Back just before I started blogging here, I was able to host a talk about adoption for my daughter’s 4th grade class. Although there are many adopted persons in her school, she is the sole adoptee in her grade. Her fellow classmates (most she has been with since 3 yr old pre-school) have never been negative about adoption or teased her in any way, still I felt it was the right time to help them have a better understanding of the topic. I thought it was important that my daughter and I together present some adoption related information and also dispel a few myths.

Over all the children in her class were very respectful and interested. They asked some great questions and I was amazed at how my daughter and I were able to keep their undivided attention for quite a long talk. For others who might be thinking about making a similar presentation I thought I could be helpful and detail how we went about it.

One of the first things we did after setting up a future date to host the actual talk, was to send a selection of books to the class and allow the teacher to choose one or two to read to sort of introduce the subject. There are tons of books out there, covering adoption from almost every perspective. Her teacher choose one that profiled several different types of adoption and what adoption is as well as a book that talked about the birthmother connection.

After reading the books to the class she asked them to each write down a few questions that might want to ask us during the talk. She collected the papers and sent them home to me so my daughter and I would have a chance to go over them and select those we wished to answer during our talk. Going about the questions in this manner allowed my daughter to have more control over what was being asked, and also to best prepare how she and I would choose to answer a sensitive question (if at all). Together we choose the questions we would answer for our talk and wrote down our answers to read on that day.

In order to have all members of the triad fairly represented I had asked a few birthparents in open adoptions to provide me with some brief answers about their experience, one even sent a few great photos of herself and her birth child to use. I think this part of the talk was very educational as the kids could see that the other parents of an adopted child were not mysterious or scary and were often involved and retain a very loving connection to the child they placed for adoption.

The day of the talk my daughter and I introduced the subject to the class, went over the previously submitted questions and our prepared answers. Most of the questions were asking about my daughter in particular, but we chose to answer then in a more general manner rather than with her own complete story (although she did share a few details of her personal adoption, all okayed in advance by us both). We read the letters sent from the birthmothers in open adoption arrangements. We also talked about things that can occur that might put someone in a situation where adoption could become a plan for a child. We talked about the things every baby needs and how those things can be met in both a biological and adoptive settings. At this time we handed out some flyers that talked about positive versus negative adoption language. Everyone responded very well to the talk and I think that the way we handled it left my daughter feeling empowered about who she is an adopted person.

Here again are some of the resources we used for our own talk...

http://www.tapestrybooks.com/product.asp?pID=20&cID=156

http://www.tapestrybooks.com/product.asp?pID=174&cID=103

http://www.adoptivefamiliesmagazine.com/clip.php


I hope our experience can help with any talk you might have with your child’s class. Good luck!