5 Ways to Celebrate Your Adopted Child’s Culture

Kristina Frazier — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 16:00:07 +0000

When you adopt, depending on your who your child is, your family has a chance of becoming a multi-cultural family. This provides you with a unique opportunity to embrace the new culture that has infiltrated your family and to provide the opportunity to teach your child to take pride in where they are from. But, it’s often tough to know where to start. It may not be your culture, or at least the culture you grew up in, so where do you learn more about it? How do you celebrate it? Here are five ways to celebrate your adopted child’s culture.

1. Celebrate a holiday: For my family, we have tried to embrace our son’s culture and heritage by celebrating a holiday that is famously celebrated in his birth country. We try to get together with other adoptive families who have adopted from the same country and we try and embrace traditional activities to celebrate together. It’s not only a good time to learn more about the holiday and cultural traditions themselves, but it’s a great time for your child to be around other kids like them. They can learn that they are special, and grow up celebrating together!

2. Cook: Learning to cook traditional food from your child’s culture is a great way to integrate the culture into your family. Cooking can be a great way to spend time with your family, while embracing some special aspects of your adopted child’s culture. Going shopping to find specific, maybe “hard to find”, ingredients can be fun, too! Once you perfect a dish, bringing that dish to family gatherings, potlucks, or friend’s houses can be a great way to teach others about your child’s culture, too!

3. Research: Do you research. Don’t just let this opportunity slip by! Learn how they traditionally dress, what the cultural music sounds like, and some things about the culture’s history. I was even able to find a coloring book of traditional clothing from my son’s culture for my kids to color. Embracing the history of your adopted child’s culture is a great way to learn and grow together.

4. Find cultural events around town: Depending on where you live, this can be difficult. Our town does not have a large population of other people from my son’s culture, so it’s tough to find activities or events in our area. So, we’ve had to improvise! There is a local orthodox church that hosts a cultural festival where various cultures are celebrate through food, dancing, and music. Although it’s not my son’s culture individually, the festival does celebrate cultures in the area of his birth country, so it’s a pretty good option in our book.

5. Talk: Talking about the culture is a way of celebration. Something as simple as cheering for their birth country on the Olympics is a way to show your child that their culture is special, and is now the culture of your family. So, just talk about it!

Celebrating your child’s culture can be such a fun way to not only expose your family to other culture’s and people, but to help your adopted child realize that they are loved, chosen, and special. It can definitely be used as an attachment and bonding tool, especially if your child is older. Learning to love your new multi-cultural family and what that will look like is a part of each family’s individual adoption journey.

The post 5 Ways to Celebrate Your Adopted Child’s Culture appeared first on International Adoption | Agencies, Cost, Photolistings, Process.

5 Stats about International Adoption

Kristina Frazier — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 16:00:32 +0000

International adoption can be a mysterious enterprise. From the various regulations that are determined by each individual country, to the language and governmental differences, it can seem like an overwhelming, and sometimes looming, vast hole of the unknown. Yet, if you feel called to adopt overseas, or have found your child on an advocacy site and they happen to be from another country, these statistics may answer some interesting questions while you embark on your own journey. (travel.state.gov)

1. In 2016, there were 5,370 international adoptions. The total amount of international adoptions has decreased every year since 2004. In that year, the United States had completed almost 23,000 international adoptions. (travel.state.gov)

2. History has shown that female children tend to account for the majority of international adoptions, except for the most recent statistics found in 2016, where male children surpassed the females, 51.6% to 48.4%. (travel.state.gov)

3. Statistics have shown that adoptive families have pursued younger children in the past, the majority of children adopted internationally being under the age of 2. But, with what was most likely some shifts in country regulations, the majority of children adopted internationally in 2016 were between the ages of 5 and 12, making up 38% of completed adoptions for that year. (travel.state.gov)

4. While China has reigned as the top country to adopt from for the past couple years, hitting its peak in 2005 with almost 8,000 completed adoptions, it is suspected that the country will fall from the number one spot after the new restrictions on adoptive families were passed in 2017. (travel.state.gov)

5. As of 2016, it has been estimated that there are at least 140 million orphans worldwide. (unicef.org)

Those numbers can not only be shocking and eye opening, but they can really shed light onto the growing problem within the international adoption community – each year, there is a growing orphan population but a shrinking adoptive family population. Hopefully, things can turn around and those families that have been considering adoption will step out in faith and pursue adoption. Every child needs a family, no matter where they are from.

The post 5 Stats about International Adoption appeared first on International Adoption | Agencies, Cost, Photolistings, Process.

Kristina Frazier – International Adoption | Agencies, Cost, Photolistings, Process

5 Ways to Celebrate Your Adopted Child’s Culture

5 Stats about International Adoption