interracial adoption – Page 2 – Transracial Journeys

Preparation: Transracial Adoption: Be Ready!

March Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck, given to all our families at Family Camp. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for March. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

March Pro-Tip for Parents: Make sure you have thought about specific times when moments of intrusion or inquiry have happened to your family. Think about the conversations you have had with friends and extended family when they were reflecting on how they feel or think you and your children should feel about adoption. These are intricate and complicated realities and thinking about them and talking about them will help ease what often lives under the surface.

This post is from our March, 2024 e-newsletter. Pictures on the website are from Family Camp. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, with Family Camp updates, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for our main event; Transracial Journeys Family Camp!

Reflections: Entry Point for Living Fully with Authenticity and Purpose as an Adoptive Family

by TRJ Executive Director, April Dinwoodie

As I reflect on my younger years as a transracially adopted person, I am filled with so many wonderful childhood memories with my sister, brothers, my parents and extended family. I am also filled with the memories of feeling isolated with my feelings and thoughts about adoption and differences of race.

My parents, busy as they were looking after us, were not in tune, and rhythm with some of the needs that I had as a Black/biracial transracially adopted person. We didn’t talk enough about the realities of separation from family of origin or differences of race, and I was left to navigate these big real realities mostly on my own.

Conversations: An Entry Point for Living Fully with Authenticity and Purpose

Today, I can confidently say that the entry point for living fully with authenticity and purpose as an adoptive family where difference of race is present, is grounding conversation that is ongoing and ever present in your daily life.

Adoption is both a journey rooted in love, and it’s also a path intertwined with unique challenges, especially when it involves racial differences. It’s crucial to recognize that adoption doesn’t just create your family; it weaves together origins, cultures, and backgrounds that may be vastly different.

Encouraging an Environment of Discussion

Start by encouraging an environment where questions and discussions about adoption and race are welcomed and encouraged. It’s important for children to feel safe in expressing their feelings and curiosities. This always starts with you. So often, I hear parents say – “my child never asks me questions” or “they never really want to talk about adoption or our differences”. Almost always the questions are there but the space to explore them is not.

Getting more into the flow of ongoing conversation requires commitment from parents and caregivers as well as resources to support the effort. Use books, movies, and cultural events as tools to celebrate your child’s heritage and your family’s multiculturalism. This not only helps them connect with their roots but also aids the whole family in understanding and appreciating culture, ethnicity and heritage more holistically. Check out our book corner and conversation cards as you continually add to your tool kit.

Connecting With Other Adoptive Families

Another way to scaffold your family is to connect with other adoptive families, especially those with similar dynamics. Sharing experiences and insights can be invaluable for both parents and children. Transracial Journeys is excited to remind parents of a partnership that began in October 2023 with Adoption Network Cleveland to bring our parents the Transracial Adoptive Parent Support Group. Join us Thursday, January 18, 2024 7:00pm-8:00pm and third Thursdays of each month. Registration details can be found on the Adoption Network Cleveland website.

And finally, do not be ashamed or afraid to seek professional guidance from counselors or therapists, particularly those who specialize in adoption and multicultural families. They can provide strategies and support for navigating complex emotions and situations. Here is a state by state directory of mental health professionals who identify as adoptees and work with adoptees /adoptive families in a variety of public and private settings. This list was curated by Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker and I encourage you to visit her website to learn more.

Remember, these conversations are not a one-time event but an ongoing dialogue that evolves as your child grows. It’s about building a foundation of trust, understanding, and respect for your child’s unique identity and your families unique reality.

January Embracing: Live with Authenticity, Purpose and Joy

TRJ Conversation Cards

Our Executive Director, April Dinwoodie, has created conversation cards that help families make space for ongoing conversations about adoption and differences of race and culture. The Transracial Journeys card deck contains 3 cards for each month that the children use to ask their parents questions, that parents can use for quiet reflection. Some families leave the deck somewhere visible and pick a card at random, some families follow the monthly prompts. No matter how you use your cards, you’ll find a pathway to a more active and authentic holding of the complexities of transracial adoption so you and your family can live with authenticity, purpose, and joy. Below are the questions for January. Before getting started, read the parent tip. Families that attend our annual camp receive a set of the cards and if you’d like a set please email info@transracialjourneys.org.

January Tips for Parents: Do some pre-planning so that you have time to process some of the harder anniversaries or days on the calendar before discussing with children. Have some ideas to share for new dates to mark on the calendar so your children can react and be inspired to think about what they’d like to add as well.

CARD ONE: Identifying with the calendar as individuals and as a family

What are your most and least favorite holidays and why?
What are some of your most and least favorite times of year and why?
Are there holidays that you’d rather not acknowledge but feel you have to?

CARD TWO: Relationships

What are ways you can celebrate the happiest days of the year?
How can you honor the saddest days and find ways to prepare for what might be hard?

CARD THREE: Embracing and Facing Differences of Race and Culture

What are some holidays that you have not traditionally celebrated that you could add to the calendar?
What do you need to know about any new holidays that you might add to the calendar?

July Freedom: Exploring our Unique Identities

July Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for July. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

July Pro-Tip for Parents: Do your research on the complexities of July 4th and be ready to steer confidently into the conversation with your child/children. Create space to process the emotions that may come up as you prepare to have the conversation about freedom and enslavement with your child. Even if it is hard, don’t shy away from moving in the direction of openness related to hard topics like this. It is only when we are confident and centered in the truth of our histories both collective and individual that we can be truly FREE!

This post is from our July, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.

June Fathers’ Day: Claiming Family Realities

June Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for June. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

June Pro-Tip for Parents: As with May it is important to spend some time reflecting on how you hold Fathers’ Day for yourself and how you might be better equipped to hold your child/children as they experience their own version of the holiday. Best to have planned time for conversation with trusted loved ones and/or community members before, during, and after your family conversations.

This post is from our June, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.

Mothers’ Day: Claiming Family Realities

May Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for May. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

May Pro-Tip for Parents: : Be sure to build in time for you and your child to process all of the feelings that may come about surrounding Mothers’ Day. Resist the urge to expect gifts and instead give yourself something special to honor yourself as a mother or mother figure. Be prepared to help your child hold the both/and of this holiday.

This post is from our May, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp - registration is open now!

April Beginnings: What’s in a Name?

April Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck, presented to parents at Family Camp 2021. The card deck contains three cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for April. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

April Pro-Tip for Parents: : Becoming more fully aware of the deeper elements of adoption related to names will prepare you to authentically hold the realities of identity formation experiences. Diving into these delicate topics may evoke strong emotions. Have confidence in yourself to take steps on this journey. As part of the TRJ community, you have the support, love, and guidance of this community to commit to moving toward complexities in service of a healthier, fuller experience of adoption for your child/children, your family, and for YOU!

This post is from our April, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.

February Intersections: Love and Black History Month

February Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck, given to all our families that attend Family Camp. The card deck contains three converstion cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for February. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

February Pro-Tip for Parents: Be extremely honest with yourselves about what may be a real lack of knowledge and experience with differences of race/class/culture prior to parenting transracially. As you think about this, also think about ways you are addressing and will continue to address this lack.

This post is from our February, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe. You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long. And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.

Creating New Traditions to Reflect Our Families and Celebrate Their Identities

author: Avril McInally

For many of us, holidays can be a combination of many emotions and elements. Do we have all the candles we need for our Menorah or for our Kinara? Have we gotten our holiday lights and decorations up? How are we managing our budgets? Is the house tidy and clean enough for our house guests? Do we have enough food? Speaking of food, what about those special recipes we need to prepare? Do we have all of the proper ingredients? And the gifts? Did we purchase enough gifts to make sure no one is left out or one child gets more than another? These are the scenarios for many families at Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or Yule, yet what of our families? Our families manage these aforementioned holiday traditions of hosting, eating and gifting as well as creating space for our adopted children, their race, the family they were born into, their culture, their religion and more!Read our previous post: ‘Tis the Season to Reminiscence

Because our families represent multiple aspects of identity, heritage, and culture, we visit the idea or concept of intersectionality. Some intersectionalities that help to describe our families include race, gender, sexuality, adoption, age and religion. We have several aspects of intersectionality to honor, celebrate, foster and sometimes protect. There’s a little more “juggling” for us to do to manage these precious aspects of our children’s and family’s identities. One way to celebrate “us” is to create new traditions that reflect our families and honor their identities. Read our post about the conversation cards this month December - Reflections: Making and Breaking Traditions

Traditions can be a way for families to connect and memorialize important life events. To adoptive families, creating traditions is more than a way to bond, but it can also be a great way to commemorate each family member’s roots. By incorporating activities that celebrate birth culture, adopted children can develop a strong sense of identity.

This year, I’m going to work on creating a holiday card for our family with my family. I’ll make a list of our intersectionalities with my adult daughters. Black, White, Adopted, Not Adopted, Atheist, Immigrant, American, Cisgender, Female, Male….. You get the picture. Then, we’ll draw a Venn diagram of our family’s identity and decorate it. Heck yeah, “This is Us”! This is who we are with some holly on top! This could be a new holiday tradition for us. If you start this tradition now with young children, you can save your cards every year and watch how your lists morph or mature.

In addition to creating and honoring traditions, it’s important to make time to honor our extended family of adoption as we gather to eat a special meal, to light a candle, to build a fire on one of the longest nights of the year or simply when we tuck our children into bed at night. Remember it’s important to honor and/or acknowledge the family members absent from your home. It’s the “most wonderful time of the year,” yet at the height of festivities and anniversaries, our children may be experiencing loss and sadness. Make space for children who are processing these emotions and thoughts and love on ‘em a little more and give them space to talk about their feelings. And last but not least, you may also have emotions surrounding losses or complexities that can come up as well. Building a tradition of inclusion, empathy and love starts with tending to ourselves!

Mental Illness Awareness Week and Masks of Perfection

author: Avril McInally

This year, Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW) runs from October 2 to October 8. In April’s deck of cards for October, she asks, “Do you think people wear masks that we can’t see?” This question resounded and rested heavily on those of us attending a recent Transracial Journeys’ Board Meeting. You could have heard a pin drop after one of our board members solemnly spoke of an associate’s child who had just committed suicide.

To bring this closer to home, this child was a transracial adoptee. They were the kind of young adult who seemingly had every opportunity at their fingertips. A child whose parents beamed over their accomplishments and a child who never did anything but please those same parents exceedingly, as well as the society in which they circulated.

“Adoption is often forgotten when speaking about trauma, leading to a form of disenfranchised grief, which is grief that is not typically acknowledged or validated by society. Both the trauma and the unrecognized grief may contribute to significant mental health issues.”

What sort of mask was this child hiding behind? Were there any outlets or therapies for their grief?

When working with this month’s cards, pay close attention to the relationship card and what it asks. Then, ask yourselves if our children wear masks to please us? Consider having a dialog in which we encourage our children to drop their masks in order to share their anxieties, experiences and fears with us. They need to know that they don’t have to wear the masks of perfection or excellence to be safe with us.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has themed this year’s MIAW “What I Wish I Had Known”. You can visit their website for an itinerary of their accessible programs and perhaps, in participating in this program or having honest and safe talks with our kids about the masks we wear, we’ll not have to ask ourselves what we wish we had known.

Transracial Journeys

Tag: interracial adoption

Preparation: Transracial Adoption: Be Ready!

March Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

Reflections: Entry Point for Living Fully with Authenticity and Purpose as an Adoptive Family

Conversations: An Entry Point for Living Fully with Authenticity and Purpose

Encouraging an Environment of Discussion

Connecting With Other Adoptive Families

Making and Breaking Traditions:

The Quest for Belonging:

National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM): Embracing a Broader Narrative

Costumes and Code-Switching: The Hidden Layers of Transracial Adoption

Walking Beside Our Children With Clarity and Confidence – (Part 2)

Walking Beside Our Children With Clarity and Confidence – (Part 1)

Back-to-School

Freedom

Father Day

Navigating Identity: The Significance of Names in Self-Discovery