Navigating Your Child’s Anger: A Guide for White Parents of Latino Adoptees Witnessing Political Trauma By Jeanette Yoffe M.F.T.

"Mom, I hate ICE!" me" "Are they coming to get met? "Your whiteness will not save." "I'm angry at cops too!!!"

"Trump doesn’t care about people like me." "I feel like I don't belong here." "I feel no one likes the color of my skin." "I don't want to live here anymore."

"I can't even leave the house and live my life!" "I'm not going to try anymore."

"Shoud I duck in the car, there's a cop!"

If you're a white adoptive parent of a Latino adoptee, hearing statements like these may feel jarring, confusing, even deeply upsetting. You might not know how to respond. You want to help, to reassure, to keep the peace. But you don't know how?

This post is for you.

It’s not easy when your child expresses rage about issues that seem outside your home, but are rooted deep within their lived experience. Their anger may feel personal, but it’s about something much bigger: trauma, identity, and a longing to feel seen in a world that has often made them feel invisible.

Let’s break this down with compassion, truth, and practical guidance.

❤️ 1. First, Know You’re Not Alone

Many adoptive parents feel overwhelmed when their child expresses intense emotions especially those tied to race, culture, and politics. These conversations are hard. But they’re also “necessary”. What matters most isn’t saying the perfect thing it’s your willingness to stay present, listen, and love.

🌎 2. Understand Why the Anger Feels So Big

For your child, this isn’t just about politics. It’s about pain.

ICE isn’t just an immigration agency. For too many Latino Americans, it represents fear, family separation, and systemic injustice. For a child whose already experienced separation from their birth family, ICE can symbolize a new kind of threat another reminder that they are “othered” in society.

Inhumane immigration policies, especially family separation at the border, sent shockwaves throughout the Latino community. Even if your child wasn’t directly affected,

The trauma of hearing about families in cages or deported parents can reawaken their own fears of abandonment and loss.

Racial Identity Trauma is real. Many transracial adoptees grow up feeling like they don’t quite belong at home, at school, or in their community. When injustices happen to “people who look like me,” they feel it personally and existentially. It's not theoretical. It's embodied.

🧠 3. How Trauma Affects the Brain and Behavior

When your child appears angry, reactive, or withdrawn—know that this may be a trauma response, not just a behavioral issue.

Children who’ve experienced early separation or cultural dislocation often live in survival mode. Their brains are wired to scan for danger, even when the threat isn’t immediate. This is the fight, flight, or freeze response in action.

·      Anger may be a protective shield hiding fear or powerlessness.

·      Shutting down may be a way to avoid overwhelming feelings.

·      Hyper-vigilance (being easily startled or on edge) is common in trauma survivors.

Political news reports, or even conversations about immigration can activate these survival responses because they touch on deep, unhealed wounds around safety, belonging, and identity.

Your child isn’t “too sensitive” or “overreacting” they’re protecting themselves in the only way their nervous system knows how.

By recognizing these behaviors as trauma responses, you can shift from frustration to empathy. Your calm presence is the antidote to their alarm.

🧠 4. Reframe the Conflict: It’s Not About Sides, It’s About Safety

Your child’s anger is not an attack on you. It’s a plea for understanding. When they share their rage, they’re inviting you into a deeper truth of who they are and what they carry.

They are not trying to create division. They’re asking you to hold their truth, to see the world through their eyes, even if it’s uncomfortable.

🗣️ 5. What to Say (and Not Say)

You don’t need to explain, defend, or fix. You just need to be there.

Here are some powerful, connecting responses:

“I want to understand what this means to you.”

“I may not know what it’s like to walk in your shoes, but I care deeply about how this is affecting you.”

“You don’t have to filter your feelings here. I’m not here to correct you I’m here to listen.”

"You belong here like everyone else."

Avoid phrases like:

“But that’s not what he meant…”

“Let’s not talk about politics right now…”

“You shouldn’t feel that way.” "You have nothing to worry about."

These may be intended to keep peace, but they often invalidate your child’s experience.

🛠️ 6. Six Tips to Reduce Conflict and Build Connection

1.     Pause before responding. Take a breath. Respond with curiosity, not defensiveness.

2.     Validate first. “That makes sense you’d feel that way,” can go a long way.

3.     Stay curious. Ask questions. “Can you help me understand what this brings up for you?”

4.     Seek understanding. Read books by Latinx authors or watch films by adult transracial adoptees.

5.     Let your learning be visible. Your child witnesses your curiosity.

6.     Remind yourself: Their anger is not about you. It’s about the systems and histories they’re trying to make sense of—with your help.

 Watch the film Struggle for Identity:Struggle For IdentityStStruggle For Identity

🌱 7. Final Reframe: Listening Is Love

This moment is not about taking a political stand.

It’s about taking an emotional stand.

When your child shares their anger, they are not pushing you away. They are trusting you with their most vulnerable truth. You don’t have to solve their pain you just have to hold it with them.

Say with your presence:

You are safe.

You are seen.

You belong.

💬 Need More Support?

If you’re struggling to navigate these conversations or want to learn more about racial identity trauma in adoption, I offer consultations, trainings, and resources at https://yoffetherapy.com

Let’s keep growing together for our children, and for the world they’re inheriting.

Jeanette Yoffe is a psychotherapist, speaker, and founder of Celia Center and Yoffe Therapy, specializing in trauma, adoption, and foster care advocacy. As an adoptee herself, Jeanette brings lived experience and clinical expertise to help families build deeper connection through empathy and truth.