Jane Brown -- Second Response
Hello David,
Once again, it was a great pleasure to chat with you by phone yesterday afternoon. I am so pleased that you decided to discuss by telephone the questions and concerns that arose in your board meeting so that I can continue the dialogue with you and your organization. Its the best way for your chapter to get to know me, my philosophy, and how I fine-tune the work with children to meet the specific needs of a specific group. It is the best way that I know to really focus in on the particular issues and geographic culture of a particular city I'll be traveling to so that I really am able to give the children and families what it is that they need.
As I told you, I am very pleased when members of the adoption community I'll be working with raise concerns and questions. It tells me that they are protective of the children they are responsible for just as they should be and that they will do their utmost to make certain that anyone who comes to work with their children will be sensitive and responsive to the needs of this specific group of children and has the skill and wisdom to deliver services that are fine-tuned to this specific geographic area and its adoption community. No parent should ever send their child to someone they do not have complete ability to trust and know very well. I am thrilled when parents ask me challenging questions and cautiously move forward to consider whether I am the best and right person to come and present to their children!
Now, let me try to address some of the concerns that you were raising-- those that came up in the board meeting. Should you or other parents have more questions or concerns or if I do not speak fully to those that you brought to me, please do not hesitate to write or call me again.
One of the things we discussed yesterday is that Canada, and Vancouver, specifically, is much more ethnically diverse, tolerant, and sophisticated about how community members, in general, deal with racial differences. Also, how there is a much larger segment of the population that is Asian-- specifically Chinese-- just as is the case in San Francisco. With this in mind, you asked how I would handle the activities that target racial identity development or address teasing.
That is an excellent point to raise. First, let me share that because I travel all over the U.S., I see dramatic regional differences in how racism exists and is expressed depending on what city or geographic region I am working in. This issue is so very different for families living in the rural or suburban Mid-western part of the U.S. than it is for those who live in northern California or in the northeast between Philadelphia and New York City, or in Washington, D.C. or Houston. The likelihood of a child to encounter race prejudice varies and the way that this would tend to arise in each of those areas is quite different, so the activities have to be fine-tuned to that. Fine-tuning them to a community where there is little if any race prejudice is not so very difficult or different from that.
I believe that helping children to build skills to be able to stand up to teasing, intensive questioning about adoption, race, or the racial and ethnic difference between themselves and one or both of their parents when this is the case is more helpful than to lead children to believe or think that any teasing they will encounter WILL target their race or ethnicity. I do not do this, anyway! I address teasing or intense scrutiny in a general way so that the strategies the child learns could be applied to standing up to teasing by a brother over having long hair, to a friend who teases over wearing an unpopular type of sneakers in retaliation when one wins a game and she is disappointed, to being asked about why one's parent/s don't "match" them ethnically ("match" is how children sometimes define this when they talk over what they perceive) and the child receiving the question perceives this as too-intense scrutiny that feels intrusive and uncomfortable. There are definitely times when we talk directly about encounters children have had with race prejudice, but this is because a child or several children raise this in the group. When it occurs, we do not dwell on this, but move on to discuss other types of teasing that other children have to contend with so that the race prejudice is placed into perspective.
You told me that one board member asked what would happen to a child who has never been involved in a racial encounter, may not be likely to experience that type of incident, but then hears a peer share about such an encounter as a part of the workshop-- particularly at a young age. Children encounter a great many experiences with teasing, bullying (peer excluded from groups they are involved with. They are harmed if they do not know what to do about or for the victim, the individual who is the perpetrator, or themselves or others as onlookers-- and so, building social skills is very important. Otherwise, peer abuse continues on into adulthood with the individual being vulnerable to its ill-effects. Children are not as fragile or unaware as we, as adults, sometimes think that they are. They have often, at a young age, been exposed to very unfair and unpleasant experiences involving teasing. They can hear about or witness incidents where a child says or does something that is cruel, unfair, and makes statements that are untrue and form opinions about that without applying what they hear to themselves or formulating fears that they might, at sometime, be subject to the same. What is most helpful to them is that they can do something to take care of themselves, that they are not alone-- others have done so as well, that they have the right to get grown-ups to help them, that it is NOT tattling to report peer abuse, and that their parents know that they may encounter teasing and wouldn't stand by and do nothing to help. Not what type of things they or others could potentially be teased over.
One other aspect of this that I would encourage parents to consider is that even if no child ever commented about a transracially adopted child's racial heritage or the fact that he/she is racially different from his/her parent or parents-- when this is the case-- these children will experience feelings of differentness. That they were born and then adopted, that they were first Chinese and only after became Canadian (or Canadian Chinese), that they have two sets of parents and ancestry, and that they walk between two cultures sets them apart as being different from most others. To learn how to contend with inner feelings about this and others' comments that "you and your Mommy don't match" for example, is my goal for the children in these actitivities. I do not want them to feel vulnerable and powerless. I want them to be empowered so that they can stand up to whatever it is they encounter or feel entitled to be who they are no matter whether another says something unkind or they hear nothing from others and only dwell, themselves, on how they are different.
I should share, too, that even in San Francisco where one in three persons is of Chinese ethnicity, this has not meant that children have not experienced race-based encounters. It is the questions and comments,, as well as teasing that undermines children's self-esteem and sense of belonging as authentically as their non-adopted peers. Quite often, it is the Chinese children of recently emigrated parents or those parents who say to the adopted Chinese-born youngsters "You are not REALLY Chinese as we are."
There are families in Canada who are writing of their experiences in raising children of color in Canadian cities where there is a great deal of diversity and tolerance. Despite this, they are not reporting that they and their children never encounter racism or teasing about racial and adoption differences. I'm guessing that you and your board are already aware of this.
The focus of two of the other actitivities I do with the children are on how we are similar and how differences-- racial, expression of feelings, culture, etc.. are of value. We'll play with eggs and jellybeans-- using these props to explore the wonderful world of skin we share that varies in hue in delightful ways. How boring and difficult it would be if we WEREN'T different in some ways. We learn about melanin and how it is the folds of skin AROUND our eyes that make them appear different in shape when they really are not. We'll also explore the varied ways we learn, move, express ourselves. So, while I do not duck the sensitive issues or questions with children, at the same time I affirm the many positives in their lives with their families and in being a part of the human family.
I apologize for having taken more than a week to respond to your queries, David. I have been traveling. I was in Los Angeles over the weekend, and returned home ill, so I haven't been writing much today. I just got on to download my mail and noticed that I had never completed this e-mail to you.
Please encourage the board members and parents to raise any and all questions or concerns that they would like to. I think that the exchange is extremely helpful for both me and the members of your group. You need to know as much about me and the program as you possibly can in order to insure that the children will get what they need and not have any troubling surprises. I need to know as much about the population of children and parents as possible to best offer adequate and make-sense services that are specifically tailored to your needs. There is not a one-size-fits-all program that I could take about to work with children.
Warm Regards, Jane Brown
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Jane Brown is both an adoption social worker/educator and an adoptive & foster mother of nine children, some of whom are now grown. She lives and works in Arizona. She serves on the editorial board of Adoptive Families Magazine and writes a regular parenting column for the publication. She is the creator of Adoptive Playshops which is a series of workshops for adopted children age five+, their non-adopted siblings, and adoptive parents in which children are helped through playful, multisensory activities to explore growing up in an adoptive family and racial identity, plus develop skills for dealing with societal attitudes and beliefs about adoption and includes helping children resist and confront racism and bullying. She can be reached at: janebrown77@earthlink.net or at: (602) 690-5338.