Problems With 17-year Old Who Is Adopted

[MARLENE]

Does Dr. Bradley or anyone else have experience with teens who are adopted and have successfully found their birth family AND have chosen to live with them as much as possible? Our daughter is living in now living with the birth family every other week during the summer. She has been living with them every weekend during her junior year since finding them in November 2003. I sure could use some help in understanding this and some support to handle my sense of rejection and loss of a daughter.

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Marlene,
That amount of time is unusual for most adopted kids to spend with their birth families. It might be worth your while to chat with an adolescent therapist who will get a full history from you in order to better determine what's going on, and what your next step might be.
If it appears that nothing negative is going on, you might just have to wait this out. As tough as that might be, please try and trust that the bonds you have with her as her "real" parents cannot ever be erased. The odds are enormous that she sees you as her real family, and her birth family as fun, but more distant relatives, much like cousins or aunts. Teens often "switch off" to these other relatives for periods of time as they establish themselves as individuals apart from their parents. Know that these kids almost always come back home.
Keep us posted.

[MARLENE]

Thank you for responding back.
You mentioned a teen counsellor. We, as a family, with and without the birth parents, and occassionally with Susan alone have been seeing a counsellor since January.

Currently Susan is spending most of the summer with the birth family. She will be with us at the beach for a week's vacation this month at her request. The rest of the summer will be spent living with them, vacationing with them in London where her grandparents live, and at the beach for a week in August

It is easier to let her go to be with them than to have her pouty, moody, and bored living in her own home during the summer. She has no car and only three girlfriends that she has contact with. None of whom are very satisfying to her. We actually prefer her not being at home with us; her behavior is too negative and unpredictable. She shows no concern for us; she lives for her "real family".
I miss my daughter, the one I had before she found her birth family.
When school begins in September she will spend her senior year living with us during the week and with them on the weekends.
She says she will be leaving us permamently when she graduates. I guess she will move in with them....they have made it so comfortable and welcoming for her to do that. I feel betrayed and cheated out of a daughter after 17 years.
I will keep the door open and try to remember it is not about me; it's aboout her and trying to find her identity. But it is hard not to take this personnally and I can't seem to stop crying inside.
Thanks for listening.