Are you parenting an adopted teen or young adult? Check out our interview about important conversations we need to make sure we have. Our guest is Katie Naftzger ,an LICSW, an adult adoptee, and the author of Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years. She also has a course for adoptive parents: The Four Paths To Securing The Relationship With Your Adopted Teen Or Young Adult.
In this episode, we cover:
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:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Are you parenting an adopted teen or young adult? Check out our interview about important conversations we need to make sure we have. Our guest is Katie Naftzger ,an LICSW, an adult adoptee, and the author of Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years. She also has a course for adoptive parents: The Four Paths To Securing The Relationship With Your Adopted Teen Or Young Adult.
In this episode, we cover:
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:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family to talk about foster, adoptive, and kinship care. I’m Dawn Davenport. I’m the host of this show as well as the director of CreatingaFamily.org. I should also add that I am the host of a newish podcast that we are doing, called weekend wisdom where are answer your questions. So send us your questions to info@creatingafamily.org. Today, we are going to be talking about navigating the important conversations with your adopted teen or young adult. We’ll be talking with Katie Naftzger she is an LICSW, she is an adult adoptee, and she is the author of a terrific book “Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years.” She also has a course for adoptive parents: The Four Paths To Securing The Relationship With Your Adopted Teen Or Young Adult. Welcome, Katie, to creating a family. Thank you so much,
Dawn. All right. You talk about 20 conversations surrounding adoption, race, and identity that parents should have with their adopted tween,
teen, or young adult. Well, we're not going to be able to cover all 20, but we can hit some of the big ones. So let's start with adoption itself. What's the So I think when we're heading into any conversation,
one of the first goals is for us to be attuned to our child, young adult, teen, child of any age. And there are three questions that I keep in mind when I'm in the midst of any of those conversations,
whether it's about adoption, race, adolescence, etc. And those three questions are, what are they trying to tell me? What do they need from me? And how can I respond to those needs?
And those three questions really helped to keep me grounded to that particular person, that particular moment. moment, and to keep me sort of engaged. The other thing I try to keep in mind as I'm going into these conversations as a practitioner,
as an adoptee, as a parent, is that we all have blind spots. So true. Yes, we all have things that we are struggling with and things that we don't necessarily really,
really realize at the time that we're struggling with and those things can sort of get in the way of really connecting in those conversations. For example, when I was working in residential,
I was working at a residential treatment facility for adolescent girls. And a girl came and, you know, we were talking and chatting and stuff. And she said, Katie, you don't really like me anymore.
And I said, what? No, I do. And she said, no, you don't. And I said, what do you mean? And I was narrative that we've been telling for many,
many years since the beginning of time. The story doesn't totally include the adoptee so much. The story is really about the birth parent.
It's about what the birth parent couldn't do. It's about the birth parent not keeping the child about whatever other things went wrong. And then it really kind of jumps to the adoptive parent story.
Yeah, we wanted a child or, you know, we wanted to expand our family or whatever that is. It's about our desire to bring you into our home. Yes, that's the story.
Your birth mom couldn't take care of you. She gave you up and now we have you. What we sort of come to realize over the years and over the years of my being a therapist to many, many, many adoptees,
and many young adult adoptees specifically who have had time and many years to reflect on their childhood and to sort of continue to grow. if they have contact with their birth family,
they will be hearing a different shading, or sometimes a completely different story, but very often a different shading of that story because it's from the perspective of their first family, which complicates the narrative even more.
- Absolutely, and even an agenda, many adoptees were told that their birth parents died, let's say, and then they find out later that they didn't actually die. - Yeah. - That story was told for a reason and not a reason that was in their best interest.
- That was more often, I think, what are they trying to tell us?
That's not what they're telling us they need from us because when adoptive parents say some version of well no because it wasn't your fault, it wasn't you, it wasn't because there was something wrong with you.
I wish that that was reassuring, I wish that that was helpful, but unfortunately it isn't and I think it can lead the adoptee to feel even more confused because what we're really trying to empathize with is the fact that this is a convoluted story right because this doesn't make sense,
this story does not make sense. picked it up and put in his pocket.
And when he got home, it was dead. Well, this was his story, at least. And I talked about, oh my gosh, you saw the snake and you feel like it needed someone. It needed you and it needed like a home.
And then it must have been so sad. You know, you wanted to protect it and it's just so sad that it didn't, you know. So I'm not saying, is this like when you were, you know, but I am still trying to get to the feelings that are involved in that experience.
- Are there other conversations that are specific to adoption? that we should be looking for either opportunities to connect over with our young adult, our teen,
or to initiate if we feel like it's important that we do that? Are there other conversations about adoption specific? I think that one thing, there are two things about being in survival mode.
One is the strategizing that I mentioned that sometimes it can be helpful to acknowledge or point. point to that when a child is doing something where they're trying to get to a certain status or a certain thing or,
"Oh, if I don't do this and they're not going to think of me this way," or, "Oh, I need them to think of me," and so if there's a lot of focus on what other people think, I think that that can be a flag, that there's a lot of strategizing going on.
I think also the reason that they're strategizing is because it's so crucial for them not to be a banger. research show why do adoptees feel the need to be perfect?
- Well, I mean, I think that if we think about this theme of luck that adoptees were lucky to have made it, they were lucky to have survived, that there is some survivor's guilt in knowing that maybe other people in similar positions were not so lucky,
maybe other people, that it's sort of a scary time. And so to be on the receiving end of luck, to feel like luck was what helped them to...
not dependent on luck anymore because that, as you said, it's emotionally precarious for them. It's very, very stressful to feel like, wow, I could have just as easily not been here as be here and that's uncomfortable to put it mildly.
Yeah. Yeah, to put it mildly unsettling. Yeah. Let me pause here for a moment to ask a favor of you. If you want to support this podcast and the nonprofit creating a family,
do us a favor and tell your friends about this podcast. That was helpful.
That would make life a lot easier. It sure would. Because I could solve a lot of problems. You have a lot of ideas. I do. Good ideas. Good too. Yes. Thank you.
Really good ideas. Yeah. But it's very complicated because the first goal for the adoptee is to feel understood and seen. And so if we're leading with,
oh, you know, have you tried this? Then they don't feel understood and they don't feel understood. moment.
Oh, absolutely. That has really stayed with me because, you know, we start to feel helpless. Oh, yes. And that's an uncomfortable position for us. Yes, because then we feel guilty.
Well, we love them. We want them not to be in pain. We want their pain to lessen, so our discomfort lessens. Yeah. I mean, we wonder, is this our fault? Yeah. Did I miss something? Like, is this because of me?
Because I didn't put such and such, you know, or sometimes we become a little angry with them? Like, could you just get it? nap out of this? This has been going on forever, you know. Buck it up. Yeah. And eventually they likely will.
Yes. So what is the third question we need to ask ourselves? The third question is, how can I respond? And there's a certain conversation that I think comes up a lot.
And that's what I described as the coping conversation. And in many situations, empathy and reflection and insight and exploring and all that stuff is really important,
but there are certain moments when that's not really what's most important. There are moments when something needs to happen. The person needs to go to school when they're sitting outside of the school or the person needs to go to their swimming.
I don't know why I keep swimming. It's always about swimming for some reason. I have a knife in my head. Whatever they're going to that they're saying that they can't go to or something, that we don't. but there are times when they just have to,
they have to do it, whatever it is. The doctor's appointment or whatever thing they don't want to go to or don't want to be in, that they have to be in. They have to do it. And that's the coping conversation. And that fits in with the mental health as well,
is that we as parents have to figure out, I guess, the distinction between, is this the time to listen, empathize, and just be with them, and then know that tomorrow or later today,
or maybe next week or next month, they will. about the feelings behind it and how we can make this easier for you and everything next time.
But yes, let's talk about this later today. Put a time associated with it. So we will get back to this. Yeah, let's talk about this after the appointment. Yeah. Yeah, because we want to value and prioritize their feelings,
but not at the expense of functioning in their life to some degree. Yeah. So we don't want to send the message that, oh, if they're feeling overwrought, they can then not do the other things that they're supposed to do.
I think the other conversation in terms of mental health has to do with anxiety, which overlaps again with the survival mode and kind of the terror that's associated with not wanting to be abandoned and safety and stuff like that.
And I think, you know, anxiety is such a common problem, I guess, in the work that I'm doing with so many adoptees and whether it's fear of leaving their current job because they're worried that they won't get a better job or they worry that they don't know what they want to do or ending a relationship that is clearly not a health relationship,
that there's a lot of anxiety. And the thing that I try to eventually get to is courage, you know, that we're trying to generate some courage and that it takes a lot of courage to do things even when you're scared or terrified or afraid.
Yeah, I'm going to paraphrase and won't get it right. But bravery is not lack of fear. It's doing whatever it is. Even when you are afraid. That's bravery. Yeah, and that's what they're doing a lot.
There's a lot of courage in what they're doing a lot of the time, and that's part of the validating that we're doing. Like, yeah, it took a lot for you to go to that soccer practice or to break up with that person, or yeah,
it took a lot of courage to do that. Absolutely. Let me take a moment to pause here to let you know about the creating a family newsletter we We send it out via email once a month.
We curate the most important resources that we can find for you that month. Sometimes it follows a theme, sometimes it does not. It's free, it's easy.
When you sign up, you receive a free guide. Right now the guide is a prenatal exposure guide. So you can sign up at Bitly B -I -T dot L -Y.
/guide in the #2 prenatal exposure. So, bitly /guide to prenatal exposure. Or, quite frankly,
you can just type in creatingafamily .org /newsletter. Well, let's move to conversations about race, and I think specifically if the young person that we are raising or have a race,
you can sign up at bitlybit .ly /guide in the #2 prenatal exposure. is of a different race than we are. And I thought I would start this conversation. I recently interviewed Nicole Chung about her latest book, A Living Remedy. I loved the book and I love her writing.
I wanted to read a passage which I thought was a wonderful introduction leading off into conversations that we as parents could have with our children. And I should pause here for a moment and say that Nicole was raised by a white family but she is Korean.
Throughout my childhood, I often struggled to understand myself as Korean, in part because my white family, encouraged by experts, did not see my race or theirs as relevant within our household or outside of it.
I cannot recall a single conversation we had about anti -Asian prejudice specifically, nor the model minority myth or the perpetual foreigner syndrome,
or the exonification and sanitization of Asian women, or the legacy of America's imperialist wars that were partially responsible for my birth families and my presence here.
The closest we came to talking about race when I was a child was my parents' assertion that they would have adopted me whether I was black, white, or purple with polka dots. So let's use that as an intro to talk about conversation.
conversations that we as parents should have with our youth, our young adults about race. I think that for adoptees,
especially adoptees who are trans racially adopted, whose parents are either white or just a different race from them, knowing the stereotypes being informed about the stereotypes can be very, very helpful.
Because again, sometimes these perceptions happen without words. You know, it's not always because someone is calling you a name or something like that, you know, sometimes it's just a perception and you can sense that something is going on,
but you can't put your finger on it. And it is helpful to have a sense of the stereotypes that are out there. So that's a really interesting conversation for parents and kids of any age to have.
I think one of the common things that come up up is when there's something that's happened, some sort of racial incident has happened and the child comes home and says,
"This thing happened to me and I'm really upset." And that's a real opportunity and also a kind of a challenging moment, I think for many of the reasons we've maybe alluded to already because I think that sometimes parents can again,
sort of move into the, "Well, what do you want to do about that? "Do you want to talk to the person?" You want to talk to the school? What do you want to say about doing and not as much about some of the common reactions and experiences that transracial adoptees can have in those moments?
And those are the fight -flight -freeze reaction that can happen. I think there's also that shock that even though we know racism exists, one is never really truly prepared for it,
because you've you just never know when it's going to happen and sometimes you just, one feels blindsided generally every time it happens. You can't be vigilant every moment and kind of worry about racism,
you know, that's not a way to lead your life. And so you tend to feel a little blindsided and when parents can say that, say those words, it can be really helpful and useful for the adoptee like,
wow, you must have felt so blindsided. Like, you probably were just blindsided. like in your class thinking it was just like a regular day. And then this person says this thing, and it must have just come like completely out of nowhere.
That is incredibly validating for an adoptee to hear from their parents. I think sometimes too, that we're speaking of transracial adoptees, if we as parents have not experienced that racism.
It is easy for us to see causes causes other than racism. Yeah. You think that you didn't get invited to the party because you're black. Well, that's not the only reason.
Maybe they had a limit that could only invite 10 kids. So you didn't make the cut, but it wasn't because necessarily because you're black, but that is so invalidating,
even if that is a possibility, at least in the moment, if your child is hurt because they didn't get invited to the party. the party, or, you know, Johnny didn't invite you to the prom,
well, it had to be because I'm Asian, as opposed to, you know, Johnny has the hots for somebody else, that type of thing, yeah. Right, right, right, exactly. And in that case, well, I guess two things.
One is, one way for us to try to access that empathy is to think about and reflect on a time that we felt different. And if we can conjure up that time, then we will probably also remember times when someone downplayed it.
Yeah. You know what I mean? No, it's probably just this, or I go through that too, and I'm not such and such. People tend to see the norm if they're part of the norm. I want to read another excerpt from Nicole's book,
A Living Remedy, because you were saying that when our child comes home and says something, and she's talking about when our children don't come home and why they might not say something, and she says,
"As a child..." child, I was too confused and ashamed to tell them about the ongoing racism I experienced, the slurs and taunts from kids, the prying and thoughtless comments from adults.
I was trying to protect both them and myself. I didn't know how to explain to them that the color blindness they claimed to espouse did not reflect reality as I knew it. That our experiences and views differed in part because I was Asian and the were not.
I could no more make them understand how it felt to be a Korean American adoptee than they could transfer their whiteness to me. Thoughts on the lack of sharing and how do we as parents let them know they can share?
- Yeah, and that's really devastating. I mean, I think that a lot of adoptees are in that situation, hopefully fewer and fewer. - Yeah, I hope so. - You know, as people become more educated. - Yeah. - Yeah, one of the things about...
that that came to mind is that being the target or kind of on the receiving end of racism is humiliating. Oh, yeah. I can only imagine. Yeah. And so there's a lot of shame around it.
Even though the person might not have done anything wrong, it's absolutely devastating to go through that and to feel that, and honestly, she might have been right. She might have been right that she could not.
not tell her parents. You know what I mean? Yes. She might have been right. But for this, and also for the previous example, one of the things we're emphasizing with is the not knowing that in many situations,
unless the racism is blatant, which is devastating in other ways, you can't really prove it. And actually, you don't really know. You really don't know. And sometimes they don't know.
That's what we're talking about. That's what we're talking about. what's frustrating. I was just going to say, the person who is not inviting you to the party or to the prom, they may not recognize what factors were at play. Just like when we're talking about gender,
when we're talking about being a woman and thinking like, oh, is this person not respecting me because I'm a woman? Or is this person not, you know, they wouldn't say that. They wouldn't say, yes, you're right. I'm not, you know,
they don't think that there's anything. to talk about there. People don't always know what's there. And so part of what you're empathizing is the not knowing that you can't really prove it either way.
I remember someone butting in front of me in a line, going in front of me, this woman, she happened to be white. But anyway, she brusically went in front of me and I thought, "Now, would she have done that if I wasn't Asian?" And I will never know that.
She could have just been that kind of person who knows. Or maybe it was because I was young, I don't know. But to have yet another factor where you're wondering, because they're already kind of wondering, is this because I'm adopted?
Is this because, you know, they're already sort of wondering about the other things that are different in their life or kind of put them outside of the majority in their life and to have race be another factor is frustrating. And so as parents,
how do we be the parents who are open to the example you can us to use the opportunity if our kids come home and tell us? But if our kids don't come home,
can we make the assumption that it is simply not happening? Well, unfortunately, I think it does happen commonly. What's hard is that sometimes the adoptee isn't totally aware that it's happening,
which is also devastating in another way. But I think that this is another time where you could simply ask the question. And the question would be, if someone were ever to say something to you that was racially offensive,
or do something that you felt like was racially offensive, do you think you would tell us about that? Oh, that's a good way to say it. Right? Yeah. Because they can answer the question somewhat truthful.
I mean, you never know. But they can say no. And not have to admit that something actually went on. And the other thing is that it's interesting when something is so normal that one does not think about it.
Like, I know for me, I certainly got my share of racially offensive comments or situations when I was a kid. And I have to say, I did not think about that until grad school.
It's not that I didn't know that. I wasn't dissociated or anything. It wasn't like, oh, wow, I didn't know. You know, I didn't block it out, but it did not really register. Oh, wow, that was a stressor that when I would walk around my town,
groups of kids, some blacks and white would say things to me. It's just interesting when these things come to the surface and when they don't. - Sure, absolutely.
And it depends. And as you point out, it changes as our kids. kids change. In this case, they're not kids, but they're young adults, our teens, exactly. There's another question that you could ask as they get older,
which of course we're talking about teens and young adults, which is, do you ever think about being whatever race they are, like being Asian or being a woman or anything? Like, does that come to mind much like,
especially when they're starting a new job or new school, you know, because like when they're going to college, you know, there's this tension. about, do I join the Asian association or not? And that would be a good question,
assuming that the relationship is going fairly well. To ask like, how much is being Asian kind of like something that is on your mind or comes up or, you know, and I think a perfect opportunity is if our children are going to college to talk about when they're choosing a college,
you know, I've noticed that you're applying to a college that the percentage percentage black student is really low. Have you thought about choosing a historically black college or are choosing a college that, and I'm using black as an example,
you could also say Asian. Would that be something you'd be interested in? And maybe we should look and see or choosing a location for a college that is more diverse. And they may say, no,
I really like, I want to be closer to home and my boyfriend's going to this, whatever, they may reject your ideas. But I've always thought. this I'm sending the message that I'm open to this I am not going to freak out if you talk about this and they can always say no I really want to I've had that very conversation with one of my kids about college and no that's not really what I'm interested in and I thought
well okay but at least now they know that if they want to raise it I can handle the conversation. Yeah no absolutely and I think it's just yeah it's helpful for them to know that. you are available to them with these topics,
especially given the whole trans -racial piece where you're white and they're not or whatever, and so that sort of compensates for that difference or being part of the majority or the privilege. One way to kind of make it less abstract is to talk about their high school,
you know, if they went to a high school that was really diverse, what that was like for them. Mm -hmm. Because sometimes kids don't realize. how important it is to be in a diverse setting.
- Oh, especially if they haven't ever been in a diverse setting. - Well, either way. - Either way, good point. - If they've been in a diverse setting and they don't realize what it's like not to be in a diverse setting, or if they haven't, and they don't think that it's important.
And I think you could even consider mentioning a few examples of, it's not just that it's important or possibly important to have other people of color in the community. of color in the community.
- It's important to have other people what the community is like without them too, you know, that it's just things can be more insidious, things can be more unspoken, it's not as strong of a community in terms of numbers.
I mean, I've definitely had a number of clients who have come to me after they've either been in college or graduated from college and they said going into college, no, it's fine. I'm just looking for this major,
this blah, blah, or this fraternity or whatever. And then they get in and it's like, oh, this is a problem because now they're getting teased in a joking way about their race and stuff and they don't have anyone else around.
It's a fairly disempowering experience. So I think I probably would encourage people to just visit with that in mind and thinking like, yeah, you have options. I mean,
that's the beauty of college, that you have options. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you. you, Katie Nasker, for talking with us today about these important conversations. If people are interested in the course,
where would they go and how would they get it? - They could go to my website, adoptiontherapyma .net. - Okay, excellent. Thank you so much for your time today. - Thank you. - Shout out to our partners who support the show and the show is brought to you through their support.
- Thank you so much. So I want to shout out to Children's Connection. They are an adoption agency providing services for domestic infant adoption, placing babies throughout the U .S. They also do home studies and post -adoption support for families in Texas.
Children's Connection has been with us for a very long time and we really appreciate their support