Adoption Conference

This weekend we attended the 28th annual APC Adoption Conference.  It was a really interesting day and we learned a lot.  In fact, I feel like I am on information overload.  They had a great program lined up and the cost was really affordable ($75 a person) so if you live within driving distance of NYC I would definitely recommend attending next year!

They had multiple sessions provided in every workshop hour so for much of the day Bri and I split up.  However, we did go to a few sessions together.  We both heard and loved Dr. Jan Arronson, adoptive parent, advocate and pediatrician speak about medical concerns for internationally adoptees.  If you ever get the chance to hear her - GO - she's fantastic!  Click here for more information about her  services.  We also heard a very interesting speaker named, Dr. Boris Gindis, speak about abrupt first language loss in international adoptees.  I was very reassured to hear him say that for most children adopted under the age of 3 there will be no long term affects.  However, he did urge all adoptive parents whose young child will suffer 1st language loss to seek early intervention and speech therapy.  So that's something else for us to start thinking about.

My favorite speaker was Sara Barris, adoptive parent and psychologist, who spoke on "Mindful Parenting Through the Developmental Stages".  She did an amazing job relating to her children's life stories and was so inspirational.  She recommended this book on mindful parenting by John Kabot-Zin which I'm going to try to read to the plane.

The day ended with an opportunity to sit with a panel of young adult adoptees. We both really enjoyed what the kids (ages 14-20) had to say about their experiences.  The moderator asked questions for about an hour, which I felt these teens did a great job of answering honestly and bravely.  Then he let the audience pose some questions.  However, I was disappointed that several adoptive parents asked what we considered to be pretty rude questions.  BTW - since many of you were interested you might want to know this:  I asked the kids how they felt about the new 23andme DNA testing as it might apply to adoptees.  They all said that they would be very interested in having the medical knowledge!  One girl did say she wouldn't want to know about the racial heritage info the test can sometimes provide.  One boy strongly disagreed with her for himself on that point though.  One girl also said she would not want her parents to have had the test done when she was little - she would want it to be her choice.  Other kids said it would have been good to have when they were kids.  So there was some interesting opinions but a general consensus from the kids that they wanted their medical knowledge.  The whole day was a fantastic learning opportunity and I was grateful that APC provided it.  

- Rosemary