Dear Teacher: Six Dreaded Assignments

Every year, without fail, one of my kids will come home from school upset because they've been given one of six, always-upsetting, school assignments.  The assignments are usually given by language arts, social studies, and science teachers.  Each of the six assignments can vary, depending upon the grade level to which they’re assigned.  However, all six involve painful topics for a lot of adopted children (not to mention kids in foster care, kids who’ve experienced a traumatic event such as a fire or tornado that destroyed their home and all their possessions, children being cared for by someone other than their parent, etc.)

Dear teacher, if you absolutely MUST incorporate the following projects into your curriculum, would you take the time to read why these assignments are a challenge for my children, and so many other children in your classroom now, or in the years to come?  I’ll start with the one our family has most recently worked through together, and conclude with the most dreaded assignment of them all.

DNA – Genetic Traits:  This is the assignment usually given by middle school science teachers and high school biology teachers.  The student’s task is to chart or write about a genetic trait or traits that run in that students’ family.  The assignment is designed to give the student personal experience in studying how genetic traits are passed through generations.  The challenge with this assignment for kids who were adopted is it often raises questions which cannot be answered for the adoptee.  Some teachers mistakenly think by framing the assignment so students can chart a genetic trait in their adoptive families, it makes the assignment okay.  The fact is, this can make it much more painful, and can be a very real trauma trigger for the child. 

Suggested Alternatives for the ENTIRE Class:  Study genetic traits in various people groups.  For example, why do people of Celtic heritage often have red hair and/or green eyes?  Or look at historical examples such as inherited diseases in the royal families of Europe?  (I suggest alternative projects be given to the entire class so as not to single out the child unable to trace their genetic heritage, or for whom it would be painful to do so.)

The Family Tree:  My kids HATE this assignment.  It sends each of them reeling whenever they get it, no matter how benignly the teacher believes they’ve framed the project.  This assignment usually involves either drawing a tree with branches (and sometime roots if the teacher is trying to accommodate kids) or drawing a chart with family names and relationships defined as they relate to the student.  The assignment is designed to illustrate family relationships.  Sometimes, it can be part of a “getting to know you” assignment, as it was in my son's 9^th grade English class this year.  This assignment is a challenge because even when it does accommodate birth and adoptive or step families, it can involve very painful memories for the student and make him feel as though he’s being forced to reveal parts of his history he would rather not share.  Even when the teacher tells him he need not share all of his history, he is conflicted because he feels he is denying a part of who he is – or is being unfaithful to a part of his family.  As my children have gotten older, the feelings associated with this assignment become more complicated and more painful.

Suggested Alternatives for the ENTIRE Class:  Have students create a forest of trees or a neighborhood of houses, showing all the close relationships in their lives.  The trees could include friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, clergy, and family.  If the assignment is geared more toward biology, trace the tree of a historical figure, or even of the teacher, and make it a classroom assignment.  There are plenty of genealogical resources available online.  Most public libraries also have a genealogy room.

Student of the Week:  This assignment is usually only given to elementary school students.  However, my daughter’s 6^th grade English teacher did a variation of this assignment with her class.  The assignment involves students taking turns each week to be the “star” student of the week.  They design a poster (in my daughter’s English class, they used paper bags), and then add things to the poster such as pictures of the student growing up, family pictures, and the student’s story.  The goal of the assignment is to help students know one another and give each child a leadership opportunity in the classroom.  This is a challenge for many adopted kids, and especially traumatized adopted kids, because the subject of their adoption is often brought up when they would rather it not be.  Not all kids are comfortable sharing their adoption with fellow students.  For traumatized kids, the classroom is not a safe place to process the big feelings surrounding their adoption and they cannot separate their past trauma from their adoption story.

Suggested Alternative for the ENITRE Class:  Have students use current pictures of themselves and of their favorite things, such as pets and activities.  Let the star of the week write about their favorite color, food, subject in school, favorite activity, etc.  Focus on the present.  Students are interested in their classmates and what they’re about NOW.

Exploring Our Heritage:  This assignment usually involves making a map, drawing a flag, or doing a presentation on the student’s country or culture of origin.  This assignment happens throughout grades K-12.  The goal of the assignment is to have students learn about various cultures.  This assignment can be a challenge for adopted students in several ways.  For my kids, the only “culture” they remember experiencing in their birth country was a culture of alcoholism and abuse.  While they are curious about their birth country, its history, its government, and its people, they do not want to process that curiosity in the classroom.  They are much more comfortable processing it in pieces, as they direct, at home.  Other students may want to share their country’s culture, but because they do not share that culture with their adoptive family, they are uncomfortable with the inevitable questions about the differences between themselves and their adoptive family.  Others may rather talk about their adoptive family’s culture.  There’s just not an easy answer.  Each student will react differently to this assignment.

Suggested Alternative for the ENTIRE Class:  Have students choose a culture of interest to them to research, rather than one related to their family.

The Life Timeline:  This is another assignment my children hate.  The assignment involves having the student create a timeline of events from their birth to the present.  Timelines incorporate both personal life events and historical events.  The goal of the assignment is to chart historical events on a timeline and show the student’s relationship to history.  This assignment is a challenge for adopted kids because they may be unsure of the time, location, or even the date of their actual birth.  My daughter wondered if she needed to include painful details such as when she entered the orphanage, when she last saw her birth mother, etc.  Adopted children are often confused about what personal information they should and should not include in their timelines. 

Suggested Alternative for the ENTIRE Class:  Do not specify that the timeline begin with the child’s birth.  Allow for open ended time frames such as, “past and present.”  Create a timeline for a historic figure, or perhaps, for the teacher.

The (Dreaded) Baby Picture Assignment:  This assignment is by far the most painful for my kids, and one I find the most cruel.  Teachers ask students to bring in baby pictures, which are usually posted anonymously, and students are challenged to guess who is who.  This assignment is also part of a lot of graduation programs and celebrations.  (Do I really need to say why this is a challenge?)  My kids came home at ages nine and twelve.  We have no baby pictures.  We have very few pictures of them before their adoption, and those pictures are of them in situations we do not share publicly.  My “baby” pictures of my two youngest kids are of them at the age of their adoption.   Not all adopted kids were adopted at birth.  Most are adopted as "older" children.  For some kids, the race or physical feature of a child may make them stand out from most of the other children. 

Suggested Alternative for the ENTIRE Class:  Have children bring in pictures of “when they were younger,” or perhaps a current picture of themselves, disguised by a costume.  Younger children can draw pictures of themselves “when they were younger.”  (Again, my most honest suggested alternative would be to ban this assignment all together.)

Dear teacher, you can find additional resources regarding school assignments and the adopted child in your classroom by visiting two of my favorite websites:    

http://adoptivefamilies.com/school

or

http://www.adoptionarticlesdirectory.com/Category/School-issues/89

Groundhogs and Crystal Balls

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could stand around in the cold, waiting for some old guy in a top hat to hold up a fat groundhog named Phil, and find out what the next six weeks would bring for our kids?  Or look into a crystal ball and see what the next six years might be like?  Maybe we could be better prepared.  Maybe we could hold onto hope a little bit easier on those days when hope seems so elusive. 

Well, for what it’s worth, Happy Groundhog’s Day.

Everyone has pain or trouble at some point in their lives.  While some people are very private and stoic about their pain, we all just want a little reassurance during those times.  We all just want someone to say, “I know it’s tough right now.”  So why do so many of us think we’re building someone else up by telling them hurtful things, while we lie to ourselves thinking that we’re helping?

My intent for this blog is to share our family’s struggles and joys as we continue to raise two kids who come from a painful past.  My intent is to share our therapeutic parenting successes as well as our failures – or maybe our “learning experiences.”  I’ve mentioned I cannot hide my faith as I write, but I do not usually make it a practice to “preach” here.  Fair warning:  Today may sound a little more like preaching than sharing.  I’m a little tired of certain people beating down other certain people, while they tell themselves they’re “being helpful” or “telling the truth.”  I’m a little tired of certain people not giving a thought to someone else’s feelings, but thinking very highly of themselves and how much more spiritually enlightened they are over others.

³ A bruised reed he will not break, 
   and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. 
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; 
 ⁴ he will not falter or be discouraged 
till he establishes justice on earth. 
   In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”

-- Isaiah 42:3-4

Ignoring someone’s pain and telling them they need to do this or that, or much worse, telling them they’re “giving into Satan and the world’s lies” only causes the pain to become deeper.  The very unloving trend to “tell the truth in love” is anything but, and certainly nothing like Jesus’ dealings with people.  Indeed, it is far more Pharisee than Christ-like.  Before Jesus gives the following instruction in the last verses of Matthew 6, He instructs his followers to give to the needy, to pray simply (and not go on and on), to fast, and to store up treasures in Heaven.  Right after this, in Matthew 7, He tells His followers not to judge others.

What if the Church dropped its anger, its resentment, and its holier-than-thou “instruction?” What if it were more ready to counsel hurt people with Isaiah 42:3-4?  What if we stopped assuming we know everything there is to know – or at least more than the next guy?  What if WE placed our own worries for each other into His hands?  What if we mourned with those who mourn, and sought Him for the comfort He promises?  What if we offered grace long before we offered any instruction?  Would the one we sought to comfort, or to teach, trust us more?  Would they allow us into their pain?  Would we be in a much better, and much more servitude position, so that we could offer the assurance Christ gives in Matthew 6?

  ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

   ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.   – Matthew 6:25-34

Could we be in a better position to help our kids just for today, even if we cannot see six weeks into the future?

Mental Health Day

Things have been rough at school for The Princess this week.  I wrote yesterday about “Frenemies.”  If you need to catch up on things, read that post first.

The Princess and I had therapy this morning.  If you’ve been reading, you also know she’s refused to participate in therapy the last couple of times.  Today, she worked.  It was hard.  Really.  Really.  HARD.  But she did it.  When we got out to the car, I asked her if she was okay.  She wasn’t really.  I asked her if she wanted to stay home from school today.  Usually, that question would get a, “Um, NO!” answer.  She loves school.  Today, a wash of relief came over her face, and her body, and she enthusiastically said, “YES!”

We ran an errand.  (I’m going to be teaching a parenting class at our county jail and we’re doing the initial set up of that.)

We went out to breakfast.  I hadn’t eaten.  She had cereal, but she could eat again.  We’re skipping lunch since we had the late breakfast.  She talked some more about the girl who’s been hurting her.  We talked about some things she could do.  I reminded her she agreed with me yesterday that if something else happened, I was intervening and calling the counselor at school.  She is ready for me to do that.

Right now, she’s watching a movie – just a few feet away from me.  We’re taking a mental health day.  This is a good thing.  Besides, I had tummy trouble last night and I shouldn’t have eaten breakfast at a diner this morning.  ‘Nough said.

I have never taken a day off with The Princess to just stay home before.  She’s never needed it.  She did today.