Dealing Sensitively with Issues Surrounding Adoption and Foster Care

In this thoughtful article in The Reading Teacher, Ruth Lyn Meese (Longwood University, VA) addresses the often-neglected subject of how teachers should respond when children ask questions or make comments about classmates who have been adopted or placed in foster care. Nationally, 2.5 percent of children joined their families through adoption, and more than a million children live with individuals other than their biological parents, yet many teachers aren’t prepared to handle issues when they surface. 

Some media and literary portrayals of adopted children can foster stereotypes, depicting orphans as superheroes battling evil (Harry Potter), troubled by emotional or behavioral problems (Picture of Hollis Woods), pressed into service as young workers in the 1800s (Little Orphan Annie, Anne of Green Gables, Train to Somewhere), victims of abusive orphanages (Dave at Night and The Thief Lord), and trying to avoid being separated by adoption (The Boxcar Children series). Recent books do a better job of capturing the emotions of 21^st-century realities, including Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born, I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, Did My First Mother Love Me?, Mommy Far, Mommy Near, Emma’s Yucky Brother, and Jin Woo. 

Researchers say that children who were adopted have the same developmental issues as other children, but they have additional tasks, including: understanding their adoption story as it is told to them by their parents, thinking about their birth parents and heritage, wondering if they caused their placement outside their birth family by being “bad”, dealing with naïve and sometimes tactless questions from other children (Why don’t you look like your mommy? Your mommy didn’t get you on a plane. Where is your real mother? What would you do if your natural mother came back to you?), and hearing news accounts of tumult in their native country. If teachers don’t handle children’s classroom or playground interactions sensitively, children who were adopted or are in foster care may be subjected to stereotyping and mistreatment.

The teacher’s task is to “provide accurate information about adoption or foster care,” says Meese, “without prying or disclosing confidential information… As teachers, our choice of words can wound and confuse or reassure and instruct… [Teachers] can reassure children that conflicting emotions are normal for everyone. When comments or questions do arise in the classroom regarding adoption or foster care, teachers can also emphasize similarities among children, rather than differences, and affirm that all families are unique combinations of people who love or take care of one another.” Teachers can also ensure that assignments don’t create difficulties for children who were adopted – for example, asking students to create a timeline of the first six years of their lives complete with photographs.

Meese provides a list of terms and phrases that can trouble children who were adopted or live in foster care and suggests more positive language to use instead: 

• Problematic language: Adoptive mother, father, brother, sister, parents, family; adopted child, adoptee; foster child
• Positive language: Mother, father, brother, sister, parents, family; child who was adopted; child who lives in foster care
• Problematic language: Real or natural mother, father, brother, sister, parents, family
• Positive language: Birth or biological mother, father, brother, sister, parents, family
• Problematic language: Like a mother, father, brother, sister, parents, family
• Positive language: Mother, father, brother, sister, parents, family
• Problematic language: Have a child of their own
• Positive language: Their child
• Problematic language: Put up, given up, sent away
• Positive language: Birth/biological mother made a plan for her child; temporarily placed in foster care or waiting for a family
• Problematic language: Abandoned or deserted
• Positive language: Parent rights were terminated; birth parent was unable to parent
• Problematic language: Could not take care of her child
• Positive language: Birth/biological mother could not take care of any baby at that time.

Finally, Meese suggests guidelines for selecting books on the subject of adoption and foster care:

• Choose high-quality books, including those that have won Caldecott or Newberry medals.

• Search for evidence of stereotypes, for example, characters portrayed as children to be pitied, required to perform superhuman feats to obtain a family, or evil and abusive caregivers.

• Examine character development, looking for both male and female characters who have realistic actions and emotions and all types of contemporary families.

• Check the plot carefully, including the portrayal of families that handle situations in realistic ways, not just through luck, physical skill, or extraordinary abilities.

• Match book themes to developmental issues; books at students’ reading level may not be appropriate for their age. 

• Use sensitive language and give assignments that provide a range of options for enrichment or extension so all children can get involved without emotional difficulty.

Here are some books that Meese recommends:

• Star of the Week: A Story of Love, Adoption, and Brownies with Sprinkles (Friedman, 2009)
• Orange Peel’s Pockets (Lewis and Zong, 2010)
• After Tupac and D Foster (Woodson, 2008)
• Kimchi and Calamari (Kent, 2007)
• Our Mother’s House (Polacco, 2009)
• You’re Not My Real Mother (Friedrich, 2004)
• Megan’s Birthday Tree (Lears, 2005)
• The Family Book (Parr, 2003)
• The Coffee Can Kid (Czech, 2002)
• Three Names of Me (Cummings, 2006)
• Locomotion (Woodson, 2003)
• The Higher Power of Lucky (Patron, 2006)
• I’ll Sing You One-O (Gregory, 2006)

“Modern Family: Adoption and Foster Care in Children’s Literature” by Ruth Lyn Meese in The Reading Teacher, October 2012 (Vol. 66, #2, p. 129-137), http://bit.ly/TVAAB3; Meese can be reached at meeserl@longwood.edu. 

From the Marshall Memo #460