Like all children, adopted children spend a good portion of their waking hours in school. Because school is such an important aspect of children's lives, adoptive parents, like all parents, want their child's school experience to be a positive one. When your child has a problem at school, you might find yourself wondering: Is this a problem related to adoption, or is it a "generic" developmental, educational, or school system problem common to all children?

How Adoption Impacts Children at School

Adoption can impact children at school in two ways: educationally and socially. If a child is grieving for or fantasizing about birth family to the extent that it affects his ability to concentrate and learn, that is an educational effect. If a child is teased on the playground by classmates who say that he must be bad because his "real" parents gave him away, that is a social effect. Yet the teasing can also affect self-esteem, which can affect school performance. Let's look at both of these areas in three general time periods: preschool and kindergarten, elementary school, and junior-senior high school.

Pre-School/Kindergarten

When children attend day care or nursery school, they are exposed to many new experiences beyond the protected world of their immediate family. Often it is the first time they interact socially with a group of children. They make new friends, learn to deal with a new authority figure (the teacher), master routines, sing songs, pet a guinea pig, and imitate adult roles in a housekeeping area just their size.

Educational goals for preschool children are normally low-key. Supporting the development of the child's self-esteem and self-confidence in the world beyond the family is usually the priority. Social skills such as taking turns, sharing, and following directions are emphasized. Gross motor development and creative expression are encouraged. Activities may center around colors, shapes, number concepts, and letters, among other things, but formal drilling in reading readiness or arithmetic facts is usually not a part of the curriculum. Most preschools want to help children gain self-awareness and a love of learning that will be a good foundation for their elementary school experience.