-esteem. For 6 weeks staring on December 10th, LEAP participants had a unique opportunity to volunteer at the Sunrise Assisted Living Community in Rockville, Maryland. Through a “building” activity, the teens learned an intergenerational approach to conflict resolution. They were also asked to work with the Sunrise residents to construct a free standing structure, and awards were presented to teams with the tallest, most colorful, and most creative structures.

Through activities like these, Alyssa is evolving into someone who is able to connect with her peers, take on leadership responsibilities, and engage in meaningful conversation with adults. It is the bond between LEAP participants that has resulted in the surge of confidence Alyssa feels, enabling her to begin taking risks. She has begun to share aspects of her adoption story that she has never told anyone. At the end of one Saturday session, Alyssa got out of the van and suddenly stopped and said, “Oh, wait. I forgot something.” Alyssa returned to the van just to say goodbye to her new friends, and it was a heartwarming surprise for all of us.

DEAR ELLEN: Same Family, Different Stories

Dear Ellen,

I am part of a transracial adoptive family. I have two daughters by adoption – my oldest, 12, is biracial and came to us directly from the hospital through private adoption. My 10 year old is African-American and was adopted from foster care at the age of 3. My oldest daughter is very comfortable and open about talking about adoption. Every year, she receives birthday presents from her birth mother. We have no contact with my younger daughter’s birth mother. She is very private when it comes to talking about adoption. She gets moody and angry when it is time for her sister’s birthday. Lately, I fear that they are not as close as they once were.

Families with more than one adopted child obviously have children with different stories about how they became part of the family. Blended families are families who are comprised of both children who were born into the family and children who joined the family by adoption. Many families have children adopted through different adoption processes – combining domestic and international, perhaps all international but from different countries, public and private domestic adoption, etc. Given all of the different ways a child can join a family, the numerous potential adoption-related differences are vast. They may include: race, age at adoption, pre-adoption experiences, birth history information, feelings about adoption, and relationships with birth family, to name a few.

Parents may certainly wonder how sibling relationships are impacted by these differences. And in fact, children may think, “Was it better to have been born or adopted into the family?” or “Does Mom (or Dad) like you better because you are the same color as they are and I am not?” or “I hate that You know so much about your birth parents and I know nothing.”

Given differences in temperament and personality, talents and abilities, strengths and challenges, in addition to the facts of their adoption story, it is no wonder that siblings may indeed also have different feelings around being adopted. They may feel, “I resent that you feel so good about adoption. I feel angry and confused.” These perceptions can have a great impact on sibling relationships.

Most parents hope for harmonious, close relationships between their children, but realistically know that this may not always be the case. That being said, there are ways for adoptive parents can influence sibling relationships.

(1) Coping with comparisons

For adoptive parents with more than one child, the primary task is to diminish any comparisons that might imply there is a difference in children’s status or role in the family because of the way in which they joined the family.

In talking with your younger daughter, you might explore how she feels about the differences in her “story” from what she hears her sister talking about. Don’t be afraid to address what you suspect may be bothering her, as in, “I know you wish you had been with us when you were a baby, like your sister was, or that you worry that we might favor her because of that, but that’s not at all how Dad and I feel. However, I can understand how you might feel this way.”

Or, “I know that your sister’s birth mother sends birthday presents and we are not in contact with yours, and it’s Ok to feel jealous. I am certain your sister wishes that you could have birthday presents from your birth mother, too. She may not realize how she is making you feel.” This statement provides reassurance, validation of feelings and leaves the door open for a child to express more feelings. Validating and giving permission for feelings can free her to move past them so they do not endure as a barrier in her relationship with her sister.

(2) Promoting children’s individual strengths

A good way to ensure that children feel equally valued is to be clear about the unique and special characteristics each child brings to the family. As parents, we may connect to each of our children for different reasons, and sometimes we may find it easier to connect better to one child than to another. (As stated, siblings too may connect for reasons having nothing to do with how they joined the family.) When children accept a shared family culture that is based on similarities and differences valued by everyone, they are more able to weather any doubts about their connections to their parents. For example, an adopted child who is athletic in a family that is more oriented toward academic ability can honor the uniqueness of that child’s special talent and recognize that this talent is most likely a gift from the child’s birth parents.

(3) Providing children with individual attention

While obvious, it is not always easy for parents to provide each child in the family with the same amount of quality individual time. Different amounts of attention may be based on the child’s particular needs (a child with learning disabilities may require more help with homework; parenting a traumatized child with emotional and behavioral challenges may be emotionally and socially younger than his chronological age and require more hands-on parenting than a typically developing child). You can only do your best, but parents should acknowledge when there are big discrepancies in attention and help children understand the reasons why.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR OUR FIRST 2012 WEBINAR ON FEBRUARY 2nd presented by Ellen Singer, LCSW-C and Allison Stearns, C.A.S.E. Deputy Director

SAME FAMILY, DIFFERENT STORIES