I love when I open the door for questions. It always ends up making me think of topics I probably wouldn’t have thought to write about otherwise. Here is the first:
Hermia asks:
I’m studying to be a school counselor. Today in my class we discussed a journal article studying delays in children adopted in the late 80s and early 90s from Romania. We talked about some of the ways children may be affected by early life in an institution and supports that might be helpful. It made me wonder — what would you want a school counselor to do to support L and your family during L’s elementary school years? Do you forsee anything coming up for L or your family?
Given our recent experience with ignorance coming fromthe OT at L’s school, my first impluse would be to say I don’t want ANY help from L’s school. I suspect there is no one at school who knowledgeable enough about adoption issues (e.g. health/mental health related to post-institutionalization and trauma, attachment or issues relating to transracial/transcultural adoption) to be meddling in our business or who could be of much help to us at all.
When I can dial back the know-it-allness and defensiveness, though, there are some little things that could make a big difference for adopted kids. It would be awesome if someone did some adoption sensitivity training with teachers. Maybe they would stop doing the stupid ubiquitous family tree project that our school and many others still do, if someone pointed 0ut how distressing it can be for some adopted kids or kids with non-typical family backgrounds.
I also would like to make sure that people at school don’t perpetuate the dumb adoption fairy tale that is so prevalent in our culture. L probably wasn’t abandoned because her parents “loved her so much” they were sending her off to safety like baby Moses. She wasn’t saved from a terrible orphanage by rich and benevolent adoptive parents like Little Orphan Annie. Like most adopted kids (as well as many kids in non-nuclear families) L’s story is complicated and there is no happy ending. If her teachers don’t understand and respect this, I would rather they not talk about adoption at all.
From our very little bit of experience, I also think that school professionals (like most of the general public) can be woefully uninformed about issues related to post-institutionalization. Learning disabilities, sensory issues, attachment issues, and trauma histories that are common in adopted kids and can obviously impact a child’s experience in the classroom.
In our attempts to figure out what kind of school services would benefit L, I have been forced to repeatedly point out that her issues are likely the result of spending a year in an orphanage and the lack of one-on-one care she probably received. Over and over, these supposedly well-educated professionals seem surprised that I would think there would be any long-term effects because L was still little when she was adopted.
(I mean, seriously? Didn’t these people have to study child development to get an education degree?)
The trick, though, is helping people understand those issues without invoking the “oh, the poor neglected baby!” reflex. I have heard this from medical and educational professionals when I have shared information about the delays L had when she first joined our family. L isn’t a poor baby, she is a survivor. I am not sharing her history with them for sympathy, I am giving them pieces of L’s puzzle. They need to know these things so they can understand she missed out on some early experiences and needs our help filling in the gaps in her development.
It isn’t really fair for me to expect the people at school to be adoption experts, but I wish they were. I don’t really know how you could fix those things as a school counselor. It seems like a pretty tall order.
oh I am SO with you on this. abolish the stupid family tree. also the bring the baby picture one (unless you make a point to ask to bring non-new-born pictures). the total lack of understanding by teachers of long-term effects is staggering. yes, 1 year or 14 months in an orphanage leaves a mark!!! Duh!
Amen. To everything you said. Amen. I’d also add that I’d like school professionals to bring more “diverse families” into the school curriculum. It’s not enough to simply talk about it one or two days a year or to can the dreaded family tree project. They should weave it into everything, so that children living in non-traditional homes feel “normal.” This applies to so many, not simply children who were adopted.
I’ve known way too many people who went into education as a profession because they loved kids, which is great and all but doesn’t encourage them toward academic rigor or a nuanced understanding beyond “Oh, the poor little baby!” This isn’t really a response to what you wrote, but I guess I’ve been expecting the worst from our local schools but also making connections to people there who are open and trainable, if that’s a fair way to look at it. Sorry that this is unfair to a lot of the people doing good work; I just wish they were the standard.
When we get rid of the family tree project, let’s also get rid of the “bingo” game where you find classmates who share commonalities (find someone who has the same pet, find someone who has the same eye color) or at least get rid of the square that says “find someone with the same number of siblings.” Twice my daughter has been the sole only child in her classroom. I can’t even imagine how a kid with unknown siblings would feel.
Greeeeaaat. Now I have that dumb game to look forward to too. Seriously, don’t any of these teachers have enough imagination to think about how these things might make kids feel??
I want more culture added into schools and I want history classes to actually teach real history and real culture. Don’t gloss over other cultures…dive into them.
Completely agree. Here in SF, the professionals do agree that the reason Sam is delayed is because of his 7 months in the orphanage, BUT then they go, “he’ll be fine, he just needs to catch up” rather than come up with some way to help us.
EK starts Kinder in Aug. do you recommend we meet with the teacher to “prep” her on EK’s adoption related issues (they are there but not always obvious to others- nothing IEP worthy but there are situations that cause her stress and can set back any progress we’ve made in the last 2 years)…….or should we wait for something to come up and then address it with the teacher. EK was 2 when she came home- she was in an orphanage the entire time- she has some (understandably) abandenment issues……we are working on them but I’m afraid telling the teacher too soon will single EK out but then again, I’m afraid waiting for something to pop up will make the teacher think we are using it as an excuse………I’m dreading the first time she gets called on to recite something to the class or the first “play”…..she does not do well at all in these situations and crawls inside of herself…..
L is really little, so I don’t know that I am qualified to give advice. I can only tell you what I decided at the beginning of preschool:
I sent in a short note explaining that L was adopted and describing a few related issues that might come up in a school setting. I tried to be careful not to pathologize her adoption, but I wanted to make sure the teachers were prepared. I also briefly explained what we tell L about her adoption and how we refer to her birth family. I asked that if they planned to discuss adoption with L or her class that they contact me first.
It’s so great to see adoptive parents coming forward and educating teachers on how not to disenfranchise their children.
Family trees as school “assignments” are ridiculous and do not belong in our public schools.
I had school board members yelling at me last year when I asked for an alternative assignment for my son. (I’m adopted.) One board member (who adopted 2 girls from China) said that his daughter’s biological parents were “erased”.
This is an honest question: why is the family tree assignment so awful? Or the other ones that are mentioned? As you say, there are lots of kids, not just adopted ones, that have nontraditional family situations — multiple moms, dads, grandparents raising them, foster care, whatever. Couldn’t the family tree assignment be an opportunity to talk about complications, spaces, and unknowns (we all have them, no matter how traditional our family is or how avid a genealogist we are)?
Also — my daughter just got an American Girl Bitty Baby doll as a gift. It came with a booklet where she was supposed to write down the day, date, and time of her own birth, then those of her “baby”. Well, we don’t know the time of her birth. We are educatedly guessing the day. Will this upset her? Should we petition AG not to publish this booklet? Or do I use it as a(nother) way to talk to my daughter? I’m seriously asking.
The family tree can be uncomfortable for anyone who has a “non-standard” family tree, and it can also reveal things that the family might not be ready to reveal yet (either to the child, or to others). Grade school might be too early to address some things.
On a related note, I had a journalism teacher who used to instruct her students to practice researching by doing some research on themselves (this was before the Internets), including their date/time/place of birth. She abandoned this assignment after one of her students looked up his birth certificate and discovered that the person he thought was his sister was actually his mother.
Hi Jenny…
As an adult adoptee I can tell you straight up that these “opportunities to talk about complications” occur so frequently throughout an adopted person’s life. They don’t need to be thrown into a 7 year old’s face and assigned as homework.
Family trees are genealogical projects. If a child doesn’t have the information because it is SEALED or they are in a CLOSED ADOPTION, it is CRUEL to subject him/her to it.
If a family wants to do a family tree assignment outside of school, that’s a personal family decision. Family dynamics are NOT public business.
Mara, thank you. Keeping the complications private makes sense to me.
This yahoo group is a great resource for PAPs and teachers-
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChinaParentTeachers/
Although it focuses on educating schools about international adoption there is plenty in the links section that pertain to domestic adoption as well. You do not have to be a member to access the wealth of resources in the links section.
I love this post. The only people I’ve talked to who understand about my daughter are other parents of adoptees, and the International Adoption Clinic folks–the ones at our state’s clinic (in Birmingham, AL) are mostly parents of international adoptees. They have helped us so much.
As for dopey comments at school, we homeschool so I avoid most of that (but hear it from my relatives, church chums and homeschool parents we associate with). I have to ignore some of it, because talking to them does not change minds (I’m thinking my family–my parents and siblings who tend to be the worst). I just have to do for my DD what is best for her and ignore those who think they know best.
If someone asked me what the school counselor could do, I would say – ASK QUESTIONS! Have a conversation with me and other adoptive parents. I get frustrated when professionals feel they have to pretend knowledgeable about all things and end up mucking it up rather than admit that they don’t know. I will happily have a conversation with the school counselor to share my thoughts about my daughter’s adoption and my thoughts on adopted children in general but so many spent 20 minutes on it in grad school and therefore feel they understand.