[SchmennaLeigh]

An opposite situation of an exisiting post because... I don't know the answer.

Do you / did you / should you tell your child's (childrens') teacher that he/she/they has/have a sibling who was adopted by another family? I see this as being an issue for children who are raised in open adoptions, especially ones with a decent amount of consistent contact. I can see a teacher being confused by Nicholas talking about his sister and saying something (awful!) like "but you don't have a sister," or taking it even further to say that since she's adopted (out) that she's not really his sister. Even if he doesn't talk about her frequently (which, at 21 months, he sure does), it may be an issue come family tree time.

Again, there are no books or helps to talk about raising a child with a sibling who was placed in an open adoption. I don't really know how to handle this one. I've handled the actual inclusion of the Munchkin in Nick's baby book family tree but... this is another level that I haven't yet reached and don't specifically know how to handle.

[billysmommy]

I'm interested to read responses to this as well - though I am an aparent. We have an open adoption - my children are siblings and they have a sibling who is with family members of thier first mom. My son is almost 6 , and more than a year ago he got into an argument with one of the neighbor kids who insisted that he did NOT have a brother. What made the situation even more delicate was that the child my son was arguing with was also adopted. At the time, I did not know how much he knew of his story, or even adoption in general. I just explained in very vague terms that my kids did, in fact, have a brother who did not live with us. In the end it was fine, and about 6 months or so after that, the kids brother came for a visit and was a celebrity on the block!

[thanksgivingmom]

Oh I really hope someone has an answer about this because I am interested too!

[BrandyHagz]

Yup.

We do - doing it this morning in fact - first day of school, woo hoo.

I'm off!

[SchmennaLeigh]

First day of school?

Arizona is whack.

Tell us about it when you get back, Brandy.

[BrandyHagz]

Oki Doki, I'm back.

My son is special needs - he is in a non-mainstreamed classroom, because being mainstreamed in JH was just to much for him (classes changing, etc...he can't deal with change at all).

So, he has one teacher (three aides) in his classroom (12 students).

I started with "Jerrett has a sister, she lives in ___ and her name is ___ we visit/communicate often, so if you hear him talk about a sister, that's who he's talking about" She kinda looked confused (I likely could have just left it at that...ya know, with all the mixed families/ parents who remarry and have other families) but I opted NOT to.

I said, "___ is 11, I placed her for adoption at birth. We've got an open adoption, so like I said, we see a lot of each other".

She was excited. She said she thought it was awesome and hopped that if she were to come visit during the school year, I could bring her by (they do a lot of student/family intereaction in his program), which I thought was nice.

I also explained the whole "Jerrett was also adopted by his father last December, so you might hear about that, he still intermixes "John" and "Dad" so - they are one in the same - we've let him drive the bus on this".

She was great with that too.

So, all in all, it was a great exchange. The teacher seemed interested in including M in the 'day to day' stuff that they do, which Jerrett always wants to do (Like family projects etc).

We'll see as the year goes on.

I've never had any problem with it in the past...

[SchmennaLeigh]

Brandy,

Thank you tons for writing out how you handled the conversation in detail. It helped me put it in perspective in my mind.

Thank you!!!

[TxMom65]

Mine is a little different. I adopted my daughter last year. She has 3 brothers in her birthfamily and then 3 brothers in her adoptive family. She asked me how she should explain to people that she has 6 brothers. When she tells people that it seems as if I have 7 children. (Not that I care what people think)
Pretty much with our blended family it is just normal.