Family Tree projects

[chekejulia]

Interesting story in the Boston Globe this AM.

Has anyone here actually have a kid who had to do a family tree project? I can't quite figure out what lesson they teach...

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/family/ ... e_problem/

[tlm216]

Thanks for posting. I'm a teacher, an adoptee & an adoptive parent...I just printed the article to hang in the teacher's lounge. And yes, I have been assigned the family tree project & a punnett square project in 7th grade & both brought up feelings about my birt family and my adoption in general. I also was in a classroom as an assistant years ago where the project was assigned & there were 2 adoptees in the class.

[suzyg]

I've never actually had any of my children assigned a family tree project. I would think the project would be difficult for many kids, not just adopted ones. Even the bio kids would have difficulty with the assignment. Do they include the adopted siblings? I like the river idea at the end of the article. I'm filing it away for any future assignments.

SUzy

[Kerin in DE]

I kind of feel like this type of assignment has no real place in the schools. Families are complicated for lots of reasons. None of which really needs to be fodder for an elementary school project. Just my 2 cents.

[jennieandmike]

This came up in the girls classes recently and I think what they did was FABULOUS! Rather than doing a traditional family tree, which would be difficult for any child who was adopted, they did it as an ancestry project. If a child had more than one ancestry line, they had to pick one to do the project on. Kimmee and Kaylee did like a book report where they had various sections like traditional foods, crafts, dances, folk lore, customs, a map including where they were born, etc. I brought in their hanboks and they presented their ancestry project to the class wearing them and we also brought in some Korean dolls, a sogo drum, some money, and even a tape of Korean music that they played quietly while they were doing their presentation. They even learned to write their name in Hangul and put both the English and Hangul on their title page. It was a wonderful way for us to explore some more of their culture and birth country together and it opened the door for further conversations of their adoption.

There are a lot of children who were adopted, both domestically and internationally, in our school system, so the school was trying to be especially sensitive to those kids feelings. But I heard from a lot of parents who only had biological children that it was a great way for them to learn more about their ancestry. How many families actually take the time to learn about the traditions, foods, music, crafts, etc. of their ancestral countries? (Some of the kids still did the traditional family tree if they wanted to) A lot of the parents came in to the classroom to see the presentations so we were able to learn about various countries as well, rather than just seeing a tree with names on it.

[The Princess Mom]

Our school has a huge family tree project in the Junior year of high school. One adoptee actually did her project on Holt. It was VERY good and I thought it was a good alternative. I love the ancestry idea too.

[melanbob]

I love the alternatives that are given in the article.

Just don't start reading the comments section...........PUKE!!!!!!!!!!!

Melissa

[Emma'smom]

My oldest is in the gifted program. The gifted teacher on back to school present one of her unit for the grading period. It was for the 3rd graders. It was a family tree. I was so upset. Here is the gifted teacher making this mistake. She was an idiot. Luckily, our county built a new school and we are at the new school. Otherwise I was going to have to make her change it by the time Jack made it to 3 rd grade.

Julie

[violin34]

I don't understand why this project is a mistake. The one at our school does not emphasize bloodlines, so maybe that is why it seemed fun to us. All four of my children have done it, and we only go back as far as the people that they know. In our case, this would mean back to their grandparents. I am adopted by my stepfather, so my adoptive father and his parents are on my tree. Who else would I put there?
Also, the assignment at our school is very nicely worded, going into the fact that everyone has different ideas of family and the children can put the people they consider part of their family on the tree. So the parents area could have grandparents, friends or foster parents on it. For heritage, they have the child list all the countries represented in the family somewhere on the page.
My children were thrilled with this assignment, they enjoyed putting the pictures on the poster and picking out the the pictures they wanted to use. They called Grandpa to see if he came from a different country. They were surprised to learn that my husband and I have a huge mixture of heritages and really surprised that I have some Italian and Portuguese background. They were proud to be the only ones in their classes that had Korea and Romania as countries of origin. Since there were tons of kids from Syria , Philippines and India they felt special.
We had fun completing this assignment.
violin34

[ZoeKLT]

I guess I'm in the minority here, because I don't have an issue with the family tree assignment at all. What I do have an issue with is are statements like this:

"That old family tree with a mom and a dad, it doesn't work for a lot of children, including adopted children."

Um, why not? My kids have a mom and a dad, plus two siblings. They happen to also have three sets of grandparents (DH's parents, my dad and his wife, plus my mom) - so what if it branches off into a few different directions? This doesn't have to be your genetic mapping - it's a pictoral representation of their family. If my kids had two mommies or were being raised by a single parent, I don't think the tree is any less relevant.

[Lillie]

Here are some options for family tree assignments from the Adoption Clubhouse website:

http://www.adoptionclubhouse.org/03_hom ... rview.html

[Linda in NJ]

I have heard of adoptees doing the tree with the birth family as the roots and the adoptive family as the branches and the leaves.

Grace attends a Catholic school that goes from Nursery to 8th grades. By the time she gets to the fifth grade project, I think the fact that she was adopted will be "old news". This year in nursery school, I did a presentation on the Lunar New Year. We talked about Grace being born in Korea, but didn't mention adoption. I hope each year to repeat this, but add more as they get older. Also, it will be based on Grace's wants and needs. Although there are few asians in this school, we like the fact that she will be with the same small group of kids until 8th grade. Like I said, it will be old hat by the time she gets to 5th grade. At the rate things have gone for Grace, the other kids will be jealous that she has a special tree while all the others have the same-old-same-old kind of tree!

Why do kids need to focus on family heritage? I think it's because as teens they will be asking the question, Who am I? Knowing your heritage is part of that. For Grace, her birth family and her adoptive family is both who she is. I could see her putting her fm as the trunk of the tree. Matt just did a science project on Mt. Etna. From a science perspective, he learned about volcanoes. Also, he talked about how his Great grandfather was born in Sicily near Mt. Etna and brought in lava my father had brought back from Mt. Etna. It was our choice to add the Italian heritage to the project, but I can really see how it added to his self esteem. Of course, it helped that he got first prize!

I think the biggest problem adoptive families have with the family tree project is when the teacher doesn't give them any direction. Parents are left to wonder how to do this. But I have heard of many making it into a positive thing.

[4fromkorea]

I think the biggest problem adoptive families have with the family tree project is when the teacher doesn't give them any direction. Parents are left to wonder how to do this.

I totally agree Linda.

To me it's not a big deal, we would just "alter" the project to fit us (I feel like that is my job as my child's advocate).

[kvsilar]

I'm in the minority too. While I see Kerin's point, many families are complicated by many things, mine included, is elementary school the place to figure that all out.

With all that said, I would have them start with their biological parents with a line to their foster parents with a line to us, their adoptive parents and then follow our families from there. Maybe I am missing something, but why complicate it past that? I dont want to neglect where they were born, their heritage and out of honor and respect to their birth parents and foster families, feel it should start with them, and continue with their adoptive families. WE are their family and our ancestory is now theirs too.

Seriously, am I missing the point?

[tyjac]

My son did a family tree as part of cub scouts and we made it very simple. Parents were my husband and I . No place on the family tree does it state birth parents, adoptive parents, etc. In his eyes we are his parents, and his "Nana" and "Pup" are his grandparents, etc. Pretty straight forward, I think.