Tennis Lessons and Tough Conversations

Lin had her first tennis lesson Tuesday. She is taking lessons with two girls she met over the summer. Anna and Sophie are sisters -- Anna is 14 and in 8th grade, Sophie is 12 and in 6th grade. Unfortunately they do not go to the same middle school, so they are taking tennis together every week so that they keep in touch. Anna and Sophie are both such sweet girls and want very much to be Lin's friends. Of course, I was coerced into participating in the lessons as well, which Lin found to be quite amusing! I've always wanted to learn how to play tennis, so I'm looking forward to Lin and I learning together. Lin was really good, so much so that the coach didn't believe she had never played before. She's quite the athlete!

We've had some more light shed on what's going on at school with this other Chinese girl in Lin's class. Now she's gone so far as to tell other girls not to be friends with Lin, telling the other students that Lin is stupid. Apparently a group of girls invited Lin to eat lunch with them (yay!) and this other girl got mad (boo). Ah, middle school girls... Lin insists that she's fine, it doesn't bother her that this girl is being mean. When we talked about the "stupid" comment, Lin said it was okay because she knows she's smart. You sure are, my smart beautiful daughter!

Dave had an interesting conversation with Lin the other night, about money. It started with Lin asking about adoption, and whether Chinese families ever come to America to adopt American children. Then she started asking about the money involved in adoption. Dave quickly got the impression that Lin was essentially asking how much she "cost." Of course, Dave assured her that we did not pay for her. Yes, we bought plane tickets, yes we paid for our hotel stay. And yes, we gave the orphanage money. But Dave told her the money to the orphanage was for all the care they had given Lin for the last 10 years, and for all the children still there. Then Lin started talking about things we have bought for her since we've been home, like her iP*d and the tennis lessons. She began apologizing, saying that we've spent so much money on her but then sometimes she does something that makes us mad. Poor girl has so much on her mind!

Well, I called our social worker yesterday, just to talk about both the school situation and the money conversation, and how we should be handling them. She pointed out two things that caught her attention -- Lin's comment about how she knows she's smart and so it doesn't matter to her if kids are mean, and Lin worrying about us spending too much money on her. She said that these are exceptionally mature thoughts for Lin to have, and that it indicates that Lin had to be very self-sufficient, self-reliant, in the orphanage. She served as her own parent, telling everyone else "Don't worry about me, I'm doing just fine on my own."

And how many times have I said "She's doing great! She's so happy and well-adjusted! It's amazing!" And not to say that she's not any of these things, because she certainly is a very happy, wonderful girl! But maybe, just maybe, she is hurting and worrying. Maybe she's putting on a brave face -- "everything's fine, don't worry about me" -- to protect herself. How do we teach her that she doesn't need to take care of herself anymore?

Lots to think about...