14-yr-old "Anna"
Phew! Class #6!
Tonight's class was on Helping Children With Birth Family Connections, or basically, making sure we realize the importance of the child's birth family in their life. Especially regarding their culture, and being sure to embrace their culture, rather than try to ignore it and make them fit into exactly what we are. The example they used is the triangle family adopts a square and tries to make the square into a triangle. The only way to do that is to cut off parts of the square, which in turn, hurts the child.
Tonight at class I also accomplished writing a poem on "Hope", but it's not finished yet.
I'm telling ya, I had a cadbury egg before class again, totally makes time fly by!
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I had an intriguing email from Mrs. 4444 this weekend that I thought I should share some tidbits from.
Mrs 4444 was concerned that should we go to adopt a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder-RAD (they had such trauma as a baby that they failed to attach to anyone and that will stay with them forever) that the child could posses the ability to not "love back", no matter how persistent we are. I admire her concerns. We have been through so much already that such a scenario seems heartbreaking.
My response was that we did learn about RAD in one of our adoption classes. It is a possible scenario. This is one of the reasons that the system mandates that you "foster-to-adopt". It's basically a 6 month to 1 year trial period. We as the adoptive parents have the right to forfeit before the adoption goes through. So to ease Mrs 4444's mind (and any other readers who have had the same thought), yes, we have an "out" if we truly need it.
PS I LOVE receiving questions from readers. I used to just answer them in emails, but I think I will start using them in posts (I will get permission to use your name first).
yayaorangenanny@yahoo.com
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"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." -Maria Robinson
Love, Save The Empty - Erin McCarley
