Arizona Adoptive Families group

Last night I attended the quarterly board meeting for the Arizona Adoptive Families group. It was an interesting group of like-minded individuals who chose adoption to create their families.

I suggested that we create an information packet for our school districts. It seems that several families have been facing unusual situations. One daughter experienced some teasing and bullying related to her family (as in "where are your real parents?").

One family received a flier from their child's school that explained gifts are "required" to finalize an international adoption for one of the school's families and then listed items like a Phoenix Suns sweatshirt, make-up from Clinique, and $3000 in cash [I'm not even going to talk about the content of the flier or how much damage I feel like that family could be creating with such a poorly worded flier] .

In both instances, the adults were asking for advice from the group about how to communicate to the school leaders. After all, this flier couldn't have been sent to the entire school without someone's permission or approval. And, the school leaders are responsible for the environment they foster in their schools.

What I suggested was that we pull information together to create a resource for our parents and our schools. There is a strong need for our schools to understand appropriate adoption language and to understand how some of their current homework assignments could cause problems for an adoptive family. For example, I remember a biology class assignment about genetics in which I had to draw my family tree documenting certain physical characteristics. [I'm embarrassed to admit that I never asked my friend who is adopted how she completed the assignment. I didn't want to ask because it didn't matter to me that she is adopted and I didn't want her to feel weird because I asked.]

The board readily agreed with what I suggested. I'm asking for volunteers to gather materials. I'm also going to suggest that we contact the school administrators in late spring to be put on the calendars for the coming year's teacher workshops.