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

UPDATED! - Fact Sheets for the Classroom

Educating teachers about PTSD, RAD, ADHD/ADD, FASD/FAE, PDD, anxiety, depression, and even Aspergers is a chore each year for me.  It is a necessary chore, however.  Unfortunately, our teachers are overworked and underpaid and frankly, clueless about what it REALLY means to deal with all these things, or how to best educate a child with complex trauma.  (Let's face it, we were all clueless, too until we had to deal with it face-to-face ourselves.)

I wish I'd found these Fact Sheets back in 2007.  They are posted on the Kansas State Department of Education website and are designed to give teachers an overview of the challenges our kids face every single day.  They are not comprehensive, but they provide the basics.  (Besides, I've learned most teachers don't bother reading much of the information given to them even by their own administrators.  Even if they WANTED to, there just aren't enough hours in the day to read everything they're told is "essential.")  

I've developed a lot of presentations and materials of my own through the years and I promise to share more of those over time on the blog.  But my best piece of advice for communicating your child's needs to his or her teachers is to develop a relationship with them.  Be prepared to advocate (a.k.a. "fight") when you need to, but work with your child's teacher to show them you appreciate their professionalism.  Hopefully, they in turn will respect your expertise as a therapeutic parent, raising a hurt child.  

Do not expect a teacher to work like a therapist.  Their job is to educate your child.  Give them tools that support them in their job, even as you ask them to support your job as a therapeutic parent.  Hopefully, they'll appreciate your efforts to make their job easier, and thus make your job easier by avoiding those triggers which set your kids off on behaviors most teachers never get to see.

     *Attention Deficit/Hyper-activity Disorder - ADHD/ADD

     *Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD

     *Reactive Attachment Disorder - RAD

     *Anxiety

     *Depression

     *Pervasive Development Disorders - PDD

     *Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder - FASD/FAE

     *Asperger Syndrome

Additional resources for the classroom here:  Child Mental Health Resources

Letting Sleeping Teenagers Lie

My two youngest are home from school today.  It’s Martin Luther King Day.  Our school district gives the kids the day off and makes the staff work.  (Yeah, I don’t get that, either.)  Anyway, Youngest Son and Princess are still in bed.  It’s 10:15 as I type this sentence.  They probably should be up, or at least moving.  However, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet.  He’s not barking orders at her.  She’s not bouncing off the walls.  I may have to pay for this quiet later, but for now, I like it.  I like it a lot.

There’s been a lot of trauma-related stuff going on with my kids the last few months.  The holidays are always hard, as I’ve written before.  It starts with Halloween (literally the holiday from hell around here) and builds to a crescendo in January – the anniversary month for a major traumatic event in my kids’ lives.  Every year, the reactions in each kid have been a bit different.  This year, their 5^th January home, their reactions seem more introspective, even if they are still sometimes acting out. 

For example, we live near the campus of a former American orphanage.  It is now a children’s home for foster kids who are hard to place into private foster homes.  It’s a beautiful campus.  There aren’t a lot of kids there anymore, but there are still some.  They are kids with significant behavioral challenges.  My kids call it “The Bad Boys Home.”  (I cannot get them to stop calling it that.  I’ve given up trying.  Girls live there, too, by the way.)  Anyway, my daughter and I drove by the campus on the way home from school the other day and she asked, “Why is ‘The Bad Boys Home’ so nice?”  I had to think for a moment what it was she was really asking.  After I paused, I answered her question with another question.  “Princess, are you thinking about your orphanage and about [birth country]?” 

BINGO!  Survivor’s guilt.  Things were nicer in America.  “Why is it so much nicer?”  Even in America, the orphanages were better maintained.  “Why are these buildings so nice when my orphanage was in such disrepair?”

What answers can you give a child who wonders at our middle-middle class American abundance?  How do you handle the irony, when just that morning, she was complaining about how we didn’t have the resources to do things or have some of the possessions some of her friends have?  Frankly, I didn’t answer her questions.  (On one level, I didn’t want to go there.  On another, I knew it wasn’t about what she seemed to be asking.)  I asked more questions instead.

“Princess, are you thinking about the people you left behind in [country] when you came to America?”  (Yes.)  “Are you thinking about some very specific people?”  (Yes.)  “It sounds like you’re thinking about your friends at the orphanage, but are you also thinking about [birthmom]?”  (Yes.  And OH, YES!)  This opened the door for more questions.  “Why did she do this?”  “Why did that have to happen?”  “Why did I have to go into an orphanage?”  “Why didn’t she come see me?”  “Why didn’t she come GET me?”  “What is she doing now?”  “Does she know where I am?”  “Does she think about me?”  “Do I matter to her?” 

These are questions our kids have.  We can’t ignore it.  We can’t take it personally.  We need to put ourselves in their shoes and acknowledge their loss – and their survivor’s guilt.  We can reassure.  We can love.  It won’t take the questions away.  They remain and the questions are sleeping dogs we cannot let lie, lest they wake with a vengeance.  We won’t always have definitive answers to the questions, but we can listen and acknowledge them.  It’s okay to let our kids know we wonder, too.

-----------------------

It’s not quite 11 a.m.  I think I’ll let the sleeping teenagers lie a while longer.  I do enjoy the quiet.

About Grief and Loss in Adoption

My mother died ten years ago today.  I am surprised at the intensity with which this anniversary has affected me.  I am very emotional today.  It is different than it was that day ten years ago, but I almost feel more depth of reeling today than I did then.  It seems I had such calculated control back then.  Today, I'm crying at the slightest remembrance.

I remember specific moments from that weekend.  I remember the surreal feeling of driving for two days to get to her hospital bedside.  She knew she was sick for a long time, but she didn’t let any of us know.  She wanted to “go quickly” for our sake, as she wrote in notes I found months after her death.

I remember singing to her.  She was nonverbal by the time I arrived at the hospital.  Still, she responded to my singing, even letting me know she wanted me to STOP singing one particular children’s Sunday School song.  I couldn’t think of songs to sing.  She wanted me to keep singing.  So, I started singing songs she sang to me as a child.  I guess some of those songs were a little obnoxious.

I also remember the deep, labored breathing and the unbelievable amount of time between those last several breaths.  I remember the moment we realized she was gone.  I remember little else until the funeral five days later, when someone (I can’t remember who) said, “They’re waiting for you.”   It was time to place my rose on her casket at the graveside, and walk away.  I remember thinking, “Why do I have to go first?!”  I did what was expected of me and walked quickly away.  I said, “Dammit.”  My mom’s best friend is the only one who came after me.  God, it’s so hard, even now.

Today, I grieve for the relationship, and that she’s not here to see her two newest grandchildren, or meet my first daughter-in-law.  I grieve that she left us at this time of year, and I pray (every year I pray) and ask God to not allow me to leave my kids around the holidays!  I grieve because I live a two days’ drive away from her grave and I cannot place a flower there today.  I grieve because I miss her.  Terribly.

This loss, though difficult, is part of life.  It is hard, but it is expected.  It is not unusual for an adult to have to say, “Until we meet again in Heaven,” to their parent.  This grief is normal.

My kids, on the other hand, have experienced grief beyond that which any child should.  They’ve experienced the grief of losing their biological family.  They’ve experienced the grief of leaving their first county and first language.  They’ve experienced the loss of all they knew.  While it is true that they have gained by being adopted into our family, they have experienced profound loss.  As their parents, we need to acknowledge that loss.  Additionally, we need to understand our own loss in adoption.  We lost the time in our children’s lives before we knew them.  We lost some of the dreams we’ve had, even as we’ve embraced new dreams for our children.  There is grief and loss in adoption.  It is okay to acknowledge this.  It is okay to grieve.  It is important to help our children process and come through grief.

Anniversaries of our children’s losses may be hard on them, just as today is hard on me.  While they may not cognitively remember a date or an event, their sense memory – the part of their brains and their souls that holds their emotions and their spirit, will remember.  Sometimes, it can take them and us by surprise, but we don’t need to be surprised when it happens.  We can expect it.  We should expect it.  That way, we can be ready to comfort one another.

Here are some links to learn more about helping your child (and you) deal with grief and loss in adoption:

 http://www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/adopt_parenting/helping.cfm

http://library.adoption.com/articles/grief-and-loss-issues-for-adopted-children.html

http://www.attachmentcoalition.org/GriefLoss.pdf

http://www.adoptive-parenting.com/adoption-loss.html

Please feel free to share your family’s experience with grief and loss in adoption in the comment section of this post.

New Chapter or New Book?

There’s an old saying.  You know the one  -- something about changes -- about closing one chapter and beginning another.  For me, I think it’s more like beginning an entirely new book.  As I write this first blog post in this new, semi-anonymous blog, I’m ready for a truly new book in my life.  I cannot rewrite the past – not for myself, and certainly not for the hurt kids I’m raising.  Their beginning was too hard.  Too raw.  Too painful.  While my past with them as their adoptive mom is painful as well, there are too many changes from what once was – even from just yesterday.  There are too many things that are no longer true for us.  There are too many dreams I’ve had to let go, but there are also too many things I want in what’s yet to be -- too much life to simply begin a new chapter.  There must be an entirely new book.  Granted, it won’t be a stand-alone edition.  It cannot be.  This new book can only be written because it builds upon what is already published in permanent ink, on stained pages, bound by a hard cover.  The past is past.  My kids’ past is not pretty.  The work we do to help them navigate that past and write the book that is their future is also ugly most of the time.  This is true.  Our future as a family living with the aftermath of our children’s past trauma, abuse, neglect, and post-institutionalization is forever tied to that past. 

So, who am I?  What is the synopsis of this book? 

I am a wife and a mom.  I have six children.  Some are young adults, beginning life on their own.  Some are still in college and still dependent upon us.  Some are young teens, living at home, attending public school, and working through a past and toward a future they only dreamed about until four years ago.  My youngest two children are biological siblings, but have only been our children for four years.  They are amazing kids.  They’ve come so far from the frightened orphans who landed at JFK airport in the summer of 2007.  Yet, they will always deal with their past.  Their lives deserve a new book, but that book will forever be written based upon the past.  Their psychological diagnoses look like alphabet soup to those not familiar with the terms.  There is PTSD, RAD tendencies, ADD/ADHD.*  We also deal with anxiety (sometimes quite high for both kids), and major depressive disorder in my son. 

My kids were not born in America.  They were born and lived the first decade of their lives half way around the world.  Not all kids will have suffered the kinds of things my kids have suffered.  Some will have suffered more.  Some less.  I do NOT believe all adopted kids are attachment disordered.  However, I do believe all adopted kids have experienced trauma.  Just going through the process of getting adopted is traumatic.  A child leaves all they know, even if it is hard, and is placed with a family they do not know.  In the case of international adoption, they’re also placed into a culture and a language they do not know.  (Imagine being plopped in a country whose culture you have little to no experience with and with a bunch of people you cannot understand who cannot understand you!)

I’ve seen people deny the fact that their kids have a traumatic background.  They can deny it all they want, but then adolescence hits, and they’re not prepared for the trauma that exhibits itself all wrapped in all the "normally" crazy teenager crap, because they pretended their kid was normal and had no traumatic past.  They want their kids to be “normal” so badly that they ignore the fact that being adopted isn't "normal!"  It's not commonplace.  It's not common practice.  If it were, everyone who had biological kids would also have adopted kids.  If it were, adoption would be as commonplace as pregnancy.  For some of those people in denial, dealing with past trauma without much knowledge about its effects on a kid isn’t so bad; for others, it’s pure hell.  Still, even for those for whom it is not so bad, they might handle it better if they’d taken the time to get to know others who’ve been through it – or worse.  It just breaks my heart to see these folks struggle, when they could have been open and learning all along – and maybe even making a friend or two along the way-- someone who would “get it” in way others can’t when they meet these kinds of challenges with their kids.

My kids have seen some really horrible things.  They’ve watched people they love do things many cannot begin to imagine.  They’ve experienced things no one should.  They’ve been told terrifying lies by people they trusted.  They have felt things no child should ever have to feel, and they have the scars to prove it.  Yet, here they are.  They function amazingly well.  My son can fix just about anything mechanical and my daughter is a straight-A student.  They have survived.  They truly fight to be “normal.”  So badly, they just want to “be normal.”  While our family is probably far from “normal,” at least they have a chance – a chance they did not have four years ago.  Still, that chance does not come without a price.

I am also recently retired from a career position I have deeply loved.  I made decisions that helped people.  I developed programs and administered services that changed people’s lives for the better.  I worked to keep families whole and kids healthy.  I engaged volunteers in collaborative efforts and I raised awareness by working with media outlets to bring people the news.  I was recognized in the community as a leader, even if that leadership sometimes ruffled feathers because I didn’t go with the status quo.  My job was an extension for me of who I am – what I am – where my heart rests beyond my family – and how I “make it” in this world.   I got to help people.  I got to make a difference.  I got to be me. 

Oh, when I say “recently retired,” I mean “yesterday.”  --  Literally.

I am also fairly well-educated in a traditional sense, as well as self-educated out of necessity.  I’ve read more essays about child trauma, abuse and neglect, and more journal articles about mental health diagnoses, and even more web sites about adoption and the issues of internationally-adopted kids coming out of orphanages, than I ever imagined I would.  I’ve talked with more moms of kids with issues that are far more severe than those of my kids, and have held more moms in my arms who are tired and just don’t know what else to do, than I can begin to count.  Thankfully, there are those that have done the same for me.  I’ve learned a lot these last several years.  I’m writing this blog because I think I have a lot I can offer – things for which even teachers and therapists have come to me for an opinion.

I can sometimes be awfully lazy, but I cannot be still – not in my spirit – not in my heart.  I cannot “just rest and take some time” in my retirement, not even to regroup as I adjust to not working outside the home.  I’m not old.  Okay, so I’m older, but I’m not old.  I’m not ready to retire.  Sharing myself, trying to help others, seeking help for my own struggles, NEEDING help in the form of support by other trauma mamas who “get it” – all these things are things I value.  They are all part of who I am.  They are as breathing is to me.  So, I’ll write.  So, I’ll begin this new blog.  I may be more anonymous than I’ve been in the past.  I think this may actually be more helpful to those reading the blog, because I can be even more open about our family’s struggles with a shield of anonymity.  So, if you happen to know me, please do not name me here.  For now, just call me “Trauma Mama T,” or “Mama T,” or even just “T.”

My plan is to write about my life as a mom, as I work to help my kids with their past trauma while they develop skills to navigate a world that doesn’t usually understand the fact that some things just do not heal, no matter how much time and love you invest.  Love does not heal all wounds.  Time doe not heal all wounds.  But love – and time – sometimes, LOTS of time – allows us to teach our kids skills that can help them make it through, and maybe even to thrive in ways they, and we, can only learn as we go along. 

This is a different kind of parenting.  This is a different kind of life.  This is my life.  If it is also your life, or even if you’re just curious, perhaps you’ll join me here.  Thanks for reading this far.

And so the blog – and this new book in my life – begin.

*PTSD:       Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

  RAD:         Reactive Attachment Disorder

  ADD:        Attention Deficit Disorder (without hyper-activity)

  ADHD:     Attention Deficit / Hyper-Activity Disorder