Ron Reigns:
Welcome and thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry, and me, Ron Reigns where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.

Speaker 1:
Do what’s best for your kid and for yourself. Because if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid and that’s not fair.

Speaker 2:
And I know that my daughter would be well taken care of with them.

Speaker 3:
Don’t have an abortion. Give this child a chance.

Speaker 4:
All I could think about was needing to save my son.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry, I am the executive director, president and co-founder of Building Arizona Families Adoption Agency, the Donna K. Evans Foundation and creator of the You Before Me campaign. I have a bachelor’s degree in family studies and human development, and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in school counseling. I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth mother, raised in a closed adoption and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.

Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns. I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the cohost of two successful morning shows in Prescott, Arizona. Now I work for my wife who’s an adoption attorney and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Diving into understanding the adopted child.

Ron Reigns:
Okay, let’s understand you.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Let’s understand from a professional and a personal, which I always think gives unbiased perspective, because if you can have both sides of the story that will say the truth lies somewhere in between.

Ron Reigns:
Right, there’s three sides to every story, yours, mine, and the truth.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
In looking at the adopted child, we can also offer suggestions for families who have adopted, especially if you’re blending a family. When we look at the term blended families, a lot of times we think mixing his kids with her kids.

Ron Reigns:
The Brady Bunch.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Whereas it also means blending a family, bringing in an adopted child when there’s already biological children, or bringing in adopted children with other adopted children.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Those are also considered and classified as blended families. In the best manner of understanding an adopted child, from their perspective, they want everybody, all the children in the household to be treated equally. Being referred to as this child, because this child was adopted or these are the bio kids, these are the adopted kids. Nobody wants a division of camps. Everyone wants to be looked at as one, as a unity.

Ron Reigns:
As part of the whole.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct. Differences would be, Jimmy is five, Asher’s 10.

Ron Reigns:
This is my 10-year-old. This is my five-year-old.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
This is my boy and this is my girl.

Ron Reigns:
This ugly child. Yeah. Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely. Got it. Absolutely. Being the oldest, I was the oldest in my family and when you’re the oldest, you were always told you have to be …

Ron Reigns:
The example.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The example you have to. Yes. That unfortunately also means that you are the trial and error child, which parenting tactics work-

Ron Reigns:
You’re the experiment okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And which ones don’t. Yes. My oldest daughter says to me quite frequently. Wow, mom, you were so different with me. You weren’t like that with me. Yeah, and I was like yeah, I’m sorry. You were the trial and error child. You are the one who I learned how to be a mom. Now I’m just practicing what I learned and they have you to be grateful for. And she just loves-

Ron Reigns:
You paved the way for them.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
She did. She did an amazing job and I am so proud of her. The other thing that parents need to be very cognizant of is which children they treat better. Don’t treat the biological children better than the adopted children, but then also don’t give the adopted children leeway or extra chances when you wouldn’t, the birth children. We’re looking for equality across the board.

Ron Reigns:
You don’t treat all your children the same, but you treat them equally.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes.

Ron Reigns:
In one way or another.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely.

Ron Reigns:
You see what I’m saying.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Perfect. Yes.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes, I do. And because each child has their own needs and their own strengths and weaknesses, and you have to know each child in order to tune in, but you still have to do it so that it’s presented fairly. It’s not …

Ron Reigns:
Exactly.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
In other words, I have a child that was not wanting or willing to drive until she was almost 17 and a half. I have another child that at 16 I was fine with her driving because they have differences in personalities and strengths and weaknesses and it just depends on each and every child. It wasn’t that one couldn’t drive, it’s that it was a better idea to have one wait. As an adopted child, understanding that adoption may be difficult to speak about and sometimes children will say no. When you say, would you like to talk about this? They will say no because it hurts and it’s hard to go there, but that doesn’t really mean no, I don’t want to talk about it. It means no is easier to say than to cross that bridge. Try again.

Ron Reigns:
Maybe try a different tech. You go at a different angle and say, well do you know any friends…okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And really if you’re tuned into that child, you’re going to know where and how is the best way to approach them. And you’ll be able to tell by their posture, not just their words, what they really want to say. Also, sometimes adopted children don’t want to talk about adoption in front of other people. We’ve talked before about they don’t want to feel different. They don’t want to be singled out. Nobody wants to be looked at differently. Always make sure that you tell your child they’re adopted. We’ve talked about this before as well in previous podcasts, don’t wait. There’s nothing that is going to magically appear to make it easier to tell them there’s no perfect moment. There won’t ever be, you have to create your own perfect moment

Ron Reigns:
And it makes it so much better and easier on the child. The younger they are, once they start understanding things, saying this is where you come from and this is how you got to us.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And this is part of your story.

Ron Reigns:
Yeah.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And that’s something to celebrate. Accept as a parent that your adopted child may have different preferences or talents and celebrate those. If you have biological children and all of your biological children are musicians and your adopted child is really into arts and crafts, I would not by any means keep encouraging the violin, the piano, the trumpet. Breakout the paint brushes and the pastel paints and get started.

Ron Reigns:
Let them thrive.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Let them thrive.

Ron Reigns:
Very good.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Encourage them. Understand that separation and death can be a real trigger for adopted children. This is really important when you have a newborn adoption. There are some studies that have recommended that you not pass the baby around other people until you bond yourself with the baby because the baby wants to feel secure. I was told by my adoptive mom when I was brought home from the hospital that I cried incessantly, that I cried and I cried and I cried and she said that when a stranger would come into the house, I was inconsolable. That probably, had something to do with …

Ron Reigns:
The separation.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The separation because they say that, newborns can grieve and they can have anxiety and fear. I think that once you bond with the baby at that point it’s okay to pass the baby around. But when you’re got a new baby and you’re so proud of, you want to show friends and family, it’s much better to just hold the baby yourself and let them see the baby. But rather than passing the baby from someone’s arms to someone’s arms and them not having had that moment with you yet. I think that’s a better idea to really just-

Ron Reigns:
Show that bond before. Yeah, that makes sense.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely. Adopted children want to feel like they have you forever. They want permanency and stability and they want to know that you’re never going to go anywhere. And that applies for even newborn adoptions. Because they understand what adoption is, they understand that it was a choice that was made. And even though it’s a beautiful choice, it’s still a loss. And it’s a loss for them and it’s a loss for the birth mother. What adoptive parents can do is provide continual reassurement throughout that child’s life. When that child comes and says, mommy and daddy, I want to live with you forever and they’re four or five years old, it’s okay to say …

Ron Reigns:
Don’t discouraged that necessarily there are only four or five.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Adopted children may have abandonment issues even if they were adopted at birth. That can stem from just understanding that they were placed for adoption even in the most loving way explaining to a child, your birth mother chose adoption for you.

Ron Reigns:
Because she loved you.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Because she loved you. There is still, like we just stated, a source of grief and loss and questions from a child as to why. Why was I placed for adoption? And that is another avenue where open adoption is so important because not only can they hear it from the adoptive parents, but they can hear it from the birth parents as well. And that can be a real source of comfort for an adopted child. Adopted children’s behaviors should not always be attributed to being adopted. If you have a child that throws temper tantrums.

Ron Reigns:
It’s not necessarily because they’re adopted.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
No.

Ron Reigns:
It may be, but chances are it’s because they’re a child.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct. And they have a different temperament than maybe one of your other children. If you have two biological children and an adopted child and your adopted child throws bigger temper tantrums than your biological children, they could just have a different temperament or personality. Out of my four biological children, they all have different temperaments and personalities. And the one that threw the biggest temper tantrums was not the first or the last. It was just …

Ron Reigns:
A lock of the draw.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Or the unlock of the draw.

Ron Reigns:
I guess.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Know your adopted child’s triggers. By understanding and tuning into their triggers, you can help them develop coping skills to address when those triggers are pulled and you can also help them learn how to avoid the triggers. Let’s say any presence of death or abandonment is a real source of trigger, then I wouldn’t recommend you sitting down as a family and watching Lassie.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And those kinds of things.

Ron Reigns:
Or Old Yeller or whatever.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct. And so maybe again, tuning into those things when they wouldn’t have been something that you would have just automatically thought of. Will really help your child, again, mature and develop coping skills because-

Ron Reigns:
And this is good for not just adopted children, but biological. You want to know what your children, what affects them and how.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Correct.

Ron Reigns:
Yeah.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
By tuning into your child and learning their triggers, regardless of whether they’re adopted or not, and helping them find coping skills and ways to avoid triggers or landmines in some cases. Everybody’s going to be more successful. Your child is going to feel more self-confident and you’re going to have a much more pleasant family outing if you are out somewhere and you’re watching something and a trigger happens and then the child starts having a really tough time and is melting down and yeah, you can go from a real happy outing as a family to looking like this sense which …

Ron Reigns:
Everybody electric shocking each other.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah.

Ron Reigns:
I got you.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Research on adopted children shows us that adopted children do as well or better than non-adopted children according to a 1994 study by the search Institute, which is in Minneapolis based public policy research organization providing leadership knowledge and resources to promote healthy children, youth and communities. This study concluded that teens who were adopted at birth are more likely to live with two parents in a middle-class family than children born into intact families.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I thought that was fascinating.

Ron Reigns:
It is Fascinating. Absolutely.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Adopted children’s score higher than their middle-class counterparts on indicators of school performance, social competency and optimism and volunteerism. Again, I think this is amazing. I think in my opinion so far as we’re reading this study and in trying to interpret it, my opinion would be that when you have to work harder to become a mom or a dad, maybe your investing more into the children because I think all children are capable of this. It’s like if you, this is a terrible analogy because it’s about buying car. If you buy a car and you have worked for four years to pour every dollar and you’ve given up nights and weekends of your social life to buy this car. You’re going to take really good care of that car and you’re going to; you’re going to pour yourself into keeping it clean and getting the oil changed and making sure that it’s in the garage if it’s going to hail. Where you know if you adopt. I think it’s just what we’re pouring into adopted children that are giving us the positives in this study. That’s my opinion.

Ron Reigns:
I actually was reading these statistics beforehand and I thought the same thing. I thought because they’re so invested in the child because of the process they’ve gone through. It’s not just for instance on an unplanned pregnancy that’s like, okay, you’re now a mother or a father. It’s okay, I’m pursuing this diligently. I’m going to put everything into raising the child after I get the child. I agree with you 100%.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Another example would be if you climb to the top of Mount Everest, it’s going to look a lot different than if you got there by helicopter.

Ron Reigns:
Okay, that makes absolute sense.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
All right. The study also goes on to say that adopted adolescents generally are less depressed than children of single parents and less involved in alcohol abuse, vandalism, group fighting, police trouble, weapon use and theft. Adopted adolescent score higher than children of single parents on self-esteem, confidence in their own judgment, self-directedness and a positive view of others and feelings of security within their families. On health measures adopted children and children of intact families share similarly high scores and both groups score significantly higher than children raised by single parents. That’s not to diss single parents. I actually have a very soft spot. I was a single mom with my oldest daughter and I know what it’s like to be a single mom and …

Ron Reigns:
And I have to say job well done by the way.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Thank you.

Ron Reigns:
There you go.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
7% of children adopted in infancy, repeat a grade while 12% of children living with both biological parents repeat a grade. Compared with the general population children placed with adoptive couples are better off economically.

Ron Reigns:
Hearing all these stats and how, like you say, they score a higher or at least the same or higher in general than children in more traditional style homes or whatever you want to call them. Actually, makes me very happy for what we’re doing here with the podcast. What Building Arizona Families does, what my wife does as an adoption attorney and it really does, it makes me feel good. Wow, we’re moving in the right direction for society.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We are. Data indicates that adopted children have a strong feeling of security with their family, enjoy a quality of home environment, superior to other groups. Have superior access to health care and education opportunities. From my perspective, this was one aspect of my adoption story that I share with a lot of our birth parents. I was able to go to college; I was able to go on to get my master’s degree. That wasn’t an opportunity afforded to my biological brothers and that was something I experienced first-hand, which I think was amazing. Adopted children do better in educational attainment and attend college in greater percentages and the general population. They experience lower rates of crime and drug abuse and have a healthy sense of self-esteem, optimism and social competency.

Ron Reigns:
And I think your evidence of all of these.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Oh, Thank you.

Ron Reigns:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The other thing that I think would really bring comfort to birth mothers, is to know that all of these positive and results are coming from the choice that they made. And they know after reading this and hearing this, that what they’re doing is really a good thing.

Ron Reigns:
For the child. It’s not abandoning the child as they may think. I’m not giving up my child. I’m giving my child an opportunity to thrive more than I could.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely.

Ron Reigns:
Okay.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Adopted children experience more social success and happiness. If you thought adopted children were more likely to be damaged, that’s incorrect. The vast majority of measures look at social success and happiness and adopted children rate highly compared to other children. That’s great.

Ron Reigns:
It is.

Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Adopted children are less likely to be delinquent, less likely to live in poverty when compared to children living in single parent homes. In fact, they’re more likely to finish high school, have a better job, and go on to enjoy a stable marriage. This is just reinforcement that adoption is amazing and it’s a beautiful choice. And those that are involved and have an adoption story, regardless of what angle of the triad you’re a part of, something to be proud of.

Ron Reigns:
We have a pregnancy crisis hotline available 24/7 by phone or text at 623 695-4112 or you can call our toll free number 1 800-340-9665 we can make an immediate appointment with you to get you to a safe place, provide food and clothing, and started on creating an Arizona adoption plan or give you more information. You can check out our blogs on our website at azpregnancyhelp.com thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption, written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry and edited by me Ron Reigns. If you enjoy this podcast rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts and as always, thanks to Grapes for letting us use their song I Don’t Know as our theme song. Join us next time for Birth Mother Matters in Adoption for Kelly Rourke-Scary. I’m Ron Reigns and we’ll see you then.