Q&A! How do I help adoptive parents feel more empathy toward their child’s parents? {EP 72}

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Anonymous mom: Hi Robyn, I am calling from Sydney, Australia. I work with foster carers and adoptive parents. And we're really looking to develop a group in increasing empathy for adoptive parents and foster carers towards birth parents for kind of long term benefits for children. Any ideas you have would be awesome.

Robyn: Thank you Australian friend for not only calling this question in but just having this question in the first place. Curiosity, empathy, and compassion are experiences that emerge from what I would call a brain and mind in connection mode. So anytime I'm thinking about how to help somebody move into or increase their feelings of empathy and compassion, I think about how to help that person feel safe enough for their nervous system to move into connection mode. Like what's preventing that person's mind and brain and nervous system from being in connection mode? How is protection mode helping them? And I want to give way more energy to those curiosities than trying to force something to happen like compassion or empathy. So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and just say that most of the time, when I work with adoptive parents who are feeling negatively towards their child's parents. There's almost always some sort of like unnamed or unprocessed grief underneath those feelings. Adoption, of course, is intertwined with ambiguous loss, and- and disenfranchised grief, and a lot of feelings that we aren't very good at being with, in particularly in Western culture. We don't have a great way to talk about the grief and adoption and we don't buy and exchange sympathy cards about adoption. And we don't bring casseroles. And in many, many ways, adoptive parents are given a lot of implicit and explicit messages that somehow having adoption related grief means that they don't love their kid as much, or they're not as happy with the adoption, or they're not real parents, or I don't know. Something. 

Robyn: Adoption starts the most profound loss that we humans could ever imagine. So, of course, there's a lot of grief for everyone involved. Of course, of course, of course, adopted kids and people and parents who have lost kids to adoption have grief. That feels like a piece that is starting to get easier for, just even kind of like the mainstream general public to understand. I realize we still have a long way to go. A long way to go to like recognize and honor the implicit grief that's inherent in adoption for adoptive kids, and adults, and families who have lost kids to adoption. But what- we're getting there, we're starting to have spaces where that's really being talked about. And adoptive parents have grief too. And a grief that deserves to be seen and cared for. And a grief that deserves for all of us to be brave enough to somehow wade into it. Like somehow wade into this scary place that adoptive parents are feeling and some confusion like how can I have grief about this thing that I wanted so badly? Or how can I have grief about this thing that other people say is the best thing, you know, in the whole wide world, which is to be a parent, right? There's- honestly there's a lot of places for grief to emerge for adoptive parents. I mean, many adoptive parents, not all of course, but have grief about the parts of their journey that led them to adoption. For some that's infertility. For some that's like an unexpected event that suddenly turned their life upside down when they became an instant family.

I've heard some adoptive parents, there's this real grief of this isn't the life I had imagined or planned for. Adoptive parents grieve the loss of the intimate biological connection to this child. Like the person that they love and adore most in the world, but will never have this unique, intimate connection with. Adoptive parents can sometimes grieve not being the child's only parents. Or a life that doesn't involve a lot of time, navigating visits, right? Adoptive parents who adopted kids who have experienced abuse, and neglect, and foster care will grieve how their child will, you know, grieve for how their child wasn't safe before they met their child. And even for the fact that they couldn't keep their child safe. And as confusing as that might sound because, of course, they couldn't, right? They didn't even know their child then. But I also have worked with a lot of parents who feel that grief, right? This is their child. And they grieve the moments in their child's life, when they didn't know them and couldn't keep them safe. 

Robyn: Now, y’all. I actually feel a little bit vulnerable, even saying some of these things out loud into the microphone, like, who's gonna hear this? Who's gonna judge this, right? That- the reality is that a lot of adoptive parents are grieving. Like, this isn't the life that I imagined, right? And I feel sheepish saying that out loud. So if I feel sheepish, saying that out loud, and like, ‘Oh, is that an okay to say’? Like, can I acknowledge that this isn't the life I imagined while also loving this person to pieces and being so glad I'm their parent. Or can I even be honest with myself and say, like, I'm actually not that glad that this is how things have worked out. And I'm still doing my best to parent this child in absolutely the best way that this child deserves. And for some reason, culturally, we have a hard time acknowledging that these two very complex and seemingly like polar opposite feelings can co-exist. And they can, and we have to make space for these very seemingly polar opposite feelings to coexist. So that families raising kids can have their very real feelings without lots of shame heaped on top of those feelings. Because it is it's that shame that is contributing to a nervous system that's getting trapped more in protection mode. And the feelings of empathy, and compassion, don't emerge well from a nervous system traps and protection mode. So anyway, my point is, our freshmen are professionals and helpers, really need to make it explicitly clear to adoptive parents that their grief is normal. That we're not judging them for their grief. And- and- and that you as a professional involved in this parent's life aren't going to decide they shouldn't be parents because they're having some pretty normal feelings of grief. It doesn't make someone a bad parent, to grieve for the life that they'd hoped to have. It just makes them human! And grieving that will actually help them show up for their kids in the way that they really want to. Many times when there is space given to the grief, adoptive parents mind and nervous system just naturally starts to shift more into a space where compassion and empathy more easily emerge. 

Robyn: Another block to empathy is what for many people- is that- is that for many people, it can feel like empathy means excusing behavior. You know, working with adoptive parents, I'm really helping them be okay with the space that I call the both and. And I didn't make that up. But it's a language that I use a lot, the both and. One can feel compassion and empathy while still having boundaries and expectations, right? Like, having compassion and empathy for behavior doesn't mean I'm suddenly saying that that behavior is or was okay. I recently worked with a state organization on a project that had similar goals to this caller. Helping foster and adoptive parents shift into more compassionate empathy for their child's parents. Basically, we took all the excellent training that this organization has given their adoptive parents on their child's history of trauma and how it impacts their behavior, and applied it to the child's parents. When I train, and if you listen to this podcast you've already picked up on the fact that I teach the science of being relationally, socially, and behaviorally human, right? I teach about being human. And then I teach about the impact of trauma on top of that. What I teach applies to all humans to the point that some of y'all are unhappy of like the name of my podcast. That it's called Parenting After Trauma. I get emails, like a lot of them, from people asking me to change the name of my podcast. Because the things I talk about don't just apply to parenting after trauma, they apply to parenting, right? I'm not changing the name of the- my podcast, at least not in the short term. I don't know who knows what's going to happen long term. But for now, it feels super important to me to create a space that's very specific to parents who are parenting kids who've experienced trauma. 

Robyn: But anyway, I have a couple of core beliefs that I work from in my work that every human has infinite worth. Every. Human. I learned that from Kent Hoffman, from the circle of security. He has an amazing TED talk, I'll put it in the show notes. But all you have to do is Google ,Ken Hoffman TED Talk infinite worth,, and it’ll pop up. It's amazing. It changed my life. Every human has infinite worth. And there's no qualifiers to that. And it's gutsy to start to connect with where that feels hard to believe. Super gutsy. Another really core belief in my work is that everyone is always doing the very best that they can. In every unfolding moment, and every moment, everyone is always doing the very best they can. And sometimes that best is pretty crappy. And sometimes that best changes in the very next moment, or was different in the moment before. But in every unfolding moment, everyone is always doing the very best that they can. There's a chapter in Brené Brown's book, Rising Strong, I'm pretty sure it's Rising Strong. Where she really needles through this belief. And she collects data and asks people at dinner parties. And finally talk to her husband about this thought, you know, are people always doing the very best that they can? And her husband, Steve, said something like, and I don't have it in front of me, and I'm paraphrasing. But her husband, Steve, said something to her, which is- which was, you know, ‘I don't know. I don't know if people are always doing the very best that they can. But I do know that my life is better when I believe that they are’. I completely agree with Steve. I actually also believe that we really, truly, are all doing the very best that we can in every unfolding moment. And I believe that my understanding of the neurobiology of how our minds are creating our unfolding reality, and how behavior is largely implicit. Anyway, I believe that my understanding of like, basically, the science of behavior, does confirm that in every unfolding moment, people are doing the very best that they can. And sometimes that's bad, like really bad. Like you can't take care of your kids because it's not safe, bad. And we have systems in place to set boundaries. Hopefully compassionate boundaries, and not punitive boundaries. Though, I know that the way that our culture and society sets boundaries mostly is punitive. We can all hold the both and. Yet some kids have parents whose own history made it unsafe for them to parent. That can be true, while also it can be true, that we can have compassion, and empathy, and of course boundaries for those same parents. It's a really leaning into all the good that- all the goodness that we're teaching parents about their kids’ behaviors and their kids’ development of their nervous systems, and applying that to all humans. What I teach isn't unique about kids or even unique about kids with a specific kind of trauma. It's- it's about humans. And then looking at how our different life experiences has shaped our neurobiology, shaped our memory networks, shaped our regulatory circuits, shaped our attachment. And then how all of those things come together and are underneath a lot of the behavior that we see. 

Robyn: Right? Again, I know that this is so hard. It is so hard for parents of- who are parents who are parenting kids with these big and baffling, overwhelming, sometimes unsafe behavior. That seems to be the result of the trauma that somebody else has inflicted. But it's not impossible. It's not impossible to have compassion and empathy for our kids' parents. When adoptive parents are given a space to have all of their feelings with adults, not their children. To process all their very, very complex feelings related to adoption and related to their child's parents. So the bottom line is- is that staying out of compassion and empathy, is protective. It's our nervous system working to protect us from something. Compassion and empathy are vulnerable and connecting feelings, right? So if you're working with a family that's having a hard time with compassion and empathy, let's get really curious about what it's protecting that family from. Grief? Anger? Who knows? There's so many options, but look at your program,. Look at how it's set up. The education it provides, the support it provides parents. Does it explicitly name the grief, invite the grief to be processed in a safe place with other adults? How are the adoptive parents you work with confident that their feelings of grief, or anger, or other quote unquote negative feelings won't be punished or judged but instead welcomed, and invited, and held with compassion, and empathy from you and your organization? 

Robyn: I guess in a way I just kind of summed that all up, right? If we want adoptive parents to feel compassion and empathy for their childs’ parents, are they receiving compassion and empathy from us as helpers? Compassionate empathy for all their feelings? I want the adoptive parents that I work with to know that all their feelings, all their parts are welcome. With me. Not all their feelings are appropriate to express in front of or to their children, of course. But none of their feelings are bad. And they all are welcome, all their feelings are welcome with me without judgment without repercussion. Behaviors and actions are a different story, of course, I have boundaries about behavior, of course. Behavior that's expressed towards me, and behavior that's expressed towards kids, and behavior that's expressed towards their kids parents. But all their feelings are welcome with me. 

Robyn: Alright, y'all, there's so much more I could say about this. But I think I've rambled on long enough for today. I do have come masterclasses on grief, specifically for parents, inside the on demand video library inside the Club. So if anybody listening has been, you know, kind of like their heart has been touched. And there's this feeling of I have a lot of grief, or I have a lot of feelings that I don't know, have been welcomed enough. I don't know that they've been welcomed enough by me. I don't know if they've been welcomed enough by other people. That is one of the super big strengths about The Club, is that we really talk our talk, walk- walk our talk about welcoming all parts. And we welcome all these complicated feelings without judgments. While also having an expectation that the feelings get seen and heard and processed through so that they don't get stuck, and they don't keep us in production mode. And they don't impact the way we behave towards our children, or towards their parents. 

Robyn: Okay, so that's- that's part of what happens in The Club. If you're interested in The Club, you can go to RobynGobbel.com/TheClub, check that out. But I'm so grateful, so grateful for the opportunity to chat a bit about this topic. And to know that there's organizations that are out there prioritizing creating systems of compassion and empathy for parents who have lost their kids. So thank you for calling this question in, and thank you y'all for listening. I will see you next time.