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.

Just a Quick Update on the Family

It's been a while since I provided an update on what's been going on in the life and times of my little Christopher so I thought I'd provide one here.

For the most part, all is going well. Christopher has responded well to his strict diet and to his medication so he is able to focus better in school and he's not nearly so hyperactive. I dread the day (if it ever comes) that he builds up an immunity to his meds because they have been a total godsend to us. We'll just address that day if and when it arrives I guess. In the meantime, I am so relieved when he sits on the sofa, quietly reading a book, like he's doing right now.

I did give Christopher some Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup yesterday, which probably has dye and gluten and all sorts of crap preservatives in it, but he wasn't feeling well and I wanted to give him some comfort food to make him happy. All the hyper behaviors came back within an hour though so it's clear that diet plays a big role in managing his ADHD. I will just need to be stricter going forward.

I emailed Christopher's social worker the other day to ask how I could get the DCF subsidy reinstated now that we have a diagnosis. She wrote me back with the name and contact information of who to speak with in the subsidies unit and I will give that woman a call tomorrow. It's not a ton of money but every little bit helps.

I've also got paperwork to fill out so that the kiddo can be tested at school for special ed services. I'm not sure if he'll qualify as it seems the bar is set pretty low but I can only try and see how it goes. He still really needs a lot of 1:1 attention both at school and at home on his work and I want to make sure that this need is documented so that he gets it going forward.

As for me, right now I am getting over a cold and also feel a little like all I do is go to work and come home and care for my kiddo but I do have a few days coming up with the holidays so I look forward to that. I have to admit, I was not performing my best parenting yesterday mostly because I was just plain exhausted. It didn't help that Christopher was up at 3:30 this morning, trying to watch television. I had to get up and put him back to bed and stay awake till he finally fell back to sleep. I'm still feeling a bit worn out but hopefully I can get some decent sleep tonight.

We are leaving in an hour to go to the first birthday party for a new friend from Kindergarten and my kiddo is super excited. It's for a little girl and I bought her a Barbie Styling Head as a birthday gift. Hope she likes it. What little girl doesn't love Barbie?

And that's it for us. Hope everyone is having a great day.

xoxo

My Son's School Gets a Report Card and It's Not Great

My son's school

My son's school's "report card" was posted on the school website this past Friday and I just took a moment to review. I've been trying to decide where I want to live long term. Should we stay in this town or move to a more affluent area?

I've been leaning towards staying here because the kiddo seems to be doing so well in his Kindergarten class. He is working hard, learning a LOT and he actually enjoys it. My kid loves going to school every day. That's pretty awesome right?

Then I saw the school's report. And all I could think was...yikes.

The town I live in is a Title I school system. Title I means you have a higher than average number of low-income families and so the federal government allocates extra money to districts like ours to ensure these students meet the rigorous academic challenges set forth by the state. Basically they're saying, we want everyone to pass the MCAS, not just rich white kids. Sounds fair right? The only problem is, even with all this extra money, our school is doing poorly. I mean really really poorly.

I'm looking at how the numbers are sliced and diced and I'm not seeing any one sector that is excelling. For third grade math, these are the numbers for percentage of kids who have a B in Math:
Students with Disabilities: 0%
Low Income 26%
High Needs 28%
African American 18%
Hispanic/Latino 28%
White 40%
Male 23%
Female 50%

Considering my kiddo is male and in the high needs category, this is kind of scary to me. My child WILL excel at school!

In the school's defense, I do know they are working hard to bring their scores up so it's possible I need to just wait it out. I can honestly say my son comes home with a ton of completed school work each day and I know that the teachers are working these kids hard academically. My son can already read and write a little and he's only been in Kindergarten for six weeks.

I also know we have a new principal this year who's job it is to turn these numbers around. I met the mayor at a barbecue a few weeks ago and he told me that he is committed to bringing the school's report card up to acceptable levels.

I also know there are lots of opportunities for learning and to get involved with the school and I see the school's enthusiasm for teaching. Over the summer the Title I office held reading events and there was one held today as well. There are periodic breakfast seminars where speakers provide guidance on how to help your child excel academically. And I get lots of notes from the teacher, suggesting ways to encourage my child's learning outside of school. So they truly are trying. I get that they need the help of parents and I'm happy to do what I can to help my son excel. Christopher is going to go to college of course and I need to make sure that he gets the academic support he needs starting now to be able to get there.

So back to the original question at hand. Where do I decide to live long term? Do I stick it out in this town and assume that the school's grades will get better? My son loves his class, loves his teacher and is very happy here. That's all pretty huge. But is that just the Kindergarten teacher? Will he love it in third grade as well? I have no idea.

Meanwhile, if I move half a mile to the next town over, I will end up with one of the best school systems in the state. Crazy right?

So why not just move then? There are a number of considerations:

1. My son loves his current school
2. My son is doing really well in his current school.
3. My son has been bounced around so many times already in his life. Do I really want to add on more change?
4. I have all the services we need currently in place. If we move to a new town, we would be starting over again. New therapists, new mentors. Once again, that's a lot of change.
5. We're embedded in the community. I am the assistant soccer coach for his youth team. Christopher has friends here. We're very settled. It would be very jarring to my son (and to myself even) to move away.

Buying a house is an expensive proposition and I don't want to make this decision lightly. But I don't want to wait too long either because prices are just going to go up again and I want to move into a place with more space and a yard before the kiddo gets too much bigger. Sigh. So much to think about.

A Good Education

Last night, the Malden public school system hosted a free reading event for incoming kindergarteners. I brought Christopher and was excited to see how he acted around so many other kids in a controlled, school environment. Now that I have him on the amended diet, I was hoping he'd make it through without any problems.

I'm happy to report that although after an hour of some really intensive sitting and learning, he was definitely fidgety and touchy and distracted and pretty bored...but not overly disruptive. It's a start.

The event hosted about 50 Malden Kindergarteners and their families. I'd say there are about 300 Kinderarteners going to Malden Public Schools next month so I don't know if that's a great turnout or what but I was impressed that the school system is so motivated to teach our kids.

Malden is a Title I school system, meaning they take Federal money because there is a high percentage of low-income children in our town. The money is supposed to go towards funding programs to assist kids with keeping up with the strict academic standards the state requires. There have been several events over the course of the summer but this is the first one I've brought Christopher to, mainly because he's usually so tired in the evening that I didn't think he'd be able to handle all the sitting. It was a bit bumpy at times but he did well last night though.

The event started off with the Literacy Coordinator from the Ferryway School reading a book to the kids. Then after it was over she asked them questions about the book to spur on their critical thinking. With the first book, she asked questions like, "what would you have done differently" And "how do you think he was feeling when that happened"?

After a second book, the coordinator used four index cards which showed different events that occurred in the book and the kids had to put into order each event on the cards. Kids had to raise their hands and wait their turn to speak, which they clearly weren't used to yet. There was a lot of re-directing but they were all total super cute champs and I was impressed with the program.

During the second half, I will say Christopher did start to act out a bit. This was a full hour into a lot of sitting and boring thinking stuff and he just wanted to know when we were going to get pizza. But as bored as he was, he still wasn't terribly disruptive, although I did have to tell him to be quiet a few times and threaten to take away the Kindle that evening.

When it was all over, the kids got to play on the playground and Christopher had a great time running around with two kids named Rihannon and TJ. I was thrilled because although I needed to watch him, I didn't need to keep on him like a hawk. He played so nicely with the other kids. There was no hitting or biting! He did push a little bit but with some redirection, he stopped. This was huge. After a long day (this was now 7:00 at night) he'd usually melt down and have lots of trouble controlling himself but he was overall pretty great.

Something Christopher has got going for him is that he's a really smart kid and a good education will serve him well. Christopher may have had a lot of early childhood horrible stuff to overcome but now that he's in a loving stable home with lots of firm guidance, he will (hopefully) thrive in school.

I always tell Christopher that he could be president of the United States someday if he wants to be because he's definitely smart enough. He of course tells me that he'd rather be a race car driver or an astronaut and hey, that's fine too. It's good to have options.