Transracial Adoption and Fostering: Understanding Race & Racial Identity

Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

11/16/22

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53m

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Are you a transracial adoptive or foster parent? Have you wondered how you can help your child form a healthy racial identity. Does racial identity formation change depending on the race of the child? Today we talk about all this and more with Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels, a professor at the University of Chicago and Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. She is a transracial adoptee and co-author of the book Multiracial Cultural Attunement.
In this episode, we cover:

How do children in the US come to understand race at different ages and developmental stages?
How early do children develop a racial bias? How early do children associate certain characteristics to race and show a preference towards a person of a certain race?
How does transracial adoption or fostering or kinship care impact a child’s understanding of race?
How does transracial or transcultural adoption or fostering or kinship care impact children?
- Racial identity formation: How does being adopted transracially impact the adoptee’s racial identity formation?
- Coping with racism
In your research and in your experience, do you see a difference in the experience of race is perceived by both transracial adoptees or adoptive or foster parents depending on the race of the child? Asian, Latinx, Black, Bi-racial?
Why is taking the colorblind approach to parenting not helpful?
“It’s About More Than Hair”
Transracial parenting requires the family to be fluent in “race talk” – socialization is not a conversation, it is a daily, incremental, and developmental family process.
As our kids age, what is it like for our tweens, teens, and young adults to have parents of a different race?
How does transracial adoption or fostering impact siblings in the family who are the same race as the parents?
How does transracial adoption or fostering affect extended family members, such as grandparents and aunts and uncles?
Practical tips for parents raising a child of a different race or ethnicity.

Additional Resources:

Diverse Book Finder
The Brown Bookshelf – highlights Black voices writing for young readers.
The Conscious Kid
Multiracial Cultural Attunement by Gina Miranda Samuels and Kelly Faye Jackson, 2019
Tips for parenting your transracially adopted child by Dr. Gina Samuels
EmbraceRace was founded to create the community and gather the resources they needed (need!) to meet the challenges faced by those raising children in a world where race matters.
Dr. Erin Winkler, Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn Race
Hamilton ER, Samek DR, Keyes M, McGue MK, Iacono WG. Identity Development in a Transracial Environment: Racial/Ethnic Minority Adoptees in Minnesota. Adopt Q. 2015;18(3):217-233. doi: 10.1080/10926755.2015.1013593. PMID: 26300622; PMCID: PMC4540225.

This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

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Previous Episode

Physical and Emotional Health Issues Common with Foster Kids

November 9, 2022

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53m

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What are the common health issues foster parents and those adopting from foster care should expect? We talk with Christy Street, Program Director of Fostering Health NC, which is a program of North Carolina Pediatric Society.
In this episode, we cover:

Term “health” broadly to encompass physical, emotional, mental, behavioral, developmental, educational, and oral health.
Impact of trauma on kids physical and mental health.
Those areas of the brain most affected by trauma, especially early trauma, are those involved in stress response, emotional regulation, attention, cognition, executive function, and memory.
An issue with foster care parenting is limited access to health care before entering foster care and lack of knowledge about previous health care. How does this impact care and what can foster or adoptive parents do?
The role of transience and uncertainty for kids in foster care provides challenges for foster parents and doctors in providing health care to kids in foster care.
Immunizations
Medicaid Care management
Foster kids often come to us with a bag full of medications that have been prescribed somewhere along the line and a host of diagnoses. What role can foster or soon to be adoptive parents play?
What are psychotropic drugs and why are so many foster children on them?
What can foster parents do if they question the amount or type of medication their foster child is taking or even the underlying diagnosis?
What role does a foster parent have in seeking a change in medication for their foster child?
What doctor do you take your foster child to? Your pediatrician? Their previous doctor, if they had one? The doctor that has prescribed the medication?
Pre-natal exposure to alcohol and drugs: impact, diagnosis.
One of the most confusing aspects of caring for a child in foster care is identifying who has the authority to consent for health care on behalf of the child or adolescent. Varies by state (caseworker can tell you).
Sleep issues with foster children. What causes sleep issues? What can foster parents or parents adopting from foster care do to help children in foster care sleep better?
How common are weight issues in foster children? Why is obesity and being overweight an issue? What can foster parents or parents adopting from foster care do?
Dental care for foster children. How much and how soon?
Coping with feelings of “why bother” when a foster child will return to the same chaotic household they came from.

Additional Resources

Support the show

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Next Episode

Prenatal Exposure: Diagnosing and Treatment

November 23, 2022

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50m

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Do you wonder if your child was prenatally exposed to alcohol or drugs? There may be nothing in the files, but something feels not right? We talk about diagnosing and treating these kids with Dr. Larry Burd, a professor of pediatrics at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and the Director of the North Dakota Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Center.
In this episode, we cover:

Most of our audience is foster, adoptive, and kinship parents and professionals. Often they don’t know for sure if a child has been exposed. The US government estimates that about 10% of all children in the US have been prenatally exposed to alcohol or drugs. Do you have a feel for the percentage of children in foster care or who have been involved with the child welfare system? International adoption? Domestic infant adoption?
Does prenatal exposure increase the likelihood of a disruption to a foster or adoptive placement?
How is prenatal exposure to alcohol detected or diagnosed?
What type of training do pediatricians receive during their education or residency on prenatal exposure and on how to diagnose?
Can you tell at birth or in infancy if a baby has been exposed to alcohol in utero?
How is prenatal exposure to drugs detected or diagnosed?
How does birth order change the likelihood that a child who is at risk has been exposed during pregnancy?
What are the long-term impacts of alcohol exposure? What are the symptoms that are most noticeable to parents, teachers, and other professionals working with these children?
Alcohol exposure affects multiple systems in the body.
Does it matter what type of alcohol was consumed?
Who can diagnose a child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder?
What are the long-term impacts of the following drugs?
- Opioids
- Heroin and Fentanyl
- Depressants (benzodiazepines, such as Valium, Xanax)-Prescribed and unprescribed
- Stimulants-Prescribed and unprescribed
- Methamphetamines
- Marijuana
- Tobacco/Nicotine
Do pediatricians have a body of resources to offer parents regarding raising a child with prenatal exposure?
Tips for parents

Additional Resources Mentioned in Interview:

Still Face Experiment
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content: