Dear Director,
Our 16-year-old adopted daughter keeps lying and withholding information from us. It’s even like she is keeping secrets intentionally. She didn’t even tell me she got invited to the prom. Frustrating, surprising, and we just don’t know what to do. We belong to a Facebook group for adoptive parents, and someone mentioned that this is her way of coping with her shame. I just don’t get what that means or what to do about it.
Signed, Trying to Understand Shame
Dear Trying to Understand Shame,
Shame is something we all have experienced, even you and me. It comes about when we are asked to keep a secret, or believe we need to keep silent about something, but there is a sense of being judged, or judging ourselves, that comes along with this secrecy. This is so common for our foster and adoptive youth, because they generally believe, rightly so, that if they talk about their abuse they will be blamed, or lose their friends and school and family, or that they will be seen as dirty and not deserving. Even young children in birth families, when asked, “did you poop in your pants,” will say no and run away, worried that pooping in your pants, even at a young age, is wrong, and they will be considered bad.
We also know from our work on attachment that the sense of ourselves as good or not-good people comes from how the birth parent treated us in the first days, months, and years of our lives. We are good because our mom fed us, we are good because our dad changed us, we are good because a parent told us so and told us they loved us. As we grow and separate emotionally from that parent, that sense of being good, and wanting to do good to maintain their approval, is internalized, and becomes part of how we see ourselves. Now think of the kind of messages your adopted children may have learned from their early caretakers, and how those might also be internalized and stick around, even as you love them unconditionally.
Our children may also have experienced inconsistent parenting early on-one day being loved, the next hurt for a little mistake or no reason at all. In this unpredictable world, a child would learn to not tell adults things that may cause them to be punished or told negative things about themselves. Again, a child would internalize this behavior and carry it into your home. And toss in adolescence, where no matter how strongly attached they are, they pull away, and begin to have an internal life that we may not be part of. It is hard to let go, especially if you have not had sixteen years with her, but that is what adolescents do and should do.
Shame is holding onto a secret, even one that hurts us, even when it no longer serves a purpose. The best thing you can do to help your daughter is be honest. Be honest even when it is hard, and model talking about these difficult things. When we are open with our own secrets, like our struggles with feelings or challenges in relationships, we show them that shame is not useful in building strong bonds. We show them that there is another way.
