One of the things that an adoptive parent reads about in adoption books is about when your child comes to a certain point in school where assignments may be given such as family trees, family history or tracing the child's development from birth. For many adoptive kids...it's not possible to fill in the same "brackets" due to lack of knowledge concerning their background.
Let me start by saying I'm so grateful that our first experience into this area is with a Lucas' teacher and our friend, Lynn. Lynn has been with us every step of the journey, she advocated for the boys before we knew them.
Lucas' class is participating in a speech contest. Everyone does a 3-5 minute speech, subject this year is, "someone who has overcome obstacles." After a lot of debate on the adult side of things, taking into consideration his language development and understanding of the process itself, he decided he would talk about his life as an orphan, adoptive son and a student learning a new culture and language. Did I mention it's 3-5 minutes, I can't tell his story that fast.
So we are traveling down memory lane, reestablishing old knowledge and feelings, clarifying a lot from what his perception was to the facts. The remarkable thing in talking with him is that he truly doesn't see what an overwhelming path he has traveled. The bits and pieces of struggles, yes, but not the whole picture. That not everyone has had to struggle as much and fought as hard as he has to be where he is now. Things that you or I may view as difficult he just accepts as a normal part of his life.
I can't wait to see and hear the end product of this assignment. We are all learning a lot, school doesn't always just educate the student but those that are touched by that student.
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