Adoptees: What is the level of pressure you felt to be a super kid for your adoptive parents...?

anastasia beaverhausen-the real1

10+.

i was SO scared of being given back. i felt the need to be exceptional.

Anha S

I'd say a pretty steady 9. My amom realized that I had musical talent at about 3, she was a piano teacher who'd at some point had some lofty musical goals. After that, any other option for my life just ceased to exist. I was expected to be this well mannered little musical angel who never said boo to anyone. My amom had ridiculously high standards for me that I'm positive she wouldn't have held for her own bio child. In the information given to her, she knew my first mother had quit high school very early despite being very smart, she never let me breathe for a second unless it was breathing her choices and her reality. I think she was afraid the apple wouldn't fall far from the tree.

I also put a lot of pressure on myself. I felt that I'd already been given up by my first family, and then gone through a number of foster homes, that there had to be something inherently undesirable about me that I had to work extra hard to cover up, or they would ditch me too. That's a theme that has been weaved into my adult life as well, its been difficult to shed that perception, and its enabled me to stay in bad relationships long past their due date just because I felt so driven to be perfect, and would change and contort myself to whatever whomever wanted me to be just to keep them, whether they deserved to be kept or not.

Possum

9-10

Some was put on by them - alot was put on by myself.

I was rejected by my bio family (essentially - bottom line - that's what a child feels from being given away) - and 'chosen' by my a-family.
I had to be good to prove I wasn't bad.
I had to be awesome to prove that my a-parents chose the right one.

(even when I found my bio family - I felt that I had to have done all the right things (degree, children, husband, success) to show that I turned out all right)

I think there was also pressure from my a-mum to live up to her bio kids. I wasn't the same - I am biologically/genetically different - but I was compared against them - and I could never possibly match up.
She wasn't a 'mean' person - she didn't realise she was even doing it - and again I put alot of pressure on myself - but it just happens - when a-parents don't understand the complexity of adoptee emotions and hurts - and adoptees are thrust into the situation of being given away by one family - and longingly wanted by another.

Children have a built in need to be with their bio family.
Relinquishment and adoption screw that all up - and from then on - the adoptee is constantly trying to justify their place in the world.
(mostly to themselves)

Rowan

Well, honestly, i didnt feel any pressure. I did pretty well in school til around middle school, when my grades started to slip. To be honest, the only time i ever felt pressure to be better then my older siblings(the bio kids) was when my dad flipped because i failed ninth grade. He so badly wanted one of his kids to graduate, as neither of his others had. That's when i started feeling pressure not to be Super Kid, but to get my act together and apply myself. so i'd say the pressure was 1 as a small child, around a 4 when i was older, to graduate high school.

Which by the way, was worth it. The look on his face when i showed him my diploma was great! he and my mom(and my siblings ) were so proud!

Mei-Ling

I didn't.

I felt special and loved. They fully accepted me, faults and all, because that's what parents do and I never had any doubt that that is what they would do. I was their child.

(Yeah, I know that contradicts what I've been saying in those previous questions...)

âœ§ â“â“˜â“›â“¨ â™¥ kaelers, emy & bella

I felt a lot at first, but it was self inflicted. I was a perfectionist even when I was with my mother, so my adoptive parents (godparents) were kind of scratching their heads wondering why I was so uptight.
Eventually I realized that they weren't going to hate me or abandon me if I didn't do things right 100% of the time; if I didn't have the top grades in the school; if I burned dinner or if I stayed out an hour too late. I didn't understand what unconditional love WAS until I lived with my godparents for a while. There was a time when I pushed and pushed and pushed them, trying everything I knew to get them to send me back to the foster system because I thought it was better sooner than later. But gradually I realized that I was pushing people who weren't pushing back, and it kind of dawned on me that they really WEREN'T putting pressure on me, and that it was just my expectation of myself and my dwelling on what I thought was going to happen if I wasn't perfect.
I had about a 2 in regards to pressure from them, and I had about an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 from myself.

AP's and FP's: Tell your child that it's okay to make mistakes; it's okay if they mess up, because you [parent] are going to mess up sometimes too. Parenthood is a journey of trial and error, for natural families, adoptive families, foster families, every family. Tell them that no one has all the answers and that you don't expect them to have the answers either. You'll figure things out together and no matter what, you love them and care about them. That they're not expected to be grown up, and that just being a normal kid is fine and all you could hope for for them is that they are happy.

sunny

I think many adoptees feel such pressure that they bail out all together.

There are some high-achieving, world class f@ck-up adoptees!

Crucio

1 - I was never expected to be anything but myself. My parents realized that everyone is different and accept those differences. I also never went to the same school as my brother so we were never compared in that way either. My elder brothers they were both married by the time I started grade school.

Heather B

9

The pressure came from within. As a survival mechanism so as not to lose another family :(

Children can be complient and people-pleasing or acting out and challenging. An adoptive parents can tolerate and understand any acting out and boundary pushing as the child's way of testing the love of the parent.

Tara

I'd say as a teen I was about a 5, but ever since the number has been gradually rising, I'd say I'm at a 9 now.

I think a lot of adoptees go through a (sometimes life-long) phase of wanting to 'give back' to the family(families) that took them in and gave them a lifestyle filled with opportunities.

Whether that's through academic success or developing close family relationships I believe (myself included) most adoptees strive to show their families how thankful they are, but also that they have made a good 'choice' by adopting.

Adopted children/teens/adults often have a hard time with relationships, trust, and abandonment. I think they have an inherent Desire to give, and give, and give themselves to their adoptive parents, to show their adoptive parents (any maybe themselves too) that they are deserving of their current lifestyle

I think adoptive parents can help their children avoid such pressure by speaking with them about it. I know that sounds cliche, but I think part of being a good parent (not just to an adoptee, but especially in this case) is going out of your way to understand some of the stresses/problems their child might have as they grow. Foreseeing issues regarding their adoption is important, because these issues make/break relationships. Especially when their issues have roots in trust/abandonment--they have the ability to be a negative/unhealthy seed in every relationship your child will have for the rest of their lives.

It needs to be addressed, through therapy, or just by letting your child explain their emotions, and being supportive. Listening. I would encourage you to bring these issues to their attention too, so they can learn to cope with some of their internal fears. All in hope that they will be able to form loving relationships which aren't subconsciously affected by the loss/pain their endured with their adoption.

Minnimouse

My parents were mixed. They tell me to just try my best and that's all I can do. However, if I do ever fail they would go on and on saying "we spent all this money on you and time and bla bla bla" and make me feel awfully guilty that maybe I wasn't living up to what they wanted and if they had chosen a smarter child they wouldn't have to spend so much money and so on. I think it was more pressure I put on myself. I don't think they were even aware they were doing it. But by making me feel guilty about how much I had taken from them in the process of failing I failed as an adopted child.

I would say my parents put about 6 out of 10 of pressure and I put myself 10 out of 10 of pressure. I became (and still am) a perfectionist, which means hardly anything I do I am fully happy with.

To help, I would say parents encourage children to explore their interests and find their passions, have high expectations of them, praise them and tell them they are capable, but also say that it's okay to make a mistake, you just have to start again or change and do something that suits you more. If the child messes up and does fail then is there any point in punishing them or making them feel guilty? In this case I think parents can sit down with the child and talk about it, figure out where they went wrong and how to fix it (eg attending more classes or spending 15 minutes more doing homework every evening) and also talking about what they did right (even though they may have failed an exam what bits did they do well)

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