Adoptive parents - what type of adoption education did you receive?

wynn

First we took the foster to adopt classes in our area. That was eight three hour seminars that mostly talked about issues that our children might have due to abuse or neglect, and possibly due to substance abuse by the mother when she was pregnant. They had foster parents come speak to us as well as people who worked with counselling a lot of the children.

When we decided to adopt internationally because we wanted older children we had to take a seminar on loss, a seminar on culture and transitional issues, several classes on parenting an older child. People who had already adopted older children and adults who had been adopted as older children spoke to us about what we should expect and how to best accomodate our kids. And then because we were adopting children with medical problems we had to provide letters from specialists that said we had met with them and discussed potential treatment plans for the children.

As far as what should have been given more attention - I think they should have paid attention to people's responses during some of those seminars and required some people to take extra classes. During the one on loss a number of people suggested that what their family had to offer should make up for what the children were losing (they're losing a family, but they're gaining ours). Also there were others who felt that in adopting a child from Africa, all you had to do to keep up on culture was listen to rap music and like cars with big tires. So I think it's not enough that people sign the sheet saying they were there, someone should be checking that we learned something.

I Love A Child With Autism!!!

I did 2 agency adoptions and training of any kind was never mentioned. I had no idea what adoption lies, adoptees real issues, first mother's issues, or adoptive parent's issues were all about. My initial training was here and since then I have followed many people's suggestions about reading books, blogs, and those type of tools.

IDK!!

When we took our class, our son had been with us over a year. He had health problems that kept us from being able to commit to the 6 week class. A babysitter wasn't an option.

Most of what they talked about, was selecting a child that best suited your family.

There was talk about the process, how to find funding, and a lot of collecting of checks.

They strongly discouraged any kind of relationship with the expectant mother, outside of meetings at the agency. They claim it was for the mothers protection from coercion, but looking back and now knowing what I know, it was more about them having control.

There was talk of open adoption, and how the "contract" was symbolic *wink wink*.

90% of my education came from personal experience. I lost a sister to adoption and it broke my heart. I just follow my heart and put myself in the shoes of the other people involved.

Sophie

None.

Jennifer L

The first class we took was the best one, focused on domestic infant adoption. We took this class when we were considering this route.

The very first thing the instructor told us was, "Adoption begins with a loss." It was the very first educational class we'd taken, so that simple statement reclassified a lot for us. There was a lot of emphasis on the history of adoption, including the orphan trains and the BSE. Because of the state we lived in, a lot of attention was also given to ICWA and cross-cultural adoptions of Native American children. We spoke with a first mother who had adopted through that agency and shared her feelings and experiences.

The other classes we took were more geared to international adoption. Some were better than others. A couple were really geared toward general parenting techniques, not specific to international adoption. We were already parents, so some of the information wasn't new to us. Others were focused on cultural adjustment, transition, racism and issues associated with transracial adoption. There wasn't a lot of information given toward adoption of older children from overseas and we were the only ones in the class that were adopting from Africa. I can't say there was a lot of new information here, because we'd already read everything we could get our hands on.

ETA: Sly, the question didn't ask what sort of adoption education was given to first mothers. I feel like it's impossible to answer a question that is directed toward the experience of adoptive parents without someone pointing out how first parents or adoptees were shorted. Because there were seminars and classes available to adoptive parents does NOT mean there weren't any for first parents.

BLW_KAM

These are the books the agency asked us to read:

Being Adopted, The Lifelong Search for Self
Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother
The Open Adoption Experience
What Kind of Love, The Diary of a Pregnant Teenager
Perspectives on a Grafted Tree
How it Feels to be Adopted
Talking with Young Children About Adoption
Adoption Stories for Young Children
Adoption is for Always

As PAPs, we were asked to join a local adoption group where adopted teenagers talked about their experiences.
Classes and seminars were strongly focused on open adoptions and the benefits for all parties.
There were group sessions lead by a social worker that had us role play talking with the natural family post-adoption.
Several of the seminars addressed special needs infants, specifically FAS and drug exposure.
Our ability to maintain openness was analyzed repeatedly until the agency became convinced we were committed.
The loss of the child to the natural family and vice versa was a frequent subject and empathy for the birth family was stressed.

Your last question is interesting because my husband and I talked about this. What did they not cover? Probably a thousand things, But what did we realize we didn't learn? How to care for a baby. About that, we were almost clueless.

Sly

I find it ironic that adoptive parents have all these classes, and resources available to them when they got the children that they were so desperate for, but what is there for the mothers who provided these infants? They are kicked to the curb like yesterday's garbage when they are facing the worst pain a mother can feel....the loss of a child.

well we are adopting through foster care so we had classes on normal child Development then were told about the issues many foster kids have so that we can be aware. they brought in former foster children to talk about their experience in care and they weren't good. We were then encouraged to do better and to learn from their foster parents mistakes. They brought in first parents who were and weren't reunited. We talked about the rules of foster care and reminding us the goal is reunification.
During our adoption subsidy class we were told to get as much info on bio parents as we could in case they want to search and for those who had babies we were reminded to inform them they are adopted and not keep it a secrete

mscrawdad

My classes covered all of the legalities of adoption in my state. And the legal risks involved should the adoption disrupt prior to finalization and basically that as adoptive parents, we were the only ones that had no legal rights. I think that was given a little special attention. The other item covered that was given special attention was in adoption of older children and the "damage" that you would be adopting with them, such as physical, mental, but mostly emotional damaged children. And that is exactly the way it was put to us - these are damaged goods you'll be getting and while there is a return policy, it isn't an easy one. It made the children sound like a broken TV from Best Buy. They want you to try to fix it before you are allowed to return it for a refund or even exchange it for a new one. I found that to be brutal. I don't recall anything, not covered, but what wasn't given near enough attention was resources that you would need down the road to help your family cope with problems that cropped up as the children matured. We found that trying to go back years later to ask for resources that could help us, we were treated like the "bad guys". We were only asking for information and some help in locating the right resources to help us help our children. Adoptions was the least helpful organization we went to. The Dept. of Mental Health was by far the most helpful, but very limited in what they could do. I finally ended up speaking with a Governor's Aide - a lot - before the social services and education system provided the resources my child needed.

I guess thinking about it now, the one thing that was not covered was the fact that everything changes! Especially when you are talking about government funded programs. So, they need to educate parents in the process of adopting that 5, 10, 15 years down the road when they need help, it might not be available to them because the programs they are referring you to now may be under funded, closed, defunct, gone through major policy changes, laws changed them, etc. That would have at least prepared us to hit one brick wall after another.

Great question. Thanks.

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