The Impact of Adoption on Teen Identity Formation (NCFA Article)
Updated: Oct 5
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The following is an article included in NCFA's Adoption Matters | November 2020
Adoption impacts teen identity formation through lifelong emotional, cultural, and psychological effects, especially during adolescence. In this Adoption Advocate authored by Cam Lee Small, learn how to support teen adoptees' identity formation by recognizing adoption-related issues, validating their experiences, and providing appropriate language and responses to foster healthy identity development.
The Impact of Adoption on Teen Identity Formation by Cam Lee Small, MS, LPCC, Nov 2020
“Cam, you’re fired. I like you, I’m cheering for you, but you broke the rules and I have to fire you.”
It was mid-summer, the camp director and I were sitting at a picnic table on the edge of a hiker’s dream of a forest in northern Wisconsin in the 1990s. I was 16 years old, wondering how to tell my parents I just got fired from Boy Scout camp for underage drinking.
My parents had walked with me through many of these milestone “mistakes.” They were so patient with me. I cannot even remember how they heard the news, but I remember feeling safe with them on the four-hour drive home after they picked me up from this not-so-fabulous moment in my life.
In a season when I had been trying desperately to fit in with the others, along with figuring out who I was in the first place, my decision-making skills were clouded by isolation and confusion, fear and doubt. I think every parent wants their child to grow up and be able to make safe, healthy, pro-social decisions. Those were abstract concepts for me back then and all I wanted was to feel a sense of belonging. I’d do almost anything to get that.
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