Why the school assignment to bring a baby picture to class can be traumatizing to foster and adopted kids

Things have been going really well with Christopher lately. December was a bit rough because of all the excitement surrounding the holidays but he has settled down nicely in January. As long as the routine stays status quo, then I could anticipate that Christopher's behavior would be manageable.

Of course, the key phrase in that sentence is "status quo" and in life, you just have to expect the unexpected sometimes. I learned that lesson the other day when I received an email from Christopher's teacher requesting the following:

"Please send in a baby picture of your child in an envelope or baggie by 1/27/15. It is for a writing activity and will be returned."

Please send in a baby picture.

Sounds like an innocuous request right? What kid doesn't have adorable baby pictures? It would seem like the hardest part of this project would be to find only one adorable photo out of the thousands you have to send in.

Not always so.

In our case, Christopher came to live with me at the age of 3-3/4. I have one baby photo of him because his birth mother gave it to his social worker before she lost parental rights. She had wanted Christopher to know where he came from and I do respect that. Someday I will show him this photo...but it will not be forced by a school assignment when Christopher is too young and still too emotionally vulnerable to be able to handle it. Not to mention, in the photo he is in the arms of his birth father--a man he hasn't seen since he was 18 months old. How would Christopher write about THAT? He doesn't even know this man. 

This assignment is forcing Christopher to address his early childhood trauma, his loss of his birth parents and it's making him explain things to his classmates that he doesn't have the tools to do. Also, the kids in his class really don't have the emotional maturity to handle the message. That's an awful lot for a first grader with PTSD due to early childhood trauma to take on by himself.

Not knowing what to do about this issue, I posted it to my Facebook page to see if any of my school teacher friends had any insights. A few did respond.

K wrote:

The personal time line will come up a couple of times in MA Curriculum Frameworks and this is exactly why teachers push back. As you struggle with this, understand other families with adopted children - some from equally as scary situations but in other parts of the world - are also struggling with this assignment. The point of the exercise right now is to understand we all come from someplace and have roots from which we grow. I have seen parents do things like, "This is a picture from when I was born, but these are pictures from my home...."

R wrote:

We normally give the option of doing a "fantasy" or fake family such as the Simpsons.

S wrote:

I think growth and maturity will lend a hand on his acceptance of being "different" but I think a good teacher would embrace this as a moment of learning and acceptance in the classroom. Good luck on this journey. You are a terrific person and a great Mom, you'll own this. Xo

I was starting to feel a little bit better abut this assignment because it seems like other teachers have handled it well. But then a fellow adoptive mom posted this same exact question to a listserv I am on for parents of kids adopted from foster care (nice to know I'm not alone). There has been a firestorm of responses because it's a difficult assignment for all our families. Here are just a few of the responses I saw there.

You are wise to be concerned about this. My daughter made the mistake (in 4th grade) of openly disclosing to kids in her class that she was adopted, including some of the sad truth of why the state put her into foster care, the whole 9 yards -- after which many of the kids who'd previously befriended her started to avoid her and/or publicly tease her. Her teacher, an adoptive parent himself, explained to me that at that age, the thing a kid worries about more than anything is not being safe and secure with their parents, and so because of that fear would avoid anyone/anything that could make them worry more about losing their parent(s). "If it could happen to them, maybe it could happen to me."

Yikes! The last thing I want is for my child to risk being bullied and harassed because he was adopted. The poor kid doesn't want to feel different...he wants to have friends and just be "normal" like everyone else.

Another response from a mental health crisis counselor scared me as well:

I was called to a school on an MCI (mobile crisis) call for a kid who was 'out of control'. She ended up being hospitalized. What triggered it? No surprises.

Apparently all the kids had to bring in baby pictures, hang them on the wall and everyone had to guess who everyone was. The girl didn't have one, so with the parent and teacher talking, it was agreed that she was able to bring in one of when she was older. She brought one from when she was adopted at 8yrs of age. The kids made fun her because she didn't have a baby picture.

The issue was, her classmates were not okay with it. They asked tons of questions and when she said she didn't have one, they made fun of her. Kids are not as sensitive to others' feelings like adults are.

Some children, DX with PTSD, these type of projects can open a box that shouldn't be opened in front of a classroom of their peers and only should be opened with a trained professional that deals with trauma.

Suddenly this "innocent" assignment doesn't appear to be so innocent after all does it? In the scenario above, the teacher clearly handled it poorly by not intervening and explaining why this child did not have any baby pictures. That said though, I think it's asking a lot of the teacher to understand early childhood trauma. Teachers are teachers...not trained mental health professionals and they are extremely busy just trying to teach 25 kids. They already have their hands full and then some.

This is all new territory for me but I figure the best thing to do in this scenario would be to enlist the assistance of the school and work as a team. So with that in mind, I've emailed both the teacher and the school psychologist to ask their help. I haven't heard back yet from either yet but we are in day 4 of snow day-cation (thank you Blizzard Juno!) so I suspect they won't be back online until Monday. The photo is due on Monday however and since I can't send a baby photo into school with Christopher, I may send a picture of him with his extended (adoptive) family, along with a note on why I'm doing this. The teacher can choose to do whatever she likes with the assignment I guess at that point but I do want to have the school psychologist at least aware in case the teacher chooses to move forward with some sort of birth story.

This is a tough assignment for any family that does not come from traditional circumstances. In Christopher's case, he's adopted from foster care but there are kids adopted from overseas with tragic histories who would have trouble with this. And what if your family was traditional but you lost all your photos in a fire? Or the hard drive where you stored your digital photos crashed and you lost everything. These can all happen and what then? The kid will still feel different and that's just not right.

Considering my town has a large DCF office, I suspect this isn't the first time Christopher's teacher has had to address this issue and based on what I've been reading on the MA foster adoption listserv, it won't be the last. We'll see what happens on Monday I guess.

Welcome to First Grade!

Two weeks ago, my little man started first grade and thankfully he loves it.

The night before was a little rough because he doesn't handle new experiences all that well (I think we can all figure out why) so there were quite a few tears and wails of "I hate school....don't make me go!" And I had a heck of a time getting him to go to sleep that night. 

And that morning he clung to me like I was his last lifeline and when he had to line up with the rest of his class, he seriously looked petrified. Poor thing. So I of course worried about him all day and hoped he was okay.

Thankfully when I picked him up at 2:15, he came out with a big smile on his face. (Whew!) I asked him how his day was and he said, "I had an excellent day. I didn't punch a single kid."

I know that sounds funny but when Christopher gets overwhelmed or overstimulated, his ADHD takes off and he has been known to hit a kid at summer camp or in soccer on a few occasions. So he must have been pretty worried that he wasn't going to be able to control himself at school. Thankfully that wasn't an issue. School really is easier for us than summers are.

The great thing about school that is that it is ideally suited for kiddos like Christopher. The classrooms are low stimulation (except for recess), rule-based and highly structured. Christopher thrives in an environment like that. Plus it helped that he's already spent a year there, had friends already and also kept his skills fresh over the summer with a reading/math workbook. 

Since then, school has continued to go well and he has come home with a lot of "happy faces" on his school work. It took a week for the before school program and after school program to start so it's been a bit stressful for me, trying to juggle work and family but we can finally get our routine in place now, so that's good. Of course there are still these "teacher appreciation days" where there's no school so I have to figure out what to do with him on those days so I can work, which is annoying. Quite frankly, I'd appreciate my son's teacher more if she would just go to school and teach. But I digress.

The only bummer is that I found out that the school psychologist has left, which means Christopher no longer gets weekly therapy through the school. I remember when I met her last year I had told her that his previous therapists kept leaving and that it was stressful for him to keep getting attached to someone, only to see them leave. She told me that she had been at this school for 16 years and wasn't going anywhere so I could feel confident in knowing that he could build a long, solid relationship with her. Yeah, that didn't even last a year. 

Other than that though, I'd say all in all, a good start to the school year. Let's hope it continues on in that way.

Dealing with the schools: Taking Precautions or Overreacting?

I said something to my son the other day about showing empathy to other kids. He didn't know what the word "empathy" meant (he's in Kindergarten) so I explained to him that "empathy" is like when a classmate is having a rough time and crying and if he went and hugged the classmate, that meant his was being "empathetic" towards his classmate.

Christopher's response was, "but mama, we're not allowed to hug people in school." I said, "you're not?" And he said, "yes no hugs." I have to admit I thought that was a little sad. And it got me thinking too.

I've heard a lot of stories in the news lately about how schools are creating rigid rules that are designed to keep kids safe but I wonder if they're just a little bit over the top? Here is a quick list of some of the things that I've heard are being banned in US public schools now:

• Dodge Ball (because kids could get hurt)
• Post game handshakes and Tag (because a fight could break out)
• Playing with balls during recess
• Sharing lunches (because some kid might have an allergic reaction)
• Hugging (because it could turn into inappropriate touching)
• Party Invitations (because a child's feelings might get hurt if they aren't invited)
• Homemade lunches (because the school believes it can provide healthier food choices)
• Milk (seriously?)

I tend to think some of this is over the top. I was allowed to hug my friends when I was little and I turned out okay. We also got to play dodge ball, four square, kick ball and all sorts of other sports with balls and to my knowledge, no one was ever seriously hurt playing outside during recess.

A friend posted an article on Facebook about a month ago, about a school in New Zealand that is going the opposite route with kids. They are letting kids go outside and have fun without a ton of rules and are finding that the kids are paying more attention in class and that bullying and vandalism are down in numbers.

Why? I think it's because kids are allowed to get their energy out (instead of sitting for long periods of time without break) and they are learning how to make mistakes in a safe, structured environment. When we act like helicopter parents (or in this case helicopter teachers and administrators) our kids don't have the opportunity to work through situations on their own. 

According to the article: "AUT professor of public health Grant Schofield, who worked on the team leading the study, said children develop their brain's frontal lobe when they are taking risks, which allows them to calculate consequences."

So basically what he is saying that when we coddle our children we aren't letting their brains develop correctly. That's a little scary to think about as a parent.

Someday our kids are going to grow up and they're going to have to make big decisions that will have consequences for themselves and for others. Isn't it better to teach kids to discern right from wrong now than to wait for them to be out in the great big world and have to say, now what? 

My own son is very impulsive. This comes from his years in foster care and I genuinely think because of all the trauma he experienced, that his brain didn't quite develop correctly. I will say that with lots of work on my part, as well as on the part of his teachers and of his therapy team, that he is doing much much better. I mean seriously much better. There was a time that I would worry about Christopher opening the front door and running out into the street. Now I don't worry about that at all because his brain development has definitely caught up with his age. He has not liked all the time outs he gets for making bad choices. But he's learning and that's what I want for my child. I do think that the schools are short-changing our kids a bit by enforcing so many rules. Kids will be kids...if we let them.

School Rules: Keeping Kids Safe or Overreacting?

I had a rough Monday with the kiddo's school and it really got me thinking about the role that schools play in caring for our children vs what parents want for our children.

Early Monday morning, I got a call from Christopher's Kindergarten teacher. She told me that she noticed an scabbed-over injury on Christopher's wrist and she wanted to know what it was. An injury? I was confused. Don't all little boys get scrapes and scabs on them? I didn't know what it was off the top of my head. He'd been active all weekend, with a play date at Imajine That on Saturday and 90 minutes of soccer on Sunday. It really could have happened at any time. On top of that, really what business is it of hers to call me and ask why my highly active 6 year old son had a boo boo?

When I told her I wasn't sure what it was as it really could have come from anywhere, she tosses out, "well it looks like a cigarette burn to me and I'm going to take Christopher down to the nurse's office to have it assessed."

I'm sorry...what? A cigarette burn??? I very pointedly told her that there was no way Christopher had a cigarette burn on his wrist. And I certainly didn't appreciate the insinuation that I'm burning my child with cigarettes. She told me, "well I just have to be honest with you." And then she said she was off to the nurse's office to have Christopher's wrist examined.

I got off the phone and asked my manager sitting next to me, "did I just get accused of child abuse?" Not only am I wondering what the hell this injury is but now I have to worry that the school is launching an investigation into my parenting? Seriously?

I was pretty upset about this so I called the Principal. He said he would look into it. About half an hour later, he called me back and told me that the nurse deemed the injury to be a "scrape". I literally laughed out loud. A scrape? I am upset, wasting time out of my busy work day with back and forth with the school because my active 6 year old has a scrape on his wrist? This is how we best use our time?

I spoke with the teacher and the Para at the end of the day and was told that whenever a child has a visible injury (bump, bruise or scrape, etc.) that the teacher will call the parent to find out what it is and if she doesn't get the answers she needs from the parents, she will escalate by taking the child to the school nurse and the assistant principal to have the injury assessed. So yes, after I wasn't immediately forthcoming, my child's 1/4" scab was assessed by both the school nurse and the assistant principal.

Oh and when I spoke to the teacher she said, "we have noticed another injury...between his fingers." You know what that turned out to be? Magic marker! Seriously. They are investigating coloring injuries now. Talk about overreacting.

Okay so no one understands the importance of keeping kids safe more than I do. I became a mom to Christopher because his birth mom was not able to keep him safe. However, there are ways to handle this and there are ways to overreact. And the school, in my opinion, overreacted.

Do you really need to know what every scrape is? Really? I would suggest taking that sort of notification down a notch.

Also, perhaps treat the parent like a partner and not as a child abuser. A little kindness on the phone goes a long way: "hey Miss Ecker, I'm just calling to check on Christopher. He seems to have some sort of a scrape on his wrist and we like to follow up on things like that, if that's okay. Do you remember how he got hurt?" Leave out any mention of a cigarette burn if in fact you have no idea what it is. Especially if you haven't even seen the nurse yet. The teacher told me Christopher has a cigarette burn but the nurse said it was a scrape. Those are two very, very different things.

For the record, when I picked Christopher up, he remembered that he got the scrape when he was going down the slide on his belly at Imajine That. This is an indoor playspace near our house where we had a play date last weekend. He didn't tell me about it at the time because it didn't hurt. And he didn't want to stop having fun.

Christopher loves his Kindergarten Para and he feels comfortable in his class. He likes his friends and the structure of the classroom. So I'm not going to move him into another class. However, I will say that this experience was rough for me. I work very hard to give Christopher a good life and you know, a little positive reinforcement would be kind of nice. I don't ask for praise but I could sure live without unverified accusations, thank you very much.

Anyway, as I told the teacher on Monday afternoon, I'd like to put this behind us and move on. There are only a few more months in this school year and let's just get through it shall we? I'm not happy but I'm no going to keep being upset so I might as well just move on. I learned a little something about dealing with the schools this week though and I won't forget that, that's for sure.

All Boston School Kids to Get Free Breakfast and Lunch

There's no such thing as a free lunch....unless your kid attends public school in Boston, MA.

Earlier this week, a Facebook friend posted a status sharing the news that all Boston school children will now get free breakfast and lunch courtesy of a Federal program called the Community Eligibility Option, regardless of the parents' ability to pay. I found the debate that followed the post interesting and chose to participate myself.

Basically, the program was put into place because too many parents were sending their kids to school without food or even the money to purchase food. The schools were dealing with an epidemic of kids who didn't have any food in their bellies for 8+ hours. Wow.

Perhaps the parents couldn't afford to feed their children but found filling out paperwork too difficult (especially if English isn't their primary language) or too invasive (they didn't want to publicly list their salary).

Perhaps the parents just forgot to give their kids money. And of course, there is always the small segment of parents that just couldn't be bothered.

Whatever the reason is, instead of penalizing the offending parents, we're now using our tax dollars to feed all kids, regardless of need. In Boston apparently 40% of children all qualify for a subsidized lunch. But what about the other 60% Why can't their parents pay?

Let's not even talk about the crap that these kids are eating because that's another discussion entirely. Instead let's talk about parental responsibility. We need to feed our children. That's a basic requirement. When we start ceding these responsibilities to the state, what comes next???

Please understand that I am in no way against providing assistance to children in need. And I truly believe that children need food in their bellies to be able to learn. They shouldn't suffer because of the actions or inaction of their parents. I firmly believe in "hand ups". But when that "hand up" turns into a "hand out", I start taking issue.

Programs like this create a culture of dependency and make it so easy for people who have no business having kids to have even more. And then we as a society become burdened with caring for those children, whether it be financial care through taxes or physical care through fostering. This is not going to be sustainable and it will affect our economy, our healthcare system, our school systems, basically every aspect of society. It needs to be addressed before it gets any more out of hand.

But let us now talk about the food these kids are getting. Bread, pizza, hot dogs and sugary desserts filled with artificial dye. What they call "healthy" does not constitute healthy by my parental standards. Nope not at all.

So when all kids will start getting a free junk-food lunch, it makes my job of providing a healthy lunch to my child more difficult. Christopher cried to me the other day when I picked him up from school because it was pizza day and all the other kids got pizza but not him. He cried, "I hate our gluten free diet!!"

The thing is, I don't want my kid hating healthy food. I want him to love it and embrace it. How do I do that however when he is surrounded by junk food being labeled as healthy?

I don't see this issue going away anytime soon and I guess I just need to educate my kid on what's healthy and what's not. What else can I do?

Anyway, I've got to get off Blogger because my child is telling me he's hungry and I've got to go feed him his healthy, nutritious breakfast because he wants some (gluten free) brownies instead. Signing off now!

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