The assignment to bring in a baby photo can also be problematic for the adopted child. When my children attended public school, each one was asked to bring a baby photo and current photo to be displayed on the board for a matching game. Kids who could match newborn photos to their grown counterparts could win prizes, so they were all motivated to participate. Thankfully, this happened before we started adopting.

In another scenario, children are sometimes asked to bring in a baby photo and tell their classmates about their families. For one, baby photos of an adopted child may not exist (I have ONE newborn photo of ONE of my adopted children) and two, if the child is a person of color in a class full of caucasian kids, it isn’t too tricky to figure out which baby grew to become which kid! But more importantly, both of these activities put the adopted child on the spot and force her to share information she might not be ready to share and leave her alone field comments like, “Those aren’t your real parents!” from well-intentioned peers who don’t understand the complexities of adoption.

Simply bowing out leaves the child open to questions about why they’re not participating, and being “allowed” to complete an alternate assignment serves only to further single him out from the rest of the class. The best strategy is a pre-emptive one; consider meeting with your child’s teacher at the beginning of the school year to share necessary information about your child, and to politely voice your concerns about worrisome assignments. Share a copy of The Teacher’s Guide to Adoption and point out bias-free alternatives to the family tree, baby photo, and other assignments. With a little greasing of the wheels, you can hopefully steer the teacher toward making assignments that will be rewarding and educational for ALL students without doing so at the expense of your child.

This site offers some nice alternatives to traditional family trees

Lucy’s Family Tree is a story about a young girl who was adopted from Mexico as an infant, and how she ultimately handles the family tree project.

For more potentially “tricky” school assignments to watch out for and other parents’ experiences, see this site.