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Should you tell your child’s teacher about his adoption? If yes, then when should you share this information? Is a child’s adoption something that a teacher needs to know about, or is it private information that your child should decide whether to share?
I am active on a message board for adoptive mothers, and we have debated this topic several times. We have never been able to reach consensus, so I will share with you the pros and cons discussed. I do not believe there is a right or wrong answer: Follow your own intuition.
Reasons to Tell
If the teacher plans any family history or genetics projects, knowing about a child’s adoption can help her present the project in a better way for your child. If your child has a fully open adoption with visits, then he might be confused about which family history to trace (and might want to trace both). A genetics project can be hard, particularly if your child does not look very much like his adoptive family. For example, if your family has blonde hair and blue eyes but your child is African-American, then a genetics project is not going to work well for your family.
If your child is in elementary school, he will likely share all sorts of information with his teacher. Some of that information might not make much sense without knowing that he was adopted. For example, he might say that babies come from China, or he might say that he did not grow in his mother’s tummy. These comments make perfect sense if you know the child was adopted but do not otherwise.
Reasons Not to Tell
Unfortunately, there are people who are anti-adoption, and some people like to pin any behavior issues on a child’s adoption history. Some of my friends have struggled with teachers who would follow any report of misbehavior with “that’s probably because of his adoption.” If a teacher has preconceived notions about adoption, she can label your child and see him differently just because of his adoption.
Some people argue that adoption history is the child’s information to share, so parents should not tell the teacher. If the child wants the teacher to know, then it is his choice to share this information.
When to Tell
If you do decide that the teacher needs to know, you will need to decide when to tell her. Should you do this before the school year starts, or should you wait until a parent-teacher conference?
I, personally, have decided to let the teacher know when it seems relevant but not before. I do not believe the teacher needs to know this information to get through the first day of class. I wait until the teacher has gotten to know my son and has already formed her opinion of him. Then, I work his adoption into the conversation in passing, which is easy to do if you volunteer in the classroom and/or interact with the teacher a lot. So far, this method has worked well for me.
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What a timely topic! My daughter will start school sometime this year at the school where I teach….so I think most staff will already know she’s adopted (although people who know forget all the time). It’ll be interesting if it ever come up as a “reason” for anything!! As I teacher, I’ve had parents tell me and parents not, and it’s never made a lick of difference–we don’t do much in the way of genetics or family trees in preschool!
Thanks for the comment — especially the one from the teacher’s perspective. Most of my friend’s “forget” about my son’s adoption sometimes, too. I think it’s GREAT because that means they see him as my son, not as my “adopted” son.
Take care,
- Faith