This past weekend I took Tetyana to do some pottery painting with a local international adoption group we belong to. There were many pieces to choose from and it was a bit hard to explain exactly what we were going to do. She decided on a piggie bank and to paint it the colors of her bedroom. She can't wait to go back and pick up her bank.
Since it was just Tetyana and I, I thought it may be a good time to open up dialog about how Tetyana feels about her birth parents, her new life here and let her know she could always come to us to talk about whatever she was feeling about it all. I won't go into all of her thoughts and feelings but she did tell me that she would tell her birth mom that she always wanted to live with us because we have "lots of money and buy her lots of things". She is very bold in asking us to buy her everything under the sun. Since she didn't even own her own pair of underwear we didn't have much choice but to buy her a wardrobe and things to play with. I don't think we have gone over board in any way. As a matter of fact, she and Luke both do chores and earn a weekly allowance. We are working on teaching her to save and the value of the money.
She has a new loose tooth and we have been talking to her about the Tooth Fairy. She was going on and on about all of the money and toys she wanted the Tooth Fairy to bring her. I was really bothered by these two recent conversations. I tried to explain to her that we adopted her because we wanted to love her and to be her family not to buy her things.
I realize she comes from another culture and that she hasn't been socialized the same way we do here in America. She can be very unedited. She had a friend from school come over a couple of months ago and we took the little girl home. She said to the little girl when we arrived at her house "This your house? This house not nice. This house too small!". I wanted to crawl under the seat and quickly tried to change the subject. She has also made comments about other peoples cars, houses and appearances. I have been trying to explain to her that everyone is different and that it will hurt peoples feelings and make them sad if you are mean to them. I know she isn't trying to be hurtful. I have also tried to explain to her that we are very fortunate to live where we do and that her daddy works very hard to give us a nice life. Not sure how much of it she gets but she constantly wants to know how much money we have, how much I have to pay her teacher for tutoring or camp cost, etc. Maybe it comes from living in poverty if that is how she lived with her birth family. Maybe that is also why she wants to eat constantly even though she tells us she had food with her family and in the orphanage. Maybe like many other things, it will just take time to adjust....
3 comments:
So sad I missed pottery and a chance to meet Tetyana:( Hopefully we can meet next month.
I think once she understands more about social skills that she will learn to curb her comments on what others have or do not have. I think you just need to teach her. That is just the social skills teacher in me talking. But really, many kids, especially older adopted kids, just never learned proper social skills and it needs to be taught to them just like English and Math. Role playing works great and if you need some ideas let me know, I am willing to share. -Shana
We are having to teach some of these same things. What's funny to me is that Halle Grace comments on things that my boys don't (related to appearance, cars, houses, etc). But a handicapped person will walk my, and she will see nothing different about them. Which of course, my boys do, and usuallly comment on. I think we tend to underestimate the cultural impact Ukraine has on our older kiddos.
Let's catch up soon!
Julie
My kids, especially the oldest (Sophie, 8 like Tetyana) is daily talking about money. At first she told me that in Ukraine everyone is poor and in America everyone is rich. I was quick to explain that their are people in both countries with lots of money, little money, and just the right amount. She is (in my opinion) overly concerned about our personal finances as well. I don't want her to think that we are rich or to think that we don't have enough money to afford to keep them (a problem she was familiar with in her past) so I always make sure to tell her that papa works very hard so that we have just enough money for the things that we need, and some left over for the things that we want, that kind of thing. She often tells Kevin, "Thank you for working bolshoi for our family," which I think is cute. She understands that he cares enough about them to leave the comforts of home and family and work hard to make a living.
I really need to let the kids earn some money the old fashion way at some point, but we are a ways off from that for now. That will be interesting. Money burns a hole in Julian's pocket and he has to buy whatever is the closest thing to him he can afford if he has it. Complete and utter junk, not even something he likes. Silly boy.
I imagine that the comments about appearance and houses, etc would be humiliating. Sophie tends to say similar things about appearances, and often when she disapproves of another kid's behavior when we are out and about, but she does pretty well keeping the comments quiet between me and her. She stares like nobody's business though. They all do, but she will literally turn around to watch someone and run into something in the process. I always call her a "looky-loo" quietly and she gets the picture.
Looks like you have had lots of fun lately!
:) Krista
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