Is a child or teen in your family acting out, withdrawing, or expressing confusion about identity?
Is your child struggling with transitions, school, or peer relationships?
Do you feel overwhelmed, unsure how to support your child, or disconnected?
Are you preparing for or navigating big changes, like a new placement, contact with birth family, or adolescence?
Whether you’re an adoptive parent seeking support, a kinship caregiver facing unexpected responsibilities, or a young person struggling to understand your story, therapy can help.
Therapy can be helpful at many points in a family’s journey, not just in crisis. Adoption and kinship care are diverse and complex journeys, whether a child is adopted domestically or internationally, or placed with extended family through foster care. No matter the path, these experiences often involve early disruptions in attachment, grief, and a search for identity.
Therapy with adoptive and kinship care families often explores themes such as:
Working through questions of identity and where a young person fits within their family story.
Rebuilding trust and a sense of safety within relationships.
Addressing fear of rejection or abandonment rooted in early experiences.
Processing grief related to birth family separation, past and ongoing.
Repairing disrupted attachment between children and caregivers.
Navigating emotional and behavioral dysregulation with developmentally appropriate strategies.
Caregivers are essential partners in the therapy process. Adoptive parents and kinship caregivers may face their own emotional hurdles, including difficulty forming secure attachments, parenting challenges rooted in trauma histories, navigating loyalty conflicts or divided family ties, and feeling isolated or overwhelmed by complex needs. Our work with caregivers often includes:
Emotionally attuned parenting strategies.
Supporting caregiver self-regulation to model co-regulation.
Helping adults navigate their own reactions and experiences.
Encouraging open, age-appropriate conversations about adoption, loss, and belonging.
Strengthening the caregiver-child bond through consistent, responsive care.
Therapy offers a safe, non-judgmental space for families to explore, understand, and grow. Our therapists work with both children and caregivers to help children process their stories, including grief, trauma, and questions of identity; support parents and kinship caregivers in building secure, healthy attachment relationships; address emotional or behavioral dysregulation with developmentally appropriate strategies; offer guidance through key transitions like placement, reunification, or adolescence; and foster resilience, communication, and connection within the family system.
At Midnight Sun Wellness, we use a variety of trauma-informed, child-centered, and attachment-based therapies, including Attachment-Focused Therapy to help caregivers and children build trust and emotional connection, Narrative Therapy and Life Story Work to support children and teens in understanding and owning their story, Play and Expressive Therapies to engage children in developmentally appropriate ways to express feelings, and Psychoeducation for Caregivers to equip adults with knowledge about trauma, attachment, and child development.
Trauma-Informed Care: Our therapists use attachment-based, child-centered approaches tailored to the unique needs of adoptive and kinship families.
Support for the Whole Family: We work with both children and caregivers, recognizing that healing happens within the family system.
Guidance Through Every Stage: From new placements to adolescence, we offer support through key transitions in a family’s journey.
A Safe, Non-Judgmental Space: Families can explore identity, grief, and attachment openly, honoring each family’s unique story.
Adoption and kinship care are courageous paths that require extra support, especially when navigating trauma, loss, or complex family dynamics. At Midnight Sun Wellness, we’re here to walk alongside you, honoring each family’s story and holding space for healing, connection, and growth. Reach out to book a free 15-minute consultation with one of our therapists and begin your journey toward deeper understanding and stronger relationships.
