Zoe lied to us. 2 times in one month. Both times it had to do with her getting a bad grade in Science. She told me she had not gotten a test back when she had cause she got a bad grade. ACCCKCKKKK! I almost had a melt down till I called an experienced mom friend with bio and adopted kids who said these are normal challenges at her age. AAACKKKK! Oh yeah... I said that already. Thank goodness for mommy friends to talk us off the ledge. :0)
So we had to deal with the lying issue. She is in major mommy boot camp. I made it very clear that we don't CARE about the Science grade. That class is harder for her, I think because they do a lot of written exams with LOTS of hard vocabulary like cerebellum and aorta and stuff. Zoe is really bad at written exams. She gets all nervous and freaked out that she won't finish in time. She KNOWS all the information but it takes her about 10 times as long to finish a paper cause she still has to read very slowly and work really hard. She kicks tush at reports and research papers but standard tests are hard for her still. All we care about is that she TRIES her best. She has precious teachers that have been so good to her and have worked with her needs and with us in every possible way. We are so blessed. I KNOW she is learning so much. That is what matters.
However, LYING is NOT OK! SOOOO NOT OK! So after we handed out discipline for the lying which entails having very few privileges and doing A LOT of work for a few days. ( I am a HARD CORE mean mommy!) Today I got down to talking to her about WHY she feels like she needs to lie. I asked her how she felt when she got that grade. She has a lot of trouble identifying her feelings so I really have to help her through that and drag things out of her. She basically felt very embarrassed and dumb. I asked her if that is what she tells herself when she gets a bad grade. Does she tell herself she is dumb? She said yes.
However, LYING is NOT OK! SOOOO NOT OK! So after we handed out discipline for the lying which entails having very few privileges and doing A LOT of work for a few days. ( I am a HARD CORE mean mommy!) Today I got down to talking to her about WHY she feels like she needs to lie. I asked her how she felt when she got that grade. She has a lot of trouble identifying her feelings so I really have to help her through that and drag things out of her. She basically felt very embarrassed and dumb. I asked her if that is what she tells herself when she gets a bad grade. Does she tell herself she is dumb? She said yes.
I talked to her and asked her if she would say that to her best friend at school? If her friend got a bad grade and she had done her best would it be kind to come say to her... "YOU ARE DUMB!!! YOU AREN'T AS GOOD AS US!" She said of course she would not say that to her friend. I asked her, "If you are so kind to everyone else then why are you so mean to yourself? You tell yourself awful things that are just horrible. Why do you talk to yourself that way?"
She immediately started crying and we talked about why. Which of course I knew. There is a person in Zoe's past- when she was little- that made her feel worthless. They told her she was dumb and made her feel she wasn't good enough. We talked about that situation and the lies it has made her believe. We talked about all the people that love her and the truth about who she is inside.
I told her about how God sees her. How He put her together- our beautiful Zoe- in her Guatemala mommy's tummy. How he knew even then that she would be ours. I told her that all those years she was not alone. God always loved her- He was always with her- He always had a plan for her- He cried when she cried- He ached for her and rescued her. He knows how many hairs are on her head and each little twinkle in her eye. Before she had an Earthly father who loved her she had a heavenly Father who loves her. I told her she was NEVER ever alone even when she was scared. She was loved.
We talked about how we are ALL adopted by God. We talked about how God rescues all of us. I told her how much God values adoption- how close it is to His heart. He even chose for His own son to be adopted by Joseph.
I told her that she MUST see herself the way God sees her. She is not perfect but she is perfectly loved. She must be kind to herself the way God is kind to her. She must love herself the way God loves her. Believing lies and being cruel to ourselves leads us to self destruct and become bitter and cruel. Love leads us to repentance and change and growth.
As I was talking to her I wondered how many if us do the same thing. We are so cruel to ourselves. We tear down what God values so highly. It's blasphemy in so many ways to say that we have a great God but that we will not value our lives as significant. To say we are not capable of what God says we are capable of doing- to say we are not good looking enough- to say we are not worth while. The truth is that we are nothing without God. With Him we are far beyond what we imagine for ourselves.
My Zoe is learning so many lessons. She is learning to forgive herself, and value her life as worth living. Truly though I think I learn more from her than she learns from me.
We are orphans in this world- alone, scared, hungry and cold. We are rescued by something much bigger than we can get our arms around and taught what it is to love. If we really dive into that love we will be blessed enough to learn courage and compassion along the way.
Hugs, Angel