Saturday, April 11, 2009

Knowledge is Power – Part One

Awhile back, we attended mandatory adoption workshops. I griped and complained a little about going. After all, I am full of first hand experience, but I did enjoy myself and I met some very interesting people. It also served as a reminder to me that all adoptions are different. I believe that the training is invaluable for first time adoptive parents and not a bad refresher for those of us who live and breathe it.

Anyhow, the overriding theme of the presentation (in my opinion) was that knowledge is power. I’ve also believed that knowledge is power, but if adoption touches your life (especially international adoption) knowledge is also mandatory.

It is important that the prospective parents, adoptive parents and adoptees are armed with all of the information that they can find – the good, the bad and the ugly. The more you know, the less surprise there will be when something new tries to mow you down. Please don’t doubt it, no matter how prepared you are…there will always be something new.

1 comment:

Susan McCaffrey said...

Hi! I am a teacher/librarian in the Grand Rapids area and I am taking a class on Web 2.0 tools. For one of the assignments, we have to search for blogs related to something we're interested in. Having 2 kids, age 12 and 14, adopted from Korea, I searched "Korean adoption" and your blog was the first hit. I just wondered where you live in Michigan and if you know about the FFIC Heritage Camp. It takes place at a school in the GR area and over 400 kids, ages preschool through grade 9, attend for a week-long daycamp which focuses on their birth cultures. At one time, it was heavily Korean, but now we have about 80 Korean children. There are also Chinese, Eastern European, and South American kids. Even if your child doesn't attend, it's fun to come visit or to hang out in the Parent Resource Room with other waiting parents or those whose children are too young for camp. For more information, please visit fficgr.org or you can email me at susanmccaffrey@gmail.com. Best wishes for a quick and successful second adoption. Susan McCaffrey