Adoption Family Trees

When I taught Middle School we did a year-long writing project called “My Autobiography”. It included one writing assignment once every week to every other week. It also included projects like collages, art, and family trees.

I remember one specific young girl who came to me in tears one day because she did not know how to create her family tree, as her father was not in her life at all. Her mother had remarried but she also did not consider her new father’s family as her own yet.

I told her to talk with her mother about it that night and to do the best she could with the project, that she would come up with something. In retrospect I did not do anything to help her or console her. I basically told her to figure it out on her own and that is NOT my job as a teacher.

A few years later while we were in the process of adopting I approached a few of the teachers still using this writing project and asked them to incorporate some alternative family trees. They had the same approach I used to have…the kids will figure it out if they need to.

As teachers it is not our job to necessarily make the kids figure it out but to be a guide and give them options.

Here are some that you, as parents, can give to your child’s teacher at the beginning of the school year. Alternative families are now the norm and assignments need to be reflective of that.

There is also a great listing of how to search for your adoption family history (family tree) at Cyndi’s List-Adoption and About.com-Adoption Resources

• Adoption Clubhouse offers 4 options in kid-friendly language.
• Adoption Competent School Assignments talks about the bias and the correct way to do particular assignments.
• Teachers Guide to Adoption-I love this one because it provides information for teachers on the many alternate ways that families come together…foster, adoption, same sex, etc.
• The Russia Adoption Blog on Adoptionblogs.com has a 4-part series on Family Trees titled: Family tree assignments: what’s the big deal? part 1. This one is certainly worth a read.
• Creating Family Trees for Adoptive Families- Creating hearts, leaves, and caring trees as alternatives
• Circle of Caring- Who Cares about You?
• Adoption and the Schools, by Nancy Ng and Lansing Wood, a guide to help parents and teachers anticipate problematic assignments, communicate effectively, and support learning. Read our review at www.adoptivefamilies.com/books.php.
• Adoptive Families Together, site of a Massachusetts-based support organization that offers family tree­style templates in down-loadable PDF format (go to AFT’s site and scroll down to “Alternatives to the Traditional Family Tree Assignments”).
• Are Those Kids Yours? by Cheri Register (Free Press, 1990), covers a range of international-adoption family issues, and includes the Family Peony Bush.
• Lucy’s Family Tree, by Karen Halvorsen Schreck (Harpswell Press, 2003). Read our review and/or purchase at www.adoptivefamilies.com/books.php.