When her son came home with an assignment to draw his family tree, Patti Olthoff felt a wave of uneasiness.
“My heart just sank,” said the Crown Point, Ind., mother, whose 9-year-old, racially mixed son was adopted at birth. “I knew it could be uncomfortable and meant opening up some things that he was not willing to share.”
As a growing number of Americans build families through adoption, educators should adjust to better serve the needs of adopted kids, according to two advocacy groups who have released their first report on the topic. The U.S. Census Bureau says 1 in 25 households has at least one adopted child.
Beyond the ubiquitous family-tree assignment, other routine tasks that can be problematic include bringing in baby photos (often unavailable to children who spend their early years in an institution), writing autobiographies and studying genetics by charting relatives’ hair or eye color.
While some teachers might see a suggestion to change as yet another attempt at political correctness, others already have tweaked their lesson plans to be more sensitive to unconventional families. The authors say such alterations can make a significant difference–as well as benefit other students.
“This is about inclusion, and whatever awareness teachers gain in learning about adoptive families will also apply to those headed by single parents, stepparents, gay and lesbian parents, and parents of different races as well,” said Adam Pertman, director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which put out the report with the Center for Adoption Support and Education.
Among the conclusions: Education about adoptive families should be included in professional training, some assignments should be modified and staff members should show the same zero tolerance for harassment about adoption as they do for that based on gender, race and religion.
Schools play big role
“Nothing affects families more than schools–so if we get this right, we can make some significant progress for the most children in the shortest period of time,” Pertman said.
The Adoption Institute estimates as many as 100 million Americans now have an adopted person in their family. The number of adoptees from abroad has tripled in the last decade, while those from foster care have more than doubled during the same period.
What goes on at school plays a huge part in shaping these children’s self-image and how they are perceived by peers. But the report’s authors say teachers get no formal training on adoption, as they do in other diversity issues.
“As a result, they may inadvertently use language, lesson plans or display attitudes that can hurt feelings and perpetuate inaccurate stereotypes … that families formed through biology are more normal and acceptable than others,” according to the report.
Elyse Flack of Highland Park, the mother of two adopted children, ages 9 and 14, has witnessed those slights in the classroom, the playground and beyond. She finds professionals woefully unprepared, and she often brings in her own materials to help educate the staff.
“Each time another social worker was hired I had to start over,” Flack said.
Teacher training already has made huge strides in diversity awareness, but more can be done, said Deborah Curtis, dean of the College of Education at Illinois State University.
Struggling with emotions
Adoption issues have been on teachers’ radar screens for the last 10 to 15 years, but teachers now need to move from recognition to implementation–“to not only examine their own attitudes, but to help students do the same,” Curtis said.
At age 55, Mary Grossnickle’s school days are long behind her. But the Stevens Point, Wis., woman vividly remembers the panic that enveloped her when she was asked to bring in a baby photo–which she didn’t have–and how she longed to keep her adopted status a secret from her classmates.
Similar emotional turmoil could crop up in class just from reading a story like “Stuart Little,” about a mouse whose birth family snatches him away from his adoptive parents.
“It’s easy for young kids to come home and think `Can this happen to me?’ Frankly, I’m surprised they’re still using it at all,” Grossnickle said.
However, Jesse Green–a gay father with two adopted sons–said he thinks it’s important that schools don’t go overboard in the sensitivity department.
He feels strongly that his boys, ages 10 and 12, should be “comfortable, but not coddled,” said Green, a writer for The New York Times. “Otherwise, they may not develop the necessary skills to live in the real world.”
He wouldn’t tolerate bullying, but that hasn’t happened, Green said.
Alternative strategies
The report suggests the baby-picture dilemma can be handled by having children bring in any photo of themselves. The family tree assignment can be modified into an orchard, with individual plants signifying important people in the student’s life–such as a foster mom–rather than direct ancestors.
Such changes can benefit any child whose household does not fit the definition of a traditional, nuclear family, advocates say.
“In other words, doing right for one group of children means doing right for many children,” said Pertman, who also wrote “Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America.” An updated edition is being released this month for National Adoption Month.
While taking such an inclusive approach might work fine in a melting pot like Brooklyn, Olthoff said it could still be a tough sell in Crown Point, Ind. Two of her four children are her biological offspring and two, conspicuously, are not.
Her adopted son wants nothing more than to be like the other kids. So when she offered him the option of adding roots to his family tree to represent his birth parents, he declined.
“Anything that singles him out … he just hates it,” she said.
And it’s hard for kids to show sensitivity when the skill still eludes many parents. Adults commonly ask Olthoff: “Which ones are yours?”
“I just play dumb … or I’ll just walk away,” she said. “So anything that would give educators an extra measure of understanding–even if it’s just a three-hour crash course–would be great. It wouldn’t fix everything … but it sure would be a good start.”
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brubin@tribune.com
