How Can Adopted and Foster Kids Grow In Spite of Parental Rejection?

News flash: Adoptees and Foster Can Grow in Self-Esteem in the Midst of Parental Rejection

My heart breaks for fellow adoptees and foster kids who are being rejected. It doesn’t have to a monumental, in-your-face rejection, but it is rejection nonetheless.

For example:

• Teen waits for birth parent to pick up for movie date but parent doesn’t show.

• Child fantasizes on birthday that first mom will come to party but she doesn’t show up.

• Adult reunites with birth siblings who only want to meet once and then ignores any desires to meet again.

• Birth parent can’t deal with own loss and grief and outwardly disses her child.

• Adopted child not told  truth about birth family (Life begins at adoption approach).

• Adopted adult learns that sibling thinks her weird and blasts opinion on social media

• Teen or adult gets “unfriended” on social media

You may not even want to read on…but you must, for something really positive can come from such an experience if God allows it to happen to your child.

KNOW THAT GOD HAS ALLOWED THIS FOR YOUR GOOD

Rejection from my birth mother years ago was devastating, but it was also life-defining. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, for God has used it to enable me to reach others who are experiencing similar rejection.

EMBRACE  YOUR WORTH IN SPITE OF PARENTAL REJECTION

Reverend Ron Nydam, author of WISE ADOPTIVE PARENTING ( https://www.amazon.com/Wise-Adoptive-Parenting-Struggle-Parents/dp/1387748475/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535052902&sr=1-1&keywords=wise+parenting+by+ron+nydam,) specified how to do rejection well from a Jewel Among Jewels Adoption News article (Winter 1999): “Doing rejection successfully means opening the door to a full life as an adult who can do self-acceptance and intimacy in spite of a parent’s negative opinion. Our self-esteem can never be something that someone else is in charge of.”

REMEMBER THAT GOD CAME TO YOU IN YOUR HARD PLACE

“On the day you were born, you were thrown out into an field, unwanted. But I came by and saw you lying there, and I said, “Live, thrive, like a plant in the field. And you did! You became a jewel among jewels.” (Ezekiel 16:4-7 LB)

RECALL THE HARD PLACE AND AFFIRM THE PRESENT

What adoptee or foster kid doesn’t love recalling the past and then affirming the present. Affirming that yes, the past was incredibly painful, but I’m not there anymore. I’m living in the present with an awesome future ahead of me.

Our painful past does not define our future…but it does make us stronger and wiser.