To see examples of inclusive trees, read A Forest of Family Trees” and find more information at adoptivefamilies.com/school.
Star of the Week
Assignment: During the child’s turn as Star of the Week, create and present a poster with the child’s story and family photos.
Grade level: Kindergarten to first grade.
Learning goal: To help students get to know one another; also serves as a leadership opportunity.
Why it’s challenging: When our kids are placed in the spotlight, adoption often comes up, and they may not feel comfortable handling intrusive questions.
Alternatives for teachers: Instead of focusing on the child’s past, let the Star of the Week talk about pets, current hobbies, and other elements of her life.
Approaches for parents: Role-play possible responses to questions in advance. Ask your child about accompanying her to school to give an adoption presentation.
How one family handled it: “After my five-year-old presented her poster, a classmate asked, ‘Where’s your father?’ My daughter cheerfully explained that she did not have a father, that she was adopted. Then: ‘Is that why you look different from your mom?’ The teacher reported that what followed was a discussion about adoption—and that my daughter handled it with competence and grace.” —Carrie Krueger
Heritage Exploration
Assignment: Write a report, make a flag, or participate in a cultural celebration based on the student’s country or culture of origin.
Grade level: Elementary through high school.
Learning goal: To learn about different cultures.
Why it’s challenging: A child’s ethnic or cultural heritage may differ from that of his family. A teacher may direct a student to write about her birth heritage, even though she would rather write about her adoptive family’s, or vice versa.
Alternatives for teachers: Let students report on a country or culture of interest rather than one related to their family.
Approaches for parents: Provide any available resources relating to his adoptive and birth family cultures. Accompany your child to class, if appropriate, to help conduct a presentation.
Charting Genetic Traits
Assignment: Diagram or write about the presence of a particular trait in the child’s family, such as eye or hair color.
Grade level: Junior high through high school; occasionally late elementary school.
Learning goal: To help children understand how genetic traits are passed along through generations.
Why it’s challenging: Charting traits in an adoptive
family may raise unwanted questions, and a child may
not have much information about birth relatives.
Alternatives for teachers: Study genetics in insects or plants. Use historical examples, such as the prevalence of inherited diseases in the royal families of Europe.
Approaches for parents: Help your child identify friends or a biologically related family group, such as grandparents or cousins, on which to base a genetic chart.
Timeline
Assignment: Create a historical timeline using a child’s own life events from birth to present.
Grade level: Elementary through junior high school.
Learning goal: To learn how to chart historical events on a timeline.
Why it’s challenging: A child may be unsure of the time, the location, or even the date of his birth; he may wonder if he needs to include the dates he was relinquished by his birth family and placed with his adoptive family, or other private information.
Alternatives for teachers: Do not specify that the timeline must begin at birth. Define it generally as “past, present, and future.” Allow children to create a timeline for a historical event or fictional character.
Approaches for parents: Help your child decide how to define “significant events,” and to choose what she wants to keep private. Encourage her to use general labels, such as “When I Was One,” rather than specific dates.
How one family handled it: “Our daughter, adopted at age 12, was assigned a timeline of ‘milestone events’ on her first day of middle school, and she worried that this list would be too revealing. I explained that the goal was to learn to use timelines, and that she was under no obligation to reveal private details. So she listed events—learning to ride a bike, moving to a new town, winning an award—that she was happy to share with classmates.” —Kathryn Reiss
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Helpful Resources 
adoptivefamilies.com/school.
Drawn from AF’s archives, our best advice on talking to the teacher and preparing your child to answer questions, along with sample adoption presentations and family trees.
Adoption and the Schools, ed. by Lansing Wood and Nancy Ng (fairfamilies.org) and S.A.F.E. at School, by Marilyn Schoettle (adoptionsupport.org). These guides help parents and teachers work together to ensure a positive school environment. |
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What Role Should Parents Play?
Our instinct will always be to step in, but, as our kids grow,
we need to learn to scale back our involvement.
Preschool and early elementary: Offer to talk with the teacher, alone or with your child, and to accompany your child to school when she’s Star of the Week. At this age, children may welcome a parent’s presence in the classroom and like the idea of an adoption presentation.
Later elementary: An eight- or nine-year-old may not want his mom to come with him to school, but will probably still appreciate your offer to talk with the teacher. Involve your child in the conversation and let him make the final decision about how he’ll complete the assignment.
Middle and high school: During the middle-school years, parents should shift to providing behind-the-scenes support. Act as a sounding board as she decides what to do, then role-play conversations to have with the teacher, so she can practice explaining why an assignment is difficult.
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This article is also available as a downloadable clip-and-save guide. 
Assignment: Bring in a baby picture. The photos are often 
Family Tree
Comments
Also, the NAMES assignment is difficult and often expected within 1 -2 days. If you have kept the chlid's foreign sounding name and unAmerican religion that the child was born with, it can be timecomsuming.
Posted by: jaye at 9:15pm Sep 19
I have had children from all kinds of families. I think the important thing is to be accepting that there are many kinds of families. Children these days seem to know that not everyone lives with mommy and daddy or birth parents, etc. Being mindful of your student's living situation and communicating with their parents, grandparents, or caregivers will aleviate most problems from occuring.
Posted by: Judy Bott at 7:45am Jan 28
When the family tree assignment came up this fall in my daughter's 5th grade class, it also included inherited/learned traits. A double whammy! But we looked at the references here and used some of the ideas. My daughter drew a tree for our family, with her sister, me, and her grandparents. (They only needed 3 generations.) Then she drew a bamboo tree next to that and wrote in places for her birth parents and grandparents (not names, since we don't have those, just "birth mother," "birth father," etc.) We also included pictures of her We practiced what she would say about the project, too, although she said she didn't need to. I mostly wanted to hear how she planned to present the subject. We also talked about what traits she might have gotten from her birth family (athletic ability, black hair, and so on), and what things she learned from me (cooking is the one she always goes back to). I'm so grateful to AF for this resource. It gave me a way to focus the energy for this in a positive way. I prepped the teacher with an email letting her know our plan, and she was really impressed with the way my daughter talked about her project. She got an excellent grade for it.
Posted by: Barbara Green at 7:35am Dec 17
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