What You'll Accomplish This Week:
- Work on lifebooks as a part of weekly family time. Create a family tree – consider working on one for both birth family and adoptive family.
- Create a fun craft as a family, perhaps one that involves remembering the number of children in foster care, or gifts for family members.
- Write thank you notes to those who helped you become a family – it is the month of thanksgiving after all.
The Importance of Lifebooks
Set aside a block to time to work on your child's lifebook together. This may prove to be valuable family time and gives the child an opportunity to ask questions. Children who have been adopted often don't have access to basic facts about their lives; facts that most of us take for granted. Children adopted from foster care often miss out on this basic knowledge about family history, dates and names of ancestors, and even the name of the hospital where they were born.
Foster parents and adoptive parents can do a lot to help with this lack of information by creating a lifebook for each child in their home. A lifebook is a detailed history of that child's life – from birth through each placement – including all foster and group homes, leading up to their adoptive home. It may sound like a lot of work, but the pay-off for your child in the future can be huge. If a child doesn't have the plain truth within their grasp in an easy to digest format, they are often tempted to create a fantasy world to explain the things they don't understand, for example, a child might dream that he is separated from birth family due to biological dad being a quarterback in the NFL.
Writing Notes
Social workers love to hear how families are doing post adoption. Take a moment to write your workers, or the judge a short note of thanks. Include a picture and let them know how the family is adjusting.
This Week's Assignments:
Work on lifebooks as a part of your family time this month. Read our article on the Best Ideas to Complete a Lifebook for Your Adopted or Foster Child. While you're learning about what to put into a lifebook, take some time and learn what not to add to a lifebook.
Write thank you notes or updates to key people in your child's adoption.
Learn about other ways to help children waiting in foster care or in orphanages.
Create your family tree.
Do a fun craft as a family, maybe something that calls attention to the 107,000 children waiting in foster care for adoptive homes.
Review Adoption Month Week 2: November 8 - November 14, for details on your daily assignments.
Recommended Articles in This Week's Lesson
- Great Foster Parents Understand the Importance of Culture and Lifebooks
- What Is a Lifebook?
- Best Ideas to Complete a Lifebook for Your Foster Child
- What Not to Put into a Foster Child's Lifebook
- Make a Copy of Your Foster Child's Lifebook
- How to Create a Connection with Your Foster Child
- Adoption Book Review: Lifebooks: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child
- Handmade Gifts
