How are you preparing your biological children for adopted siblings?

Let me back up a year or so to how we eased in to the idea of adoption with our biological children.  Currently our bio kids are ages 2, 5 (just had a birthday!),6, and 9, so they are young.  We do have three close family friends who have adopted internationally so our children have those families to observe and just be around.  In a child's mind, those families are just that, a family.  This is a good thing of course, that the children know that families can look different from other families and each member can look different from the other.  But, I will say, our children didn't really know about adoption from these relationships, they knew about diversity within a family.   The families were already established and we weren't along for the processes of their adoptions.

In order to teach our children about adoption and acceptance of a child, we started on a easy level then slowly moved to the more difficult topics.  When I say easy level, I'm talking like the movie Annie.  We watched Annie and would point out things to them like, "this is an orphanage," or "the girls are called orphans because they have no homes."  Just a simple intro to the words: orphanage, adoption, orphan, caregiver, birth parents, and adoptive parents is a great place to start.

American Girl also has a movie based on their historical doll, Samantha.  The movie, Samantha, is about a girl named Samantha who lost both her parents and now lives with her grandmother.  Samantha makes a friend who ends up losing her mother and father, but her fate isn't as fortunate to live with a relative. The friend and her sisters have to go an orphanage where they are separated from each other and poorly treated.  Samantha steps in to help by sneaking the sisters out of the orphanage and into her attic.  The gig is up when one of the sisters gets very sick and needs an adult's help.  All ends well when Samantha's uncle and aunt take in all of the girls to adopt them.  Again, this movie brings opportunities to talk to children and ask questions about orphan care and adoption.

We are Little House on the Prairie fans and if you are too you'll remember that the Ingall's family adopts a boy named Albert.  I'm sure if you think about it there are other movies, and books for that matter, that can be used as springboards to discuss the basic concepts of adoption.

Then we moved to showing the kids clips on You Tube from a sweet, well-run orphanage in Haiti called, God's Littlest Angels.  This was a big step from the movie world of orphans' fairy tales to the reality of real children in need of care, love, and a family.  We stayed at this stage of awareness for awhile getting more and more personal by praying, sending cards, and giving funding gifts for the orphanages needs.  Our church held a summer bible school and donations were collected and given to Alex's House orphanage in Haiti.  We watched video clips here as well about the children in the orphanage.

Operation Christmas Child's Shoe boxes ministry is a project we have participated in  for a couple years.  Operation Christmas Child delivers shoe boxes filled with small toys, toothbrushes, school supplies, and such to children around the world at Christmas time. Often this is the only gift these children have ever received. They also include a booklet written in the native language that describes the hope found in Jesus. We used this opportunity to give shoe boxes as a window for our children to understand the poverty and family struggles in other parts of the world.

Another opportunity to reach out to the world and attach a real person, a real name and face is to sponsor a child through organizations such as World Vision or Compassion.  We sponsor a girl through World Vision.  The kids pray for her every night.  We write her letters and study the area where she lives.

During our home schooling we study world history, current world events, cultures, places, and people. We map locations of our sponsored child, where the Christmas shoe boxes have gone, and of course the location of Ethiopia!  We pray for the hungry, the hurting, and the hiding.  By the 'hiding' we mean that we pray for the persecuted church and those who aren't allowed to freely worship God.  The smaller map, titled "Will You Pray?" show areas of persecution toward Christians.  It is from Voice of the Martyrs magazine.  We pray frequently for these areas and share with the children the great differences of where we live to other areas around the world.  

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

All of these are our starting places to teach the kids about orphan care, adoption, caring for others in need, about the great big world that exists around us, and what God calls us to do about it.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James 1:27

More to come with book links that we have used with the children!