Talking Adoption

At my son's preschool they have "Message Basket Time" where each child brings in something to show to the class. Last week Small Sun took a much-loved Hot Wheels car that his birth sister gave to him during our trip to The States. He was very excited to show it to his class and tell them that his birth-sister gave it to him.

During our regular chat on the way home from preschool I was hearing all about his day. He told me that in the morning, before message basket time, he showed his car to his mates and explained who it was from. He told me that his mates said "that's a strange story, you shouldn't say that at message basket time, we don't want to hear you talk about that again!" or something to that effect.

I asked, "do you think you friends know what a birth-sister is?" He said they don't and that they didn't want to hear about it. I asked him if he would like for me to come to his class and explain what a birth family is so that his friends would understand what he was talking about. He jumped at the idea and was really excited.

He wasn't particularly upset about the reaction from his friends, and I'm glad for that. It seems like a great opportunity for me to share with the class. I've been checking in with his (fabulous!) teachers ever since he started there a year and a half ago, to see if his adoptee status is alienating him from his peers but honestly, it hasn't really come up. I think they are finally getting old enough that it might be more relevant.

Today I talked to his teachers again at our parent-teacher meeting and they loved the idea of me sharing with the class. Unfortunately, adoption is so difficult in Australia, there are not many adoptive families around so very few children have personal experiences to draw on. I really want to present adoption in such a way that it normalizes it for the children, even if they don't have many examples of adoptive families to look to. 

I'm downloading resources from Adoptive Families Magazine and I'd love to hear any suggestions. Next year we'll be in "big school" and so I am really wanting to prepare to be a resource there as well. I am so thankful for amazing teachers and a super-open environment full of kind children and parents. It makes a somewhat nervous situation (public speaking to children!) a little less terrifying! 

Comments

[Tonggu Momma]

One of the things I found most helpful, at the beginning of the year, was to write a letter sharing with the teacher that our family was formed through adoption, and that I would be sharing resources throughout the year about that topic, as the subject came up. I found it really helpful to start the year this way... because when two things did crop up later in the year, it wasn't the first time we had "talked adoption" with the teacher. That helped to avoid defensiveness during subsequent conversations, including one that involved conflict.

One other thing I did was donate a few books to the school library about adoption, just so that they would have the titles and to make the school administration more aware of the topic, and that the topic was important to our family. I wrote a post about the titles I chose, if you are interested.