CASE:eNewsletter

August 2005

In this issue

From Miss Congeniality to Hulk Hogan: Developing Social Skills
W.I.S.E. Up! It is Back to School
Parent Perspectives

From Miss Congeniality to Hulk Hogan : Developing social skills
by Ellen Singer, LCSW-C

Of the many concerns faced by all parents in raising their children, high on the list is the way their children relate to others – to their peers and to other adults, especially significant ones like teachers, parents of their friends, etc. Parents want their children to be liked by others and to exhibit behavior in line with normal expectations for their age. Parents therefore naturally often worry about their child’s ability to choose appropriate playmates and develop meaningful friendships. They know that a child’s success in this area contributes to a child’s overall sense of self-esteem and well-being. As the song goes, in the recent Winnie the Pooh movie, Heffalump, about having a best friend, “I think I feel more like myself…when I’m with you.”

In essence, parents want their child to become “socially competent.” This involves of course, learning how to be cooperative and get along with other children; being empathic and considerate - able to give and share, and being able to develop close relationships. Some children are lucky enough to be born with temperaments that allow this development to come naturally. Some adopted children, regardless of the innate temperaments, have had early life experiences including breaks in attachments, abuse or neglect, health problems, etc. which may result in emotional challenges that interfere with the development of social competence. Regardless of the reason, children who are more vulnerable to “fall apart” under stress, to be fearful, to overreact to frustration, especially with anger, to have trouble delaying gratification, to being overly sensitive to criticism, or mistrustful, or otherwise inappropriate emotionally, are likely to encounter trouble in their peer relationships with other children. Encountering failure can lead to a repetitive cycle of reinforcing negative emotions which leads to social difficulty. Likewise, children who experience social success are likely to continue to experience positive experiences in the social arena.

Three of the major skills that children can be coached to develop involve 1) empathy – understanding other’s feelings and taking their perspective, and respecting differences in how people feel about things. Related skills involve learning how to be a good listener as well as how to ask questions; 2) conflict resolution and problem –solving – learning the arts of cooperation and compromise, 3) anger management – learning how to be assertive rather than passive or angry and learning to understand your reactions to people’s behavior. At CASE, we help children develop these skills through individual psychotherapy and through our groups for children.

Fortunately, there is also much that parents can do to help their child at home.

Empathy: Joan, 7 was a bright little girl with mild ADD, adopted by her parents at the age of two weeks. She was able to make friends, but at some point in the second grade, she began to complain that no one would play with her during recess. Upon further exploration, Joan’s mother began to realize that some of the other children saw Joan as being too bossy and that Joan didn’t pick up on the social cues when her play mates were tiring of a game and wanting to do something else. At a therapist’s suggestion, Joan’s mother began having her watch television with the sound off and playing a game where Joan had to guess the emotion of the character on the screen. This activity helped Joan focus on the faces of others and think about what they might be feeling.

Conflict Resolution: Andrew, age 9 cannot get through any game with another child without running into difficulty over the rules. He and his friend spend more time arguing then playing. Andrew’s Dad intervened and asked each child to list his ideas about the rules. The friends were able to see where they agreed and where they disagreed. Then each was asked to choose one more rule from their list for the complete list. They learned the art of compromise and solved the problem.

Anger Management: John, aged 12, and adopted from Korea was sometimes the victim of bullies. Whenever he was teased about his different skin color and how he didn’t look like the rest of his family, his first response was physical retaliation. John’s parents coached him on W.I.S.E. Up! and practiced several responses to various personal questions. Instead of reacting with anger, John felt prepared and empowered to take the power away from the teaser by not showing that his buttons got pushed.

For more information on helping your child develop his social skills, we recommend:

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Good Friends Are Hard to Find by Fred Frankel

W.I.S.E. Up! It is Back to School

Is your child or teen empowered or prepared to answer the inevitable adoption questions from new classmates, teachers and friends?

Are you from China? Are your REAL parents still there? Did you live in an orphanage? Is that your real sister? She doesn’t look like you.

Nearly all kids who were adopted by their families get asked these kids of questions. Haven’t you as parents encountered questions or been subject to comments about adoption? Well-meaning people may ask to be friendly or just out curiosity.

“Oh, is your husband Asian?”, “Do you know anything about her real parents?”, or “Are they really brothers?” or comments like “Oh, those children are sooo lucky!”, and “She’s so adorable, how could anyone give her away!”

Most parents therefore quickly learn that in order to minimize and cope more effectively with the distress these experiences can bring, they must prepare themselves for the questions and develop responses that they are comfortable with.

Adopted children and teens likely encounter these very same experiences – with their peers – friends, classmates – and perhaps even with teachers. It is important that they be prepared. Children often receive misinformation about adoption – from television/movies and the media. Do birth mothers sell their babies sold on the Internet? Are some adopted children kidnapped from their birth parents?

Driven by fears and understandable curiosity, with little understanding of what adoption means, non-adopted children may relate to the adoptee as they might to a child with a physical disability - asking questions and making comments to accentuate how they are different – to distance themselves from the adoptee in order to comfort themselves that this could never happen to them. Knowing that they are delving into private territory, non-adopted children are likely to ask these questions when other adults are not around.

The children we see at C.A.S.E. have shared the kinds of questions they get from their peers. These experiences create an added burden of emotional vulnerability. In response to this predicament, C.A.S.E developed the W.I.S.E. Up! Program to empower children to respond to questions and comments made about adoption. It is a powerful tool that is taught to children in groups, in individual, and family therapy, at camps for adopted children, programs run by adoptive parent support groups, and parent workshops. So that parents could teach this empowering tool to their children, the W.I.S.E. Up! Powerbook (written by Marilyn Schoettle) was created, and a complete facilitator’s guide for teaching the program to parents is available through C.A.S.E. as well.

WHAT IS W.I.S.E. Up!

The W.I.S.E. Up! Program first helps children realize that they are smarter than their peers – or WISER about adoption because of their experience of growing up in an adoptive family. They can take on the role of “expert”. This understanding alone helps introduce and prepare adopted children for the distinct likelihood that they will get asked questions and the reasons why. Second, children learn to think about who is asking the question/making the comment and what they think is the motivation behind the question. Is the question coming from a trusted friend, from the class bully, from a teacher, etc. Is the person just curious or trying to tease? Third, children learn to identify how they feel about 1) the person asking the question/making the comment, 2) when the question is being asked – are they alone with their friend, or in front of other classmates; what kind of mood are they in – how are they feeling at that particular moment, and 3) how they feel about the question/comment. Children are usually shown a list of possible feelings including – sad, angry, surprised, shy, happy, confused, embarrassed, etc.

In the final and fourth step, children learn that they have four possible options for responding – each represented by the four letters of W.I.S.E., a tool designed for quick memorization. They actively CHOOSE how to respond.

W = WALK AWAY, or ignore what you hear.

I = IT’S PRIVATE, I do not have to share information with anyone, and I can say that appropriately, even to adults.

S = SHARE SOMETHING about my adoption story, but I can think carefully about what I want to let others know.

E = EDUCATE OTHERS about adoption in general, for example, I can talk about how adoption works today, successful adoptees, inaccurate information in the media, etc. I know a lot about it.

With practice, children can choose between W, I, S, or E without hesitation. In the process of embracing the W.I.S.E. Up! Program into their lives, they sometimes find themselves able to “take the sting out” by laughing at the question. They also learn to anticipate additional questions that may come when they respond with S or E. The W.I.S.E. Up! Tool can turn a challenging moment into an experience of confidence and success.

Parents and therapists who use this program with children also find that it is often a door opener that can lead to other important discussions/conversations about adoption.

The W.I.S.E. Up! Program was created by Marilyn Schoettle, former director of education and publications at The Center for Adoption Support & Education.

Parent Perspectives - Groups for Adopted Kids?
-by Ellen Singer, LCSW-C

“I’ve told my son his adoption story. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions and seems quite happy and well adjusted. I’m concerned that if I bring up the subject, I’ll put ideas in his head and he’ll have bad feelings. Groups for adopted kids? Won’t focusing so much on adoption emphasize that he is different? What if another kid says something he hasn’t ever thought about?”

Adoptive parents today usually have some understanding that they need to help their children with issues related to adoption. This can be a daunting task for many adoptive parents. In Children’s Adjustment to Adoption, David and Anne Brodzinsky note, “Parental anxiety is usually tied to their uncertainty about how the child will react…and whether parent-child ties will be weakened.”

When adult adoptees share their experiences growing up, they often say that their parents did not foster a family atmosphere conducive to communication about adoption. They usually were told they were adopted, but their parents never discussed adoption after that. Consequently, adoptees grew up with the feeling that their parents would be uncomfortable or hurt if they asked questions. The parents, in turn, assumed that their children had no issues, since they didn’t ask questions. Some adoptees say that in looking back, their feelings were too confusing to articulate.

In our work at C.A.S.E. with hundreds of adopted children and adolescents, the kids confirm the same discomfort in raising the subject of adoption with their parents. They fear hurting, angering, or appearing disloyal to them. These feelings sometimes exist even when parents are trying very hard to keep the lines of communication open about adoption. In addition, many kids have trouble putting their feelings into words.

David Kirk’s landmark research, Shared Fate, discusses a continuum of parental attitudes and behaviors related to adoption from “rejection of difference” to “acknowledgement of difference.” The Search Institute Study on adoption conducted in 1994 refers to his work in a way that Kirk felt misrepresented his ideas. In a critique of this study, he writes, “In the Shared Fate theory, when adoptive parents acknowledge to themselves that their social position as parents differs from that of people who have produced offspring, they tend to be sensitive to the child’s untutored attempts at understanding the complicated facts of adoption. Such empathy helps the parents to be open to their child’s groping for answers. That’s what communication means in my work – it does not mean forcing the subject down the child’s throat…the parents’ readiness to listen to their child enhances the child’s trust in them.”

It is with this spirit of empathy that parents are encouraged to create opportunities for children to explore their feelings about adoption. When parents take responsibility for raising the subject of adoption, they communicate a willingness to listen if and when the child has something to share. Holly van Gulden’s “pebbles technique” demonstrates this beautifully. Real Parents, Real Children) She advises parents to periodically throw out statements (not questions) about adoption. (“I wonder which side of your birth family had athletic talent.”) A child is free to respond or not as his own pace and time, if at all.

In addition to communication at home, while parents remain the child’s most valuable resource, parents need to know that they do not have to be the only resource for their child. They demonstrate support for the children’s needs when they find other places where their children can talk about adoption, whether it is with a private, knowledgeable counselor or in a group of other adopted children. In groups, children have the opportunity to explore adoption freely without fear of hurting anyone, saying the wrong thing, or appearing disloyal. As opposed to putting thoughts in their heads, other children validate what they are feeling, normalizing their feelings and making them feel less alone, less different. Listening to others helps them to identify and articulate their own concerns.

In sum, when parents feel comfortable with both the positive and challenging aspects of adoption, they will support their children an d help them to think:

“It’s OK to talk about adoption.”
“My thoughts and feelings are normal.”
“My folks can help me understand what’s bothering me.”