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Old 05-22-2006, 01:02 PM
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kretzklan kretzklan is offline
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Both of these are very personal decisions. So, I can only give you my story!

We adopted a 6 year old girl and 7 year old boy and we changed their names completely. Did not retain birth name at all. They were and are still thrilled. All our son wanted to know was how to write his new name in English - and he spent our whole second trip writing it on EVERYTHING. And our DD's comment was that her name sounded like a chorus of a 1000 angels singing. In our world it has really made them part of our family. One of our deciding factors was the lovely translator we had on trip one. We were planning to use their birth names as middle names and she said 'You are giving them a life, name them as you would a birth child'. We took that to heart and it's been a great decision for us!
School - we started our children quickly after coming home (2 weeks I believe) and again, it has worked for us. Especially with kindergarten - so much of what they are learning is the same skills your daughter will be learning...social skills: sharing, taking turns, speaking nicely - behavioral skills: sitting still during story, crossing legs, keeping hands to themselves. Just check on her age - you won't want to send her as the youngest child as she'll most likely be behind emotionally anyway...
I hope this helps in some way!
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