Colombian Culture, Colombia Adoption and Raising Colombian Kids

Do adopted children suffer from lower self-esteem? This is the question addressed by a Meta-Analysis of Studies done on Transracial, International, Domestic Adoptees by Femmie Juffer and Marinus H. van IJezdoorn. I recently came across this great study published in Psychology Bulletin in 2007. The hypothesis was that adopted children would suffer from lower self esteem. However, the analysis proved the opposite. Their conclusions: In a series of meta-analyses we investigated the self-esteem of adoptees in all age ranges, from childhood to adulthood. Surprisingly, across a comprehensive meta-analysis of 88 studies we found no difference in self-esteem between more than 10,000 adoptees and more than 33,000 non-adopted comparisons. We did not find evidence for moderating factors pointing to potential risks of low self-esteem in specific groups of adoptees. The absence of risk of low self-esteem was equally true for children adopted before and after their first birthday. We did not find...

I want to thank a Raising Colombian Kids reader, and fellow adoptive mom for today's blog post idea. A few weeks ago Catherine suggested that I check out a film, Not A Sevensson Anymore . The film was produced in Swedish and Spanish with English subtitles. It is the story of Emilio Sevensson and his father Bengt and their search for Emilio's birth father in Colombia. Before we ever knew who our child would be, I read tons of books about adoption and the lifelong process of family building. I joined a Yahoo Group for Colombian Adoptees Searching for their roots. I was interested in finding out what older adoptees felt about their adoption. What questions plagued them? What did they wish they knew about their birth? I wanted to be better prepared to deal with feelings and issues my own child would have. I think the research I did spurred on my interest in getting my sons birth information -- which if you missed the post about my quest, you can find it here: http://raisingco...

Last year our son's preschool sent home an "All About Me" poster and information packet. It asked a bunch of questions. Questions that unfortunately, we just couldn't answer. How much did I weigh at birth? How much do I weigh now? How tall was I at birth? How tall am I now? Show a picture of you shortly after birth, and show one now. The purpose of the activity was related to seeing how things grow. But, when I read the assignment, my heart ached. How I wanted to be able to answer all of those questions!! But, I couldn't. I just didn't know the answers. They hadn't been included in any information that we had received about our son. About that same time, I went to a church party where the women started talking about their kids. The discussion turned to labor and birth problems, and then finally to a comparison of who had given birth to the biggest baby. As usual, I had remained silent. But then, they turned to me, "How much did your son weigh?" M...

Sometimes, referral documents refer to older siblings that have previously been adopted by people either in Colombia or abroad. For example, one family knows that their child has an older sister that was adopted by a family in Italy. Another family knows of a younger brother that was relinquished at birth and sent to Germany -- two years before their child entered the ICBF welfare system. Yet another family knows of a baby sister that was placed in ICBF care and no further mention was made of her in their child's file. And still another family knows that their birth mother -- having already lost custody of 4 children and being only 24 years of age -- may potentially lose custody of other children further down the road. Most of the time ICBF tries to keep siblings together. However, if they enter foster care at different times, the children may end up never knowing each other. For this reason, I want to spotlight a new Yahoo group. It is designed to help biological siblings find ea...

Typically, I am not very open in this blog about my personal life. For the most part, I think I am just more reserved about airing our personal goings on, but this week I want to share a personal victory. When my Colombian husband and I decided to have children we talked a lot about names -- we wanted something that would work well in English and Spanish. We talked about last names -- we decided to follow Colombian tradition and give the kids two of them. We talked about teaching them about our family's religious traditions. And, we talked about teaching them about both their US and Colombian heritage. Teaching them the pledge of allegiance, experiencing the 4 th of July, those things would be easy. They were going to be surrounded by US culture all the time. The challenge was going to be helping them to feel proud of and relate to their Colombian heritage. We knew that the little exposure that we would offer could never make up for living in Colombia, but we were hop...

It is about time for another installment of Jane's advice for people adopting a older child. So here goes and thanks Jane: Here are a few ideas from the "Stuff we wish we would had known about before adopting an older child" file: That a summer vacation isn't real life. Some of the children who are up for adoption come as guests of a summer program. Of course children on vacation are going to have a good time with their host families. But once the vacation is over, the papers are signed and real life begins, it is a shock. Be prepared for the reality. That a child's wishes may not be in her best interests. If your child wants to change her name, that's not cute. She wants to forget the past, which is impossible. Just because you have adopted an orphan doesn't mean you have to accede to every wish. If she wants to stay up late, text boys you haven't met, watch only Spanish TV, it's OK to just say "NO!" And then explain why. You'll be ...

While I am working with a Speech Therapist and a member of a University's ESL Faculty to put together more suggestions that can help with the teaching of ESL to your newly adopted child, I wanted to make 1 suggestion now that can help you as you read aloud to your child. Here is the technique: (TO MY EUROPEAN READERS: I found research that shows Dutch speaking children have similar issues to those learning ESL. We might assume, therefore, that children learning other languages -- particualrly those very different from Spanish -- Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Finnish, Danish, German, etc. would suffer from similar language proficiency problems. So, you can try using this technique as well). Step #1: Read the title and look at the pictures. Label pictures that your child cannot name. The talk about or predict what the story is about. Step #2: Read 1 page or 1 paragraph, then stop and ask a question about the content. Once child answers, model the correct answer in a short ...

If you have a child adopted at 5, 6, or older, it is clear that they will need English as a Second Language classes at school, and most districts will help you. But what about the adopted toddler or preschooler? Most people -- and teachers -- assume that the child will adequately learn English by the time the child goes to school simply because they only hear English spoken in the home. Ah, but is that true?!?! I became aware that my own son (now 4 1/2) may be having difficulty with English acquisition when I started teaching him to read. He was/is doing great sounding out words. We started with the words that end in AT -- CAT, RAT, BAT, etc. He would look at the picture of a RAT, sound out R-A-T and then say MOUSE. I would correct him and say RAT. Then, finally one day he said, "Mommy, what is a rat?" OOPS! In addition to simple vocabulary issues, there are other issues that he has with language, so I reached back to my Master's degree in TESOL and started researching ab...

Jane is bringing us more insight into older child adoption this month. This was something I never had even thought about. Thanks, Jane. When we adopted N. at the age of 14, there were times when I felt panicked. All those life lessons that we spent 18 years teaching our biological children have to be condensed into 4 or 5 years. It feels overwhelming at best. So here's our experience with teaching the value and necessity for money in her new life. We began by giving our daughter an allowance and, to our relief, she isn't a shopper. Not into clothes or malls, she had no interest at all in spending. However, when she DID spend, she spent freely, not thinking about the cost or value of her purchases. For the first year or so, it was easy not to talk about saving or budgeting. However, since last summer, N. has had a part-time job at the local grocery store: her paycheck goes directly into her savings account. But then one day we realized that she had no concept at all about the va...

All this talk of DNA testing brings up one last and important issue. In a super informal survey of other adoptive parents, I found that almost everyone had concerns about not knowing their child's family medical history. We all discussed the frustration of being asked by the pediatrician all those questions, and having no answers. NONE! This frustration is shared by adult adoptees. One of whom shared her feelings anonymously with me, "I have had some health issues. The doctors are concerned that they could be precursors to other issues -- ' Does anyone in your family have X?' they ask. I stare at them blankly -- 'I don't know!' How could I know so little about something so important?" The good news is that advances in Genetic Testing now offer a potential solution. You can discover your own -- or your child's Medical DNA. I should point out here that the American Association of Genetic Research discourages this -- however, they have no stated opini...

What does DNA testing of this nature offer you or your child? I guess it depends on who you talk to. I have contacted several adult Colombian adoptees about this issue. At least three of whom had pursued this type of testing and were willing to share their responses. Here are their opinions -- luckily they kind of ran the gamut: Adoptee #1 stated, "I have done the third kind of testing and it broke down exactly as you said - 4 groups and tells you the percentage of how much you are of a particular group. I was actually a little surprised at my results. I thought though, it might bring me some insight into myself, some peace perhaps, but it really didn't. I almost don't believe it. If it came out of a relative's mouth, then I might." Adoptee #2 found it helpful, especially when searching for relatives and siblings, "My DNA is now in FamilyTreeDNA's database. I am a member of the "Adopted" project...I haven't found any relatives yet. Hope is...

Adopted children (and their parents too) often feel compelled to learn more about their biological family. Often, this can be a long and complicated process and may have varying results. In some cases, DNA testing is done in order to prove paternity or maternity when a person is found that may be the biological father or mother. However, DNA tests can be used to help adoptees in their search for self-identity in other ways. In fact, DNA tests can serve 3 purposes. The first, is, of course, the most obvious, however, the others may be of equal value in discovering more about your past. 1 - Link specific individuals -- For example, testing to see whether you are the child of a certain man or woman. 2- Prove or disprove the ancestry of people sharing the same last name -- For example, testing to see if males carrying the GARCÍA surname are related to one another. 3- Map the Genetic Origins of large population groups --- In this case, you test to see whether your deep genetic roots sh...

Depending on the age of your child at adoption, the circumstances of their adoption, and where they were adopted from (Casa Privada or ICBF), you may have a wealth of information about your child's heritage, or virtually nothing. There may be huge gaps. One of the toughest things for me is not having any birth information and no pictures of our son younger than about 15 months. A child with NO baby pictures. How do you complete those school projects -- you know the one in Kindergarten where kids bring baby pictures and others try to guess who is who? Often, the adoptive parents struggle with wanting to know more than what was provided them. So, the question of searching for the birth family arises. There are some pretty nice stories. Leceta Chisholm Guibault, an adoptive mother of a Colombian child born at a Casa Privada, lives in Canada and made efforts to find her son's birth family. She has published several articles about her experience. I would suggest that you take the ti...

Although many surgeries are necessary, some adoptive families choose to have elective surgeries when their child comes home. In the US, particularly, many families choose to circumcise their sons for purely "cosmetic reasons". Perhaps, the following research might make them reconsider. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have found that children undergoing multiple surgeries in their first three years of life are at a higher risk of developing learning disabilities according to the April 2009 issue of the journal Anesthesiology . Researchers found that although 1 exposure to anesthesia was not harmful, more than one nearly doubled the risk of a child being diagnosed with a learning disability by the age of 19. What remains unclear is whether or not the disability is caused by the anesthesia, or is a result of the "...physiological stress of surgery; or perhaps the medical problems that made surgery necessary..." In addition to this study, other studies have linked exposu...

Yesterday, we read about San Pedro Claver. In the brief summary, mention was made of his trips to the slave ships, where he was accompied by interpreters. The Negro interpreters were criticaly important to his work among the suffering slaves. One of them, named Calepino, spoke 12 languages. The others were: Andres Sacabunche and Ignacio Aluanil from Angola, Solfo and Yolofo from Guinea; Biafara, Manual, Juan Manolio, and finally Nicols Gonzlex. Using the story of San Pedro Claver and his interpreters, Julia Durango has created a wonderful book for middle aged readers (ages 8-12). It is entitled " The Walls of Cartagena, " it was published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing in July of last year. Having read the book, I believe that it would help teach your child/ren about this amazing man and the work that he performed in Cartagena. Here is a website with pre-reading and discussion questions, as well as writing topics, so you can help your child get the most ou...

John and Jane are the adoptive parents of a 16 year old Colombian girl. Their situation is unusual only in that they are both in their late 50's, early 60's. Their daughter came to them purely through serendipity three years ago. Jane has agreed to share their experiences adopting an older child in a series of "stream of consciousness" essays. Check back on this blog to read more about them -- you will find them under the label Older Child Adoption. Now here is Jane's first contribution. In the summer of 2005, my husband read about Colombian orphans being hosted in our city through the sponsorship of Kidsave International. We had finished raising our two biological children: both were in their early 20's and out of the house. There was something about one of the children that resonated with us, and we quickly found ourselves taking our first steps on the path to adoption of a 13 year old girl, N., who hadn't found a family yet. Once we met her and she got ...

For today’s Been There – Done That, I have asked the adoptive mother of two beautiful Afrocolombianitas to share her feelings and advice. While her own experience is with Afrocolombianas, I think her advice is applicable to any multi-racial family be they, black, brown, or white. I thank her for her candor and thoughtful nature in which she approached my request. Now, here are her words: “ Obviously I think parenting my children, who also happen to be Afro-Colombian, is the biggest privilege and blessing I have ever been given. But with that privilege also comes a pretty huge responsibility. “In preparation for our adoption, we attended seminars and discussed with our social worker issues regarding race, culture & identity. However, the real preparation was done outside of this on our own. The Internet became our main tool. It was here I really first learned the term "white privilege" and what it mean. I realized that as a white person I had gone through life unaware ...

My husband and I often teased each other, during our years of infertility, that the reason we had been unable to have children was that we couldn’t decide on a name – “And God simply won’t send a child whose parents can’t come up with a name for him.” With all teasing aside, it was very difficult for us to decide what to do when we adopted our son – then 21 months old. He clearly knew his name. What were we to do? The issue of naming a child that already has a name is sticky and personal. Many people offer advice and criticism, but in the end, it is the adoptive parents that have the most say in this issue. But what do adult adoptees say? While the feelings of adult adoptees tends to vary from – I love my new name to I hate my parents for changing my name, current thought among social workers on this issue is that the birth name (whether given by parents, social worker, or foster mother) should be kept in some form as part of the child’s new name. Some people believe that age should be...

Giardia is a not so friendly amigo that might accompany you and/or your children home from Colombia. What is Giardia ? Giardia , also known as Giardia lamblia , is a single celled, flagalated protozoa, which lives in the small intestine. In other words, a parasite and not a bacterial or viral infection. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene had a report in 2005 from Sweden which showed an incidence of 8,110 cases per 100,000 adopted children. International Adoption Clinics in the U.S. have found between 10-20% of all internationally adopted children suffer from Giardia . Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, weight loss, belly bloating, fatigue, very stinky loose stools, and flatulence. However, these symptoms typically only last 2-6 weeks. If an infection has been around for a while, it may be asymptomatic. This is why Giardia is often the silent problem in internationally adopted children. This was what happened in our case. While our son's medical history showed...

So, after preparing yesterday's post, I thought it might be nice to see what other adult adpotees think. I started doing some research and found that adult Colombian adoptees are not alone. It would seem that the issue of teaching culture and learning about and feeling a part of one's roots is important to many adult adoptees, no matter their country or race of origin. There is a wonderful site called Informed Adoption Advocates . It offers many many ideas and resources for adoptive parents. There is one particular article I found very helpful in this discussion: DRIVE BY CULTURE by Jae Ran Kim . Here are the highlights I wanted to focus on: The author, adopted from Korea, participated in an adult adoptee panel. Each of the adoptees had had varying experiences with leaning about their "culture". While, in the author's case, her culture had been ignored, other adoptees had had their culture "pushed" on them. [I think of a family I met when I lived in San ...