American adoptive families encouraged to celebrate their foreign-born child's traditions

by Michael Sciannamea (Subscribe to Michael Sciannamea's posts) Feb 27th 2007 5:00PM

Categories: Adoption

I came across this very interesting little piece that appeared in the New York Times the other day about American families raising adopted children from China and exposing both the child and the family to Chinese traditions. This is done basically to give the child a sense of identity of where they are from and their culture, as well as giving the adoptive family the opportunity to learn more about their child's roots.

This is a really great concept and as we see more families adopting from overseas, it really does give a child a good sense of self and an understanding of where they come from. There are times when we seem too quick to "Americanize" these kids, but we need to remember that all of us come from somewhere else, and we celebrate our own traditions and customs, whether we are of Italian, Irish, Jewish, German, African-American, Asian, etc., descent. We as adoptive parents should allow our children that same opportunity to celebrate their own inherent traditions.

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