As adoptive stepparent we deal with a lot of our own emotions surrounding the child’s absent parent, the child, our relationship with the child, and adoption itself. We also know that our adopted stepchildren deal with their own emotions surrounding the same issues, and that adoption touches their lives as deeply, if not more, than it touches our own. We, as adults, can understand and process more about adoption, where as the children really have limited understanding and processing ability, learing about adoption and their own lives and experience with adoption as they grow.

While adoption should be part of the child’s life, it is important that the parents of the child not focus on the adoption too much, and not put too much emphasis on adoption in every aspect of the child’s life. While it will play some role or another in all aspects of the child’s life that is not to say that it will play the most important role in every aspect of the child’s life. There are going to be times in the child’s life when they become moody, sad, upset, or may overreact, and it is important for the parents to remember that sometimes people do simply have a bad day, and it is not always tied up in adoption related issues.

Teenagers, especially, are moody creatures. One minute they are happy as a pig in…well you know, and the next minute they hate the world for seemingly no reason. As parents, and adults, we try to rationalize the behavior change, especially if it seems to come out of left field, and in stepparent adoption situations, it is common for parents to deduct that it must be an adoption related issue. While this may be the case in some instances, it is important to remember that children, especially teenagers, are constantly having hormonal changes going on in their bodies and that is going to effect their moods.

It is important to remember that changes in moods can be hormonal, and chemical, just as easily as they can be emotional. If a mood swing seems to come out of the blue, and after some thought the parents cannot come up with any triggers that could have set them off, then letting the issue go as simply a hormonal one is a good idea for the parents. We can end up driving ourselves crazy if we try to analyze every mood swing that our children will go through as they grow.

Unless the mood swings are happening very frequently, or impeding on the child’s, or family’s quality of life, it is important for parents to remember that children can have bad days just as adults do, and that although their lives seem simpler compared to the life that of an adult, things get stressful, frustrating, and overwhelming for them, just as they do for adults. Sometimes problems are just problems, there is no deep hidden philosophical meaning behind all of them; sometimes children too, just have bad days, bad moods, or get up on the wrong side of the bed.


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