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Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
Counselling Therapist Geoff Ayi-Bonte, MA RCC, answers your questions on adoption, family dynamics, and transracial families.My partner and I adopted a six-year-old girl from foster care two years ago. We both love her very much. However, we have decided to split up. Even during the adoption process we knew that things weren’t going well, but we were so wrapped up with the adoption that we ignored our problems and didn’t admit them to our social
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
Susan Waugh adopted two baby girls, now aged nine and 11, from China. Focus magazine recently asked her what tips she’d pass onto prospective intercountry parents. Healthy hintsBefore you bring your child home, give your family physician a list of tests that your child will need on your return. Even if your child seems healthy, have all the tests done. Ask your public health nurse (at your local health unit listed in the phone book) to
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
My partner and I adopted a child two years ago. We are Caucasian and our daughter is African-American. I want to adopt again so she has a sibling. My partner refuses. What should I do?This is a conversation that should have taken place before you adopted a child. However, there are a couple of things you could do. First, try to clearly understand why your partner doesn’t want to add to your family. Once you discover the reason, there may be room
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
Last week, my husband and I hosted a dinner with our extended family to celebrate six different birthdays that occur during the months of January and February. At this dinner, as at all of them, my sister and I look around at the 15 people there (it’s sometimes 20 or more) and marvel at the relationships around us.Only about half of us are genetically related to one another as parent and child, brother and sister, or aunt/uncle and niece/nephew
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
When Kelly Martin brought home her 21-month-old daughter, Kendall, there were all the common new-parent concerns: “How will I ever cut such tiny nails?” laughs Kelly. But Kendall is Haitian, and caring for black skin and hair was to be an additional learning experience for Kelly. Undaunted, she says, “I knew it was something I would have to learn.”Like Kelly, many non-black parents who adopt a black child are learning that their ideas of basic
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
You are close to fulfilling your dream of becoming a parent. This is a time when it is easy not to ask the hard questions. But they must be asked so that you are as well informed as possible and you are better prepared to parent the child.Ask for copies of foster parent reports to come with or soon after your proposal package. These should be written monthly about each child in foster care and will give you information about the child’s daily
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
In 1983, Peggy MacIntosh, a white university professor, wrote a now famous essay on some of the hidden privileges that, as a white person, she enjoys. Here’s just a sample:I can shop alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.I do not have to educate my children to be aware of racism for their daily physical protection.I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
Over the years, psychologist Dr Peter Hotz has worked with scores of adoptive families. He tells me that he has seen adoption from every angle. I’m at his Vancouver office to talk about international, cross-cultural adoptions. Dr Hotz has worked with several AFABC families. I can tell immediately that he has synthesized all that experience into some fundamental messages for parents considering adopting a child cross-culturally. Much of our
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
One-year-old covergirl Maddy Devitt appeared on the cover of Focus on Adoption magazine in 1994. She is now a gorgeous 18-year-old working as an au pair in London, England. What has her life been like in between? “Like a Skittles box!”Madeline Devitt was born Alcinia Dore in Dessalines, Haiti on March 8, 1993, in a typical cinderblock home with a dirt floor. Her family already had four children, and her birth mother died soon after due to
Source: Focus on Adoption magazine
Harambee is an annual camp in Naramata, BC for families parenting children of African heritage, either through birth or adoption. Cultural activities and networking are highlights of the camp with a primary goal of creating long-term relationships between the families.Harambee is a Swahili word meaning the celebration of unity. For my son and me it means so much more. Harambee is the one week of the year that we would gladly give up the other
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