Adoption Movie Review: Superman the Movie

This article is cross-posted! Get a sample here, and to read the rest of the review, including concerns, weaknesses and discussion questions, please click on over to Reel Spirituality.

Known as "The Man of Steel," Superman is seen by his admirers as tough, strong, and powerful. No one could guess the depth of loss he's experienced.

The Plot (spoilers ahead)

Jor-El is a prominent scientist on the Planet Krypton. He discovers that his planet will soon be destroyed, but no other scientists believe him. Jor-El and his wife choose not to leave the planet, but they provide for their son, Kal-El, to be transported to Earth. Kal-El’s vehicle crashes in Smallville, Kansas, and he is spotted only by Jonathan and Martha Kent. They name the boy Clark, and raise him as their own. When Clark is eighteen, he leaves the Kent home and spends twelve years learning from an interactive recording of Jor-El. He returns to Earth as Superman. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is planning to use a bomb to cause an earthquake to move California into the ocean and be destroyed. Superman uses his powers to prevent this.

The Adoption Connection

Although adoption is not expressly discussed in this film, adoption issues are prevalent. Superman’s parents, Jor-El and Lara, know that they cannot keep him safe. Jor-El makes a plan for Superman to go to Earth, believing that he will be able to survive there. When Superman arrives, he is found by the Kents; Mrs. Kent expresses that she has been praying for a child. The Kents raise Superman as their own son, and he calls them his parents. When he is eighteen, he leaves home to seek out information from his birthfather; this information largely defines his character.

Adoption Kids' Book: We Belong Together

Todd Parr has a gift. With few words, few (bright) colors, and few (bold) lines, he effectively conveys comforting truths. We Belong Together is a brightly-illustrated book which is intended to be read by adoptive parents to very young children. The story simply explains that the adopted child had needs which the adoptive family was able to meet, and that because they family was able to meet those needs, they adopted the child. The story also affirms that the family enjoys learning and playing with the child.

Most of my social work experience has been in foster care and adoption, and Todd’s message rings quite true for many of the kids I’ve worked with. Their needs were unmet – by their birth families, by former foster homes, by the system (!) – but finally they find a home that does meet their needs. This provides a way for them to grow. I often think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in the context of kids in foster care – lower-level needs need to be met before higher-level needs can be attended to. Kids need to know that they will have stability and safety before they can really start investing in relationships and thriving. This book ties in with that understanding.

The story might need to be altered a bit to reflect your child’s story, but it’s a good starting point. The illustration, style, and simplicity of the book make it best-suited to very young children (maybe up to age 4) who will be satisfied for now with a simple answer to the question of why they were adopted.

Happy reading! 

Perfect Moment Monday: Some Moments Reveal Their Perfection in Retrospect

Susie* was eight years old. She had already been in ten foster homes, and the county workers assigned to her case believed that if she moved again, it would be to a group home. She had stayed with Greg and Joan for the last nine months, and it seemed as though she had found stability. Then the call came.

 photo credit: kevin dooley (via Flickr)

It was about ten at night, and I was parked outside of a Target after an abnormally late night of work as a foster care social worker. My phone rang, and the screen told me it was Judith, our on-call supervisor. Her frantic voice greeted me, “Addison, can you think of any homes that would take an emergency placement for the night? Greg and Joan are demanding that we move Susie.” How could they do this to Susie? Somehow, reason prevailed over rage and I suggested the home of Rebekah, a tough, experienced single mother who was still fairly new to foster care.

Rebekah took Susie in. The next morning she shared that Susie greeted her by asking “Can I stay here forever?” Whether it was the sign of attachment difficulties or just a logical question for an often-moved kid, Rebekah’s answer was solid: “As far as it depends on me, yes.  I can’t say what will happen, because I don’t control circumstances, but I promise that I will never ask for you to be moved.” That answer would be disastrous if it was given in vain - but Rebekah is tough, determined, and she keeps her commitments.

When Judith’s late-night call came, I thought the moment was far from perfect. Susie was moved from yet another home. Later investigations showed that Greg and Joan blamed Susie for something another child did. She seemed likely to be headed to a group home through no fault of her own, and we needed a quick, safe place for her to spend the night.

 (photo credit: Anna (bcmom) via Flickr)

Sometimes perfect moments only reveal themselves in retrospect. Sometimes, perfect moments only result from Divine creativity applied to horrible situations. This is one of those cases. Susie did stay with Rebekah. It’s been over five years since the call and Susie has found a forever home with Rebekah. Her adoption was finalized a couple years ago. I hear from them occasionally, and Susie is happy and thriving. Rebekah has actively pursued contact with Susie's birth family, and that is going well, too. Who would have imagined that a late-night emergency call would result in a permanent home? It truly was a perfect moment.

Lori at WriteMindOpenHeart.com says that Perfect Moment Mondays are about noticing and celebrating the perfect moments that happen in your life, rather than going out of your way to stress about creating “perfect moments.” What have been the perfect moments in your life? Consider sharing them with Lori, or visit her site to read more perfect moments.

Want to smile more? Check out my Perfect Moment post from October - about how a young child influenced the practice of a foster family agency. You might also resonate with my Thanksgiving post - Ten Things I'm Thankful For. 

You might also enjoy my recent family movie discussion guide, on Rise of the Guardians.

(* This story, and all case stories on this blog, are compilations of many stories. No real names are used, and details are disguised to protect anonymity)

Adoption Movie Review: Rise of the Guardians

You probably expect to see Santa Claus this time of year, but the Easter Bunny? You might end up seeing him too. Rise of the Guardians isn’t an adoption movie, but it still provides opportunities for discussions about dreams, fears, and identity.

The Plot (spoilers ahead)

Children are protected by four Guardians: North (Santa), Sandy (the Sandman), the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. They bring hope and joy to kids, and the children sustain the Guardians’ existence by believing in them. Other legendary creatures exist, but are invisible to children. Their lives are less meaningful because of the children’s unbelief. Jack Frost squanders away his time by making mischief, but also wonders why he isn’t known and loved. The Boogieman has become bitter and intends to use fear to force children into believing in him. Jack is called to join the Guardians to help defend against the Boogieman. Jack is reluctant because he views himself as a troublemaker. When he learns that he is a caretaker at heart, he gladly joins them. The Boogieman’s fearful plan does not work out, and he retreats. The children of the world continue having hope in their Guardians, including their newest hero, Jack Frost.

Strong Points

Jack finds joy in helping others, but he does not initially realize this. He takes even more joy in learning the truth about himself: that he does take care of others.

North uses nesting dolls to illustrate a valuable point: people are more than they appear to be on the surface. Each person has many layers, and deep inside they have a core value or trait which defines their lives.

 (photo credit: PhotoAtelier)

Ten Things I'm Thankful For

It’s easy enough to worry about future plans, things I haven’t accomplished, or “stuff that might happen.” But today I want to be intentionally thankful for what I have. 

      (image credit Ron Cogswell)

1.       I’m thankful for my health. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, and completed treatments later that year. My doctors have told me that I should be in the clear by now. I’m surprised at how many lives around me have been touched by cancer. I’m glad that I've been able to understand and empathize more closely with those who have been touched by it. I’m glad that I seem to have been healed.

2.       I’m thankful for my wife. I’ve been married for almost ten years now, and we've grown closer together as friends all along the way. I’m married to a psychologist, but this is a good thing. For one, we understand each other’s work pretty well. More importantly, though, we’re usually able to use our “clinical listening” skills with each other. It helps misunderstandings turn into communication more quickly.

3.       I’m thankful for my faith and for a community of friends with faith. About a year and a half after I completed cancer treatments, a doctor reviewed a preventative scan told me that it looked like the cancer had come back. About a month went by between that scan and a confirmatory scan; in that month, I asked my friends – at church, on Facebook, at Game Night – to pray for me. People did. The confirmatory scan was unable to find anything. A year and a half later, and nothing has recurred. So, I’m grateful for what I choose to interpret as a healing, but it’s actually far more than that. I don’t actually know what happened within my body – whether God healed me in response to prayer, or whether my body healed itself. But I do know this: the support of my friends brought me through my treatments in 2009. And somehow, faith in God helped me weather the storm of a possible recurrence of cancer without being shaken. I am thankful for faith that helps me stay grounded in difficult situations.

4.       I’m grateful for family. I know I’m loved. It’s strange to see generations shift. I used to be the youngest generation. I’m not anymore. The thought strikes me that, although maybe three or four generations are alive at any one time, if I live to a ripe old age, I’ll have known family members in seven different generations. That’s amazing.

5.       I’m grateful for seniors. As a college freshman, I met “The Colonel,” an octogenarian who lived on campus, and took walks with whoever would join him. I grew from hearing his wisdom and being around someone so patient and gentle. He has since passed away. Someone wrote a dedication to him, and said that college students would often approach the Colonel thinking that he needed a friend; when they left, they realized that it was they who needed a friend, and the Colonel filled that role. Since knowing him, I’ve enjoyed long conversations with many seniors. They have much to share.

6.        I’m grateful for traditions. Jack-O-Lantern hamburgers on Halloween, family gatherings on Thanksgiving, watching the ball drop on New Years’ Eve… these have all been magical times in my childhood and continue to bring joy to me today.

7.       I’m grateful for social work. I stumbled into it almost by chance, but I love journeying with people, being a support, helping them find the strength within themselves to do what they want to do.

8.       I’m grateful for blogs! What a strange thing to say, but it’s true. The last few months have been a new experience for me. I've spent several years working in foster care adoption, but in the last two or three months, I've read heartfelt posts by birth mothers  birth fathers  adult adoptees, adoptive parents, embryo donors, embryo adopters,  and families that have adopted (or live!) internationally. I am learning from what I read, and am getting a broader understanding of the positive and negative experiences that folks have had with adoption.

9.       I’m grateful for a yard! I've lived in dorms and apartments for the better part of a decade, and just recently moved to a house with a yard. I like being able to be outside underneath the green, yellow, red, and then absent roof of elm leaves.

10.   I’m grateful  for Thanksgiving. I really needed to take time to be grateful, and I’m glad that there’s a reminder built into my calendar.

What are you thankful for? If you've made a similar list, please link to it in the comments; if you haven’t, feel free to just use the comments here!

Embryo Adoption Kids' Book

There aren’t many books about embryo donation. As children born in this way age, though, there will be a need for books to explain their stories to them.

IVF nurse (and former IVF patient) Janice Grimes saw that parents of children born in unique ways were encouraged to share their children’s story of origin with them; but how do you talk about in vitro fertilization or embryo donation with a four year old? In answering that question, Grimes wrote one of the only kids’ books to introduce the subject of embryo donation. Embryo donation is also sometimes called embryo adoption, and regardless of what it is called, it shares much in common with adoption.

Grimes has a teddy bear family introduce the topic. The child asks, “Please tell me the story about your wish for a baby.” The parent explains in somewhat specific terms about infertility.  He then explains that because “Mommy and Daddy can’t make a baby,” another man and woman would help them by giving them an embryo. The language the book uses isn’t particularly scientific, but seems to be age-appropriate.  Fertilization is described as “a special cell from Mommy and a special cell from Daddy” joining together “to make a baby [which] then grows in a safe place inside Mommy.” The embryo donation is described as another man and woman making such a tiny baby and giving “us this baby to have as our very own.” The book then describes the embryo’s stay in the new mother’s womb, birth, and first years with the family.

Embryo donations and embryo adoptions have been going on for more than a decade, and Grimes does an admirable job of starting the kids’ book library on the topic. The illustrations are friendly, the story is happy, and the quite complicated topic of embryo donation is made understandable to a kid.

There are a few items to consider. The book uses the term “embryo donation” and does not mention any contact with the baby’s genetic parents. Some people who pursue embryo donation go through agencies which use home studies, and which encourage open relationships between genetic families and birth families (notice the slight tweak in traditional adoption language!)The book affirms that the baby given while an embryo is the child being read to, but I can imagine a child wondering “why was I given away?” This isn’t reason to avoid the book, but it is something to think through before you read it to your child. With the understanding that you might need to edit some pieces aloud as you read it, this is a good book for your library if you’re considering embryo adoption/donation. It’s also a good book if you just want to educate yourself and your kids on something new.

Note: Janice Grimes has written many books on one template: each book has the same illustrations, but the text differs from edition to edition, and editions address various circumstances of birth, including IVF, sperm donation, egg donation, surrogacy, and babies carried for male parents. Separate editions of books exist for single-parent homes. This review is of the edition focusing on embryo donation / embryo adoption. Each book has the same title, so ordering it from third-party sellers on Amazon is not a surefire way to get the edition you want. I’d recommend ordering it from her site: www.xyandme.com

What unique kids' books have you found? You can leave your answers in the comments!

Lessons from a Feeding Program

I was young, newly self-confident, eager to serve God and people, and excited to put my studies into practice. After my junior year of college, I applied for the only internship that interested me. The interview went well, and so I spent my senior year of college as an intern with a crisis center specializing in providing food to the needy. I spent most days volunteering at a feeding program in the basement of a Unitarian Universalist Church in Quincy, MA.

 I met with a social work professor for clinical supervision each week, but the minutes of my day were largely out of the eye of social workers. I spent time getting to know the folks at the feeding program: John who ran it every day and invested his life into the relationships he could build there. A small group of clients who needed the free meal, but on their own volition came hours before service every day in order to help. A rotating but consistently present set of Mormon missionaries who volunteered with us twice a week. Clients who struggled with poverty; clients who struggled with alcohol abuse; clients who displayed delusional thought. A young man who volunteered with us as part of his probation requirements.

                My internship was atypical in that I was the closest thing to a social worker on site many of the days. I’m glad of that, though. John, who was in charge of the program, served as a direct supervisor for me and offered instructions that, although not really clinical, have been very formational in my career. “Just get out there and be with the people.” So I did. For a year, my job was to sit at lunch tables with folks who needed, for whatever reason, a free meal. Help in a social-worky way if the need presents, but mostly – just be present. Interact with your clients as though they are people. Because they are people.

                That’s the most valuable lesson I learned there. I became comfortable being with people in a wide range of life situations. I saw them as people in situations, rather than seeing them only as the situation they were in. I talked with them, joked with them, listened to them, took what they said seriously, and valued their stories. People generally respond well when you care about them and respectfully convey through your actions that you really want to hear their story.

                On one afternoon, a wealthy older gentleman in his clean tennis clothes came down the dusty sidewalk and took the concrete steps into our basement. He was upset that our program brought lower-income people into his part of town. He wanted our program to stop so that they would leave. John bristly asked, “Where should they go?” The man’s only response was, “Well, we don’t want them here.”It’s ten years later, and I’m surprised to find that I’m still angered as I remember it. The man was only thinking in terms of economy. Bring a feeding program into town, richer folks go elsewhere, and the town stops being a lucrative place of business. He saw our clients as economic influences. But to me they weren't just “clients,” they were also people that I had come to know and care about. I think he lost sight of their humanity, and it saddens me.

                The same lessons have helped me as I've worked in foster care and adoption. Foster parents have often been scared of birth parents. Birth parents who've had their children removed are often angry at the system or at the foster parents. The kids are confused, depressed, or traumatized and act out against teachers, other kids, foster parents. The social workers are often overwhelmed and pressured and honestly, sometimes take it out on the birth parents or the foster parents.

                It’s helped me as a social worker to view people as “people” rather than as “clients” “foster parents” “birth parents” or whatever other category. Sure, this person is a “person who is a birth parent,” this person is a “person who is a kid in foster care,” this person is a “person who works for the county as a social worker.” But they’re all people and viewing people as “people first” lends itself to treating them with respect, patience, and grace. Someone wrote recently in one of the open adoption interviews that “there is no such thing as a stereotypical birth mother.” There sure isn't – and if we treat people according to stereotypes, we treat them wrong.

                I've had pretty good luck with clients so far. And I think it’s because I view them as “people who are my clients” rather than as “just my client.” After all, people generally respond well when you care about them and respectfully convey through your actions that you really want to hear their story.

Interested in learning more about social work? Here's how I became a social worker, and what I learned in Intro to Psychology.

How I Ended Up as a Social Worker

I hadn’t even heard of social work before I got to college. I graduated high school intending to major in secondary education, and planned to return as an English teacher. I wanted to impact lives, and imagined that that would probably happen by hanging around after class and being available as a listening ear for my students.

I was pretty shy and insecure throughout most of my high school years, but through a scheduling error I ended up in a theatre class during my senior year. It helped my break out of my shell. I found that laughing at myself and actively engaging people was a good defense to my natural reluctance to share of myself. I enjoyed the theatre class, and I especially enjoyed my newfound outgoingness. I think I wanted to know people all along, but I finally was developing skills to help me do so. It’s amazing how well people respond to someone who actually wants to know their story.

In college, I was still fresh on the “actively meeting people to avoid insecurity” strategy. I researched several campus activities. One was a program that arranged for college students to spend social time with folks with severe developmental disabilities. Although I didn’t end up serving in that group, the interview changed the course of my life. I casually asked the student leader what she was majoring in. It was social work. I hadn’t heard of it, and she described simply, “It’s helping people.”

                I’m not generally prone to quick decisions, but I did switch my major to social work a shortly after learning about it. I had prayed right around that time that God would use me for whatever God needed. I remember feeling affirmed in my new direction when I learned that my pastor, a major role model to me, had also majored in social work.

                I made the switch in October. Over the next few years, I studied the history of the profession,  human development, therapeutic skills, policy, law, community practice. I was incredulously amused at the concept of reflective listening...  Just rephrase and repeat back what someone tells you? Thirteen years later, I find that it’s been the single most helpful tool.

                I kept engaging with classmates, professors, and other students during college. By intentionally engaging them, I grew more confident in myself, which helped me more easily reach out to others. My desire is and has been to hear stories, to be a listening ear and a compassionate friend. Social work has been a great avenue for me to do that. And I got here through an accidentally-schedule theater class and a casual question in an interview for a group I didn’t even join.

Like social work? You might like my recent post on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Adoption Kids' Book Review: My New Family: A First Look at Adoption

What do you get if you cross a journalist with a psychotherapist? If it's the same person, and they write about adoption, you get this book:

Counselor, journalist and psychotherapist Pat Thomas has written a series of “A First Look At…” books, which intend to “promote interaction among children, parents and teachers.” Her 2003 book, My New Family: A First Look at Adoption begins by telling adoptees, “You live in a very special family.”

Thomas’ training as a psychotherapist shows through in this book. The book is measured, comforting, and normalizing.  It explains that there are many ways to make families, describes various family structures, and invites children to discuss differences and similarities between families. The book expresses, without explaining why, that sometimes birth parents cannot care for a child as well as they would want to, and that this leads a child into foster care. It acknowledges that once in foster care, some children go back to their birth parents and some do not. The book explains adoption as “living with another family forever,” and normalizes it by saying that “lots of children all over the world are adopted – sometimes as babies and sometimes as older children.” Thomas addresses that families sometimes look different, and says that appearances and origins “are not the most important things,” but that it is more important to learn to understand and unconditionally love each other. Thomas’s book encourages children to talk with their adoptive parents about how they feel, to share openly about their sadness, and to ask questions about birth parents.

The book does mention birth parents. It affirms that “both… sets of parents have given you something special,” and it also reflects that birth parents are sad when they decide to make an adoption plan for a child.  The book does not mention open adoption, which is unfortunate.

Thomas includes a one page “how to use this book” primer for parents. The primer encourages parents to always be open about adoption with their children, to be honest when they don’t know answers, to err on the side of love when giving hypothetical explanations, and to avoid making the child feel grateful. Unfortunately, the back cover of the book, which was likely not written by Thomas, explains that the book tries to help adopted children “understand how lucky they are.” Thomas herself would probably bristle at this phrasing, as would many adoptees. Ignore the back cover, though, and the book itself is solid.

I recommend this one to families that are considering adoption. Reading through it can help you prepare yourself to have a health outlook towards discussing adoption with your kid.

Happy reading!

PS. When I first started reviewing kids’ adoption books, I did it in the context of preparing a resource for foster and adoptive parents at the agency where I was employed. My first set of reviews was entirely from books in the children’s section of the Pasadena Public Library. People started suggesting other books to review, and this is one of them, recommended by a friend and former co-worker. I do enjoy finding new kids’ books; if you’ve got any books you’d like me to review, please mention them in the comments section!

Adoption Movie Review: Angels in the Outfield

Roger and JP are in a short-term foster home. Their foster mother Maggie is nice, but can't commit to keeping them forever. Each boy wishes for a family. Can their wish come true? Find out (and pretend it's still summer) as we take an adoption-focused look at this 1994 Disney film.

The Plot (spoilers ahead)

Roger and J.P. are two young boys living in the short-term foster home of Maggie Nelson. We don’t know much of their situation. Roger’s birth mother passed away, and his father maintains some contact with him. J.P.’s father has passed away, but we aren’t told why J.P. is in foster care. Roger’s father shows up at Maggie’s foster home and tells Roger that, although he planned to take Roger back home, he won’t be able to. Roger asks when they will be a family again, and his father off-handedly says, “When the Angels win the pennant,” meaning “probably never.” Roger doesn’t understand his father’s intended meaning, and instead prays for divine intervention to help the last-place Angels. Heavenly Angels do start helping the California Angels, and against all odds, the Angels do win the pennant. Along the way, Roger and J.P. make friends with the Angels’ curmudgeonly manager, George Knox. Days before the Angels clinch the pennant, Roger learns that his father has relinquished parental rights and will not reunify with him. George is saddened at Roger’s grief and tries to comfort him. The film ends as George reveals that he has contacted Social Services and intends to take adoptive placement of Roger and J.P.

The Adoption Connection

Roger and J.P. are in a short-term foster home. Both are hoping for family. J.P. wants a father. Roger wants to be reunited with his own father.  Roger and J.P. have developed a friendship while living in the same foster home, and J.P. shares his concerns about foster care with Roger – will we be here a long time? If we stay a long time, will we have to change our names? They both remain hopeful that “something good” will happen. Eventually, Roger’s father voluntarily terminates his parental rights. Roger and J.P. end the movie overjoyed at the prospect of being adopted together.

Adoption Kids' Book Review: The White Swan Express

The White Swan Express has lots of potential. It’s the story of formation of four adoptive families from North America who are each adopting an infant from China. The book is illustrated beautifully by Hong Kong-born Meilo So, and its authors have direct times to adoption; Okimoto is the daughter of an adoptee and a therapist, Aoki writes the book based on her experience of becoming a family.

The book tells a compelling story: all around North America, families wake up on the morning of their journey to China. In China, the babies sleep. The families arrive in China with a mixture of anxiety and excitement; they meet together and develop a bond because of their shared experience. The nannies wake the babies and bring them to the embassy. Finally they meet and “it was as if they’d always been theirs.”  The families go their separate ways, but still keep in touch.

This story seems like it would be most helpful to prospective adoptive parents. This is the story of how your adoption will go, more or less. In that context, though, I question the immediacy of the connection. For many adoptive parents, the first meeting doesn’t bring forth feelings of “she has always been mine.” Sometimes those feelings grow over time. Prospective parents could be unwittingly misled by this one particular page.  The authors do include a wonderful afterword, which explains the process in more detail, and which (for me) salvages the book.

Young children adopted internationally – and particularly from China - might enjoy this book as an introduction to their parents’ story, but it doesn’t really capture the “story of me” for the child. If you’re adopting internationally, this is a good book to have in your library, but it really shouldn’t be the only one.

If you're in a reading mood, check out my growing list of adoption kids' book reviews!

What I Learned in Intro to Psychology and How it Applies to my Real Life as an Adoption Social Worker (Considering Adoption Part 2)

She was about four years old. The little bundle of energy raced to me, basically a stranger at her front door. I was visiting her foster home as an adoption social worker. She had lived there for several months, and had been in foster care probably even longer. Sadly, life had not worked it out for her to return home.

But she was happy, energetic, talkative, and friendly. She grabbed my hand, and raced toward the kitchen. She threw open the doors to a cabinet, pointed, and said in her four-year-old still-a-bit-unclear speech: "Look!" I looked. The cabinet was filled with food. For her, this was still exciting. She remembered times, before living here, that there hadn't been enough food. She was still affirming that there would be food for her to eat tomorrow.

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist working in the first half of the 1900's. In 1943, he published a paper which suggested that humans have an unconscious "Hierarchy of Needs" and that they organize their efforts around that structure; in a nutshell, without even thinking about, people work on the most important stuff first.

When he published the paper, he saw five levels of need. From most foundational to least, they are: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Physiological needs are the ones that deal with survival: like having food to eat RIGHT NOW so that you don't actually starve. Safety needs are basically physiological needs in the future: like knowing that you have food to eat tomorrow. Love/belonging needs come next: once you're confident of your own survival, you realize that humans are really communal beings; we need to be in relationship to each other. After that comes esteem needs: now that you're in connection with other people, it's important that they like you; it's important that you like you. Finally, said Maslow, comes self-actualization. That's the need we have to figure out who "you" actually are. Maslow suggested that people don't work on higher-level (or less foundational) until their more basic needs are mostly met.

So back to my little four-year-old friend. She had never starved to death. Her physiological needs had always been met. But her safety needs hadn't been. She spent the first portion of her life learning that her safety needs weren't met; that she couldn't know whether there would be food tomorrow. She proudly showed me that, yes, her safety needs were being met. Maslow would suggest that my little friend's next goal will be to find love and belonging. Sure enough, before I finished the visit, I noticed that she had saved the last fruit snack from a package. It was glistening, so I imagine she started to eat it, and changed her mind. She wanted to bring it to school to share it with a friend. And applying Maslow's theory to kids, it makes sense.

When I interviewed prospective adoptive parents, I often asked them what their goals are for their kids. There were two answers that were, by far, the most common. I could almost recite them. Here's one: "I want my kids to be good, upstanding citizens." Here's the other: "I want my kids to love and serve the Lord."

If you think about it, both of those needs show up on the very top of the Hierarchy. They're self-actualization needs. They're a kid becoming who they really are. That's where my applicants want their kids to end up; that's where any parents want their kids to end up, and that's good! The Hierarchy is a great road map, though. Kids need to have their more foundational needs met before they're going to work on their higher-level ones. A kid probably won't be worried about sponsoring a child in poverty if they're not sure that their own needs for food are going to be met tomorrow. A kid probably won't worry to much about honesty if they're not sure that their need for safety is definitely met. It's good and appropriate and helpful to want - and eventually expect - great things from your kids. But it's probably wisest to understand that growth happens in a process. Kids who've spent the first few years of their life learning that their lower-level needs are not met will take some time to unlearn that; it won't be immediate, it will probably take some time. Be patient. Meet their needs.

Be patient. Meet their needs.

Perfect Moment Monday (a few days late)

Lori at Write Mind Open Heart is an open-adoption activist. She also has created a blog movement called Perfect Moment Monday. She says that this is about finding and dwelling in perfect moments, rather than going out of your way to create them.

I was working at a foster care and adoption agency in Palmdale, California. Our administrator had recently organized and hosted a large Thanksgiving party. For kids in foster care, holidays can be difficult. Family members might be far away, or unable to visit. Foster parents (and social workers) are resistant to supervising visits on actual holidays. When monitored visits do happen, they're often uncomfortable, taking place in sterile rooms with supervision by a social worker that really feels awkward. But we got right that day. We asked all families to schedule their visits on this day, and staggered the visits so that there weren't more than 20 or so people in the facility at a time. One room was set up for crafts, another was set up for visits, another was set up for a screening of a Peanuts Thanksgiving cartoon, and still another was set up as a beautifully-appointed dining room. Families rotated through the stations, and although visits were supervised, the monitors were aware of the festive nature of the day and acted in kind. Families that were missing each other shared time talking, watching Snoopy and making crafts. Then the families came together in the center room for a big Thanksgiving meal; our boss had found a store that was able to donate enough turkeys and other Thanksgiving foods to make a really special day for everyone.

You would think that that day was my perfect moment, but it's really something else. A few days later, I was talking with one of the young children who had been at our Thanksgiving party. He asked whether we might do something similar for Mother's Day. The perfect moment was that when I passed on his suggestion to the boss, she said she was in favor of it.

I don't work in Palmdale anymore, but I still remember how great it was to see families that are often forgotten be honored, and to see that the voice of a young foster child was heard by an agency. I hope that the parties keep going on in Palmdale.