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Old 09-11-2006, 06:43 AM
Hadley2 Hadley2 is offline
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Blessings to you for trying to be so respectful of such a young person. Of course her feelings are valid and should be respected, and as the adult you can be a tremendous help to her in sorting out where they're really coming from and how dealing effectively with them would look in real life.

Maybe younger J really does have a highly developed sense of culture and race and a mature understanding of what it means to her core sense of self, etc. OTOH...

I have a hunch that younger J is simply moving through the grief, acceptance and integration (no pun intended) process much more slowly than her sister, now feels frightened and angry by the fact that sister is becoming "them" (one of the family) and she hasn't. She may actually feel terrified of being "left behind" emotionally outside the family circle and is putting herself in control of that by detaching from her sister and your family through acting out--she is also achieving confirmation of her self-image as bad, unlikable and unlovable.

In short, it sounds like classic attachment disorder behavior and that deep down, she may desperately want to belong in the way she sees her sister belonging.

When she says she wants to go to an AA family, she may have the belief that everything would be different because of race. Maybe there would be a difference, but I suspect that she would find that she had carried the real problem within herself to the new place and had lost her sister in the bargain.
Kids can be pretty good at showing us what they want and need, but their intellectual ability to recognize the real underlying issue, identify it and articulate it is not always good or reliable. She knows she is missing something, but she hasn't read Lazlow's hierarchy of needs so she jumps to an easy and obvious conclusion that it is based in race. Maybe it is, I wouldn't want to discount that, but the fact that her twin has come into the fold so well tells a little against it.

Have the girls been getting real attachment therapy? Have you and your family been directly involved in the therapy sessions? Have you engaged in attachment techniques at home (some of which, like feeding her, may seem silly, but really do advance and deepen attachment)?

They just haven't really been with you very long. If it were me, before breaking a twinship, I'd affirm her feelings while leaving out judment of her facts/conclusions (active listening--"I get the feeling you feel left out" "It sounds as if you miss feeling like you belong," etc.), and let her know that as time goes by, everyone involved respect her feelings and take them into consideration. In the meantime, seek out attachment help, schedule one-on-one time with her--simple things like cooking or gardening together, a quick card or board game, maybe go bowling or to a special place for an afternoon dessert, etc., and also find integrated and AA activities.

Immediate relief from the kind of acting out you describe in our house has taken the form of me taking the child away from the others in a time-in. We often use our porch, fresh air, bubble-blowing or kicking a ball, something physical, then holding and talking. At 9, your young J is still just young enough to work in holding her on your lap, singing softly, etc.

Taking a car ride with preteens and teens sometimes works well as you can get in a lot of talk time without the intimidation of face-to-face interaction and eye contact. Of course, you wouldn't say, "let's go for a ride and talk," you'd have to suddenly have an errand to run....

Good luck, it sounds as if you are a sensitive and caring person and will find a path that brings good things to these girls.
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