Well, we attended the first two parts of an ultimately 6-part mandatory class schedule for parents-in-progress of an international adoption. While there were some good things about it, I tend to have a visceral reaction to the word "mandatory" and immediately become grumpy, feel put-upon, and begin grumbling about "The Man." I also hate sitting in classes, and forced socialization. That said, it was a good forum to be able to ask questions, and see the variety of people who were in the same boat as us. And the social worker presiding over the class was super-nice, easy to talk to, and seemed to genuinely love her job. The couple sitting across from us was in process to adopt from Nepal. Nepal? The only reason I know where Nepal is, is because in Raiders of the Lost Ark, that's where Indiana Jones seeks out Marian Ravenwood at that bar where she outdrinks the local, because he's trying to get the headpiece to the Staff of Ra...okay, I'm geeking out a bit here. Anyway, I found that fascinating, and they seemed nice.
We went around the room, introducing ourselves, and then basically just spent a good deal of time asking questions. A lot of people were asking questions I thought were stupid, probably because we (Wade and I) already knew the answers to them. Do your homework, people. And so much of this process has so many unknowns, it's hard to give a definitive answer anyway. No, we don't know how long the wait is going to be from the time your paperwork goes overseas-- which was pretty much what everyone ultimately wanted to know.
Next, we did an exercise on a sheet of paper where we had to match up a list of important events in adoption history, with the year we thought they took place. Then we had to match up a second list saying why these events were important. That's all fine, but I felt that it was nothing I should've had to sit in a classroom for, and I'm not sure how my familiarity with the "orphan trains" that began in the mid 1800s are going to help me at 2am with a screaming 11 month-old who never slept in a crib before. But maybe we cover more pertinent stuff in the later sessions.
Next we watched a video tape of teenagers who had been adopted internationally. They all spoke positively, and seemed well-adjusted, and happy. I know from speaking with friends who have been through the process that they are saving the other video-- the ones of the angry teens, resentful of being torn away from their "families" and culture--is being saved for later.
We then broke for lunch-- which was the highlight of the day. We met up with a friend from college and her family, which included her biological son, and adopted Korean daughter, who was just too adorable. We had a great time at lunch, and I got a lot more information out of them than I did from the class.
When we returned from the class, we had to do an exercise that invovled drawing a picture in a group with crayons, without speaking to each other. I got the white crayon, because I was supposed to be frustrated by being "invisible". Except I pushed so hard, I broke the crayon in half, and then just continued on with a pretty pink pen I had in my purse. Invisible my ass. One of our group members was asked to leave and join another group, and were secretly told to "disrupt" the new group's drawing. When we reconvened, we were asked how we felt about the disruptive person, and how we dealt with them. This was supposed to symbolize the newly adopted child coming in and disrupting our families. It's these types of things that make me want to run around screaming. Really? A new baby is going to disrupt our lives as we know it? Really? Gosh, I'm so glad you had me draw this picture, because I never would've realized that on my own.
The last part of the class was, in my opinion, the most valuable. We talked about the effects of institutionalization on children, and how this may affect their behavior once they came home. We talked about different developmental rates, and talked about language adaption-- this was important stuff. We should've been doing this type of stuff the whole time. We also went over a list of actual comments that children have said to their parents-- and discussed how to handle these awkward and surprising situations. Hopefully the future classes will feature more of this sort of topical information, and less drawing in silence.
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