RESOURCE: Parenting Discussion

PEAR board members have recently been contacted by adoptive families concerned with reports of trafficking in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Vietnam and China. While we attempt to assist families with uncovering the truth behind their adoptions, we also wish to offer them support and resources in dealing with these truths. One resource we would like to recommend to adoptive families is the Adoption Parenting Yahoo Group sponsored by EMK Press. During the next two weeks, Adoption Parenting will be tackling the topic: Family, Friends and Belonging. As part of this discussion, adoptive families will be encouraged to discuss parenting after the discovery (or suspicion) of a corrupted adoption - how to help your child, your family, and your child's family of origin. Below is a description of the topic and a link to join in.

Reprinted with permission of Sheena Macrae, EMK Press, Moderator Adoption Parenting Yahoo Group:
Topic T#161: FAMILY, FRIENDS AND BELONGING

Introduction

There's nothing in private international law that entitles one to become an adoptive parent, but the Hague Convention states that it is a child's right to grow up in family - and when an adoptive home can't be found in country, international adoption can be considered in order to give a child a place in an adoptive family. And of course, finding a family and permanence for a child underscores domestic adoption.

With so much evidence recently of illegalities in international adoption - Guatemala, Egypt, Vietnam and much speculation about trafficking in China, and domestic concerns that children often wait over-long for adoption, our new Topic looks at what constitutes making a family and belonging. What is the gift that an adoptive family gives a child beyond safety? What from us, via our parenting, will we instill in our adopted children, and what will be determined by genetics?

Our Topic therefore has two major thrusts:

~First the gift we give in opening our family to our adopted child. what is the family ethos that supports us, and how can that support all the children in our family, adopted and non-adopted? How do we open our whole family to out adopted children, and what happens if extended family aren't in fact so very welcoming?

~Second, trafficking, and dealing with our children's other families plus consideration of cases in domestic adoption where kids had to wait overlong to be freed for adoption. How do we help our children understand how they came to be adopted, and how do we explain that their families may be grieving for them? This is often the case, no matter how poor the parenting was. How do we talk appropriately about birth family? More, how do we deal with birthfamily should a search be undertaken and the family found? In opened adoptions (however they are opened), how can we help birth and adoptive families get along? How do we learn to be 'mutual family' with them? In intercountry adoptions, what if the family was coerced into losing the child and very much want the child back?

Join in on our discussion of what we give to our children to help them fit OUR families and social circles, and how we also allow our children to 'belong' to their first families.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoptionparenting/

Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/