Adoptive parents often cringe or even get angry when their child comes home from school having been assigned to fill in his family tree. "How could the teacher have been so insensitive?" they wonder.

Margaret, a family therapist in Oak Park, Illinois, doesn't think the family tree assignment should be dreaded, avoided, or met with anger by adoptive families. In fact, she believes parents should help their adopted child make a family tree even without a directive from a teacher.

"Family trees are very helpful," Gill told Adopted Child. "They are a visual way of looking at our history." For the adoptee, that history includes both a genetic history and the history of his present family, and both should be included on the family tree. This can be done graphically much the same way family trees show the joining of two families in marriage with a dotted line.

Gill believes it is important for adoptees to see their dual heritage put down on paper in a simple way like a family tree. Doing so acknowledges the existence of genetic relatives in a way that does not detract from the child's adoptive family. Making such a family tree also provides an opportunity for talking about the child's birth family.

Gill emphasizes that a full family tree is not just a list of relatives. Ideally, comments and stories should be written in to make the individuals more than just names. For the adoptee, such a family tree would be a way of keeping all the information he has about his genetic history in one location.

Gill acknowledges that many families have only scant information about the adoptee's birth family. Even though they may not have names, they do know that there was a mother and a father, maternal grandparents and paternal grandparents. Those can be indicated, along with whatever information is available about them, such as physical characteristics, talents, nationality, or vocational interests.

Making a family tree should not be a time to fantasize about what the adoptee's family might have been like, Gill believes. "Processing something through fantasy has a purpose, but the family tree shouldn't be a fantasy; it should represent reality," she said. While she favors the use of scrapbooks to help children imagine what their birth families might be like, the family tree should include only that which is known to be true.

In fact, one reason Gill feels so strongly that the adoptive and the genetic families be represented on the family tree is that family trees are expected to be accurate.

An assignment to make a family tree generally is part of a fourth or fifth grade curriculum, so Gill suggests that families take the initiative to help their children with a family tree shortly before the fourth grade. A parent could say, "I was looking through the family bible and thought to myself that the family tree in there is not quite complete for you because it doesn't have room for your birth family. Let's make one that has both families on it."

If the assignment does not come up in school, the adoptee and his parents have still had a valuable opportunity to discuss the child's dual heritage. If the assignment is made, the adoptee has some idea of how he can complete the assignment and permission from his adoptive parents to include his birth family on the family tree.

Gill said some adoptees may feel uncomfortable turning in a family tree at school with both the adoptive and genetic families represented. They may not want to highlight the fact that they are adopted or they may feel that's not the way the teacher wanted them to do the assignment.

"If they want to keep their genetic family private, that's okay, but within the family, it helps them to see that they have a much fuller family membership," Gill said.

She suggests helping the child make the family tree with both families included but then letting the child decide how he wants to complete the assignment for school.

Clearly, making a family tree with both the adoptive and birth families is going to be more difficult if the adoptive parents have not previously discussed or acknowledged the importance of the birth family to the adoptee. In fact, said Gill, if the birth family is never mentioned, the child may not complete the assignment to make a family tree rather than introduce what is evidently a sensitive subject for his parents.

Usually, though, the child cannot complete the assignment without help from his parents, so parents will be aware of it.

Gill said that ideally a teacher would present such an assignment with awareness that members of her class are adopted, in foster care, or have parents who are divorced or remarried. All of these situations require special guidance in preparing a family tree. Educators should set up the assignment for all types of families "not just the nuclear family," Gill said.

If a teacher assigns her class to make family trees without seeming to recognize this, parents should not necessarily call the school. "You don't have to use every situation for school reform," she said, adding that parents should talk to their child before calling a teacher.

The special needs of adopted children and other children in nontraditional families can only be met by ongoing communication between families and schools, Gill believes.

This is a copyrighted article, based on material first published in Adopted Child newsletter.

© This article first appeared in the January 1987 issue of Adopted Child newsletter and is reprinted with permission.

Credits: Lois Melina