17 year-old adopted daughter

[MARLENE]

Dr. Bradley: in my previous message I said that my daughter was living most of the summer with her birth family. They told her that she was being too obsessed with them and they were not going to have her spend her senior year living with them each weekend, as she had done during her Junior year. She came home Sunday morning very angry at me. She blamed me for the fact that she was allowed only one weekend a month. She cried, yelled and was stressed out all day, a hairtrigger away from further drama. After an argument in the evening where she continued to blame me for all that had gone wrong in her life, she told me she wanted all her weekends at their house. I told her that was not going to happen. I did not explain it well, but I told her it was for her own good; she needed to grow up, get a life, concentrate on enjoying her senior year, make friends etc.. Everything I said was a direct quote from what her birth mother also said to her (we are very close and talk regularly). She walked out on me before I could say that it was not our decision, but theirs. Since that time, however, she has been civil but not warm, loving or even a part of the family. She treats me like I own the house but she is just temporary student living there until she graduates. She does her chores, and does not pout. She calls her birth mother every day to talk so that is a stress reliever. But she does not talk to me unless it has to do with school, or something she needs. No love, no appreciation, no attempt to be part of the family. She made it clear her family is them, not us. It hurts. She has readily agreed to see her teen therapist, so I will be setting up 8 visits. My question: is there anything else I can do (or should NOT do) to get through this and arrive at graduation with a reasonably functioning adult? I know she plans to move out when she graduates. I only want her to do it on friendly terms, heading for college. Can you help with suggestions? Encouragement? Has anyone else had this problem of rejection?

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Marlene,
That must be terribly painful for you, to feel that level of rejection from your daughter. Here are a few thoughts to possibly lessen the hurt a bit.
First, please do not put too much stock in the "real family" vs. "adoptive family" issue she is putting out. I could name ten non-adoptive kids who at this very moment are cruelly rejecting their parents on other issues. In other words, your daughter might be searching for some "problem" to justify an innate need to reject and move away from you for awhile.
Second, the fact that she's agreed to see the shrink is wonderful. That gets a "lifeguard" into the equation who might help your girl sort this stuff out.
Third, most of us "lose" our kids to some degree for awhile, but if we can stay loving and calm, and not take their behavior personally (easy to say and hard to do), these kids almost always come back. And when they do they usually hold a sheepish admiration for how well we withstood their cold rejection.
Keep playing for the long-term relationship with your daughter. You likely have decades of closeness yet to come, and these terribly painful times will then look like a minor bump in the road.
Hang in there!