Dear Dr. Norquist:
My husband and I are adoptive parents who very much want to help our adopted daughter learn respect and also allow her to become her own person. It seems to me that adopted adolescent girls demonstrate an awful lot of hostility towards their adoptive fathers as they search for their own identity. Things have become so difficult that I wonder if a temporary, out-of-home placement would be helpful to emphasize to our daughter our inability to tolerate her sarcasm, rejection and hostility, especially towards my husband. Is this step likely to be helpful to her without making her feeling unloved and rejected? Thank you, I’d appreciate your advice.
Dr. Norquist responds:
There is no pat answer here. Each situation is unique. I have to read between your lines to try to understand what your situation is. It appears that there is a lot of hostility going on between your adopted adolescent daughter and your husband. She has already lost her biological parents. I seriously doubt that she could feel anything other than unloved and rejected should you put her in an "out of home placement." With the situation as hostile as it appears to be, this solution appears more to be one of punishment. If your daughter is struggling with feeling good about herself, and establishing her own identity, she needs support and understanding, and perhaps some limit setting more than punishment. I believe our children learn respect through what we model for them. If we treat them, others, and ourselves with respect, our children are likely to do the same (although during adolescence this behavior is not always consistent). You need to try to understand what lies beneath her hostility. This will help you to feel more compassionate. You may need to seek professional help to resolve this situation.
Dear Dr. Norquist:
All my life I’ve not liked the way I look or who I am as a person. I try to hide this but inside I’m always feeling not as good as others. I see myself as too fat, too selfish, not smart enough, and certainly not interesting enough. I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to change these feelings. Now I have a daughter who is becoming a teenager, and I see her struggling with the same feelings about herself. Seeing this really bothers me, because I see it as my fault. What can I do to help her (and me)?
Dr. Norquist responds:
Try the practice of choosing to take yourself and life more lightly. Try to be gentle and light in your attitude toward yourself and life. We don’t have to make such a big deal about ourselves, or the whole show of life. Doing this will ease the burden you are carrying. It’s human nature to take our lives and ourselves too seriously. As a consequence, we do not see or experience the richness of the world. It’s like we’re walking down the highway of life without looking around us to see, listen to, and experience what is all around us. We get caught up in our inner reverie about our "inadequacies", or our resentment about others "inadequacies", and the richness and enjoyment of life, there for the experiencing, eludes us. When you find yourself in this state (as we all do, much of the time), try to apply the attitude of taking yourself lightly, and treating yourself gently. If you model this for your daughter, she may also be able to learn from you this way of uplifting oneself.
(Dr. Sallie Norquist is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice and is director of Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, a center for upliftment and enlivenment, in Hoboken.)
Dr. Norquist and the staff of Chaitanya invite you to write them at Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, 51 Newark St., Suite 202, Hoboken, NJ 07030 or www.chaitanya.com or by e-mail at drnorquist@chaitanya.com, or by fax at (201) 656-4700. Questions can address various topics, including relationships, life’s stresses, difficulties, mysteries and dilemmas, as well as questions related to managing stress or alternative ways of understanding and treating physical symptoms and health-related concerns. Practitioners of the following techniques are available to answer your questions: psychology, acupuncture, therapeutic and neuromuscular massage, yoga, meditation, spiritual & transpersonal psychology, Reiki, Cranial Sacral Therapy, and Alexander Technique Ó 2002 Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center