I’m SO sorry to hear you’ve had rude responses at AF Circle.  That certainly doesn’t seem to be the overall spirit of these groups, but I hope it doesn’t happen to you again, and I hope you will not leave!

As for your question about your extra-helpful child, we also had one of these!  We’ve dealt with it fairly successfully by making sure all the children have chores, and making sure they do them.  And when our ‘Helper’ daughter (adopted at age 10 from US foster care) would try to step in, we would remind her that THAT chore belonged to someone else.  We would also steer her toward playtime—recognizing that sometimes her helpful nature would have her prefer to help than to get involved in creative play—or urge her to curl up on the couch with a good book for an hour.

We adopted our 9 and 13 year olds last fall from China as well.  They have always been “helpful” (in the beginning so “helpful” it was annoying!!).  Now that we are able to communicate with our oldest very well, he talks about his culture and life before us quite a bit.

In his area the children “take care of” the parents.  Even if the parents are considered “young”, the children do things for the parents to make the parents’ lives easier.  For our son it included everything including child care of younger children.

Needless to say it quickly turned into a not so good problem for us once we got them home since they have younger siblings here now as well.  I didn’t appreciate a 13 year old’s attempts at child rearing our children

I totally agree with VintageMom.  That is what we have done as well.  I think it’s important to make them realize they are a kid and here all of the responsibilities do not fall on them.  Our kids are just now getting to where they will play or read or draw instead of jumping in to do something for me that I don’t necessarily need (or want!) help with.  I have had to set really strict boundaries with what is off limits to them as far as household jobs.  Again, I do not know if this is region specific or culturally as a whole.  It’s just our experience.

We’ve also learned that this taking on of responsibility is especially true with our daughter.  So I don’t know if that is also a female thing with girls from her area.

Definitely take steps to help your daughter to lighten up and enjoy her down time while still giving her some responsibility so she feels important and needed

PS-I have gotten slammed on this forum before, too, and I didn’t appreciate it.  I think everyone has the right to be heard whether people agree with you or can relate to you or not.  It’s called respect

I think your post is great and really I think this is an adoptee trait and most likely also cultural and how she was raised to this point.

I know as an adoptee I am always worried about being given back or abandoned again and from where I sit it looks like she is eager to please.
Good for you for wanting to figure this out and help her adjust in a healthy way.

Some children are told that they have to be “helpful and good” or they will be sent away from the adoptive family. Hopefully eventually you will find out what is driving her.
Culturally she has no idea what being a child in the USA means so you might want to be directive. Like I would like you to go outside and play. It would make me happy.
You might look at her play skills. She might feel more success doing chores than playing. She might not really have good ones so she might not know what to do. Play with her. Show her.
The desire to be perfect in the family can eventually be a big problem> Since no one is perfect eventually she will fail and be miserable. When you make a mistake (spill something forget the milk) point it out. I am not perfect and I am still in the family. I just need to fix it.
It is still early days. She hasn’t been with you for long.

Such good points, Regina!  I also think it is important to point out our mistakes as parents…  and show how to fix things, say ‘sorry,’ or whatever.  Also:  we often need to teach our children how to play, if creative, imaginative play was not a part of their early years.  I would often use dolls and blocks and little animals, etc., and get a story started… and then leave the child to finish the story.  Eventually our kids started stories on their own!

Here’s a wonderful article by Kathryn Reiss about helping her daughters (adopted at older ages via foster care) learn to play—instead of offering to help!

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=1217

It is part of a six part series of articles on the adjustment of her older adopted children…quite wonderful.

WOW, wonderful, thoughtful responses, everyone! Thank you so much for showing us some different angles that might be going on in our sweet daughter’s “extra” helpfulness, and providing some great ideas for guiding her through this time. She is a wonderful, amazing, sweet-spirited little girl.

We have also experienced bringing children into our home whose problems were far, far bigger than being “too helpful” —helpfulness is definitely a “good” problem to have—but we want to be sure that this one adjusts well and doesn’t feel like she has to earn her way into our hearts.

Thank you again, everyone, for such KIND and thoughtful responses. Much appreciated!

It could be that your child was conditioned to help prior to adoption. Possibly her caretakers may have either given her material things as rewards or possibly emotional rewards (a hug, a smile, attention).

I had a similar “problem” with my adopted girl. She was only 5 but would beg to help at every chance. She still does, three years later.

I am not sure how she ended up like this but would not be surprised if I learned she would get candy for every time she helps. So today even though she knows she won’t get candy she has already been conditioned to help.

It’s very easy to condition young children to do something. I’ve managed to condition them to make their beds every morning by rewarding them with a quarter at the end of a week when they did it every day. It’s been two years since I paid that quarter but they are still making their beds.

As for how to “undo” this problem - we just hired maids and told the kids that there was no need to clean the house “the maids will do it.” We did this for the first year before we reintroduced chores into their daily lives again.

On some occasions we reverted to saying “yes, you can help me! Why don’t you sit and work on your workbook or read a book while I clean.” or “help me by going outside to play.” or “help me by playing a game board quietly.” We did need to explain why these activities would be far bigger help to us. We told them the more they work on their brains and health, the less money and time it will cost us in future. In different words so they understood the gist of it.

Try rewarding your helpful child for doing something different than helping you. A reward could be 5 extra minutes to watch TV, or 5 extra minutes on a Nintendo or anything that you come up with.

Good luck to you! And may all your “problems” be as simple to resolve.