The Importance of Birth Culture

Here's a snip from a Gladney article:

Exposing children to their birth culture is beneficial. Most parents agree that knowledge of birth culture promotes their children's self-identity and social adjustment, so it is important for parents to preserve the culture of origin on some level to enable the children to accept all aspects of themselves. Transracial adoptive parents' cultural competence can help children develop pride in their ethnic identities and achieve better psychological adjustment as well as coping skills to deal with racial/ethnic prejudice and discrimination. Such parenting may be associated with higher self-esteem and help prepare the children for questions and stereotypes they may encounter in their lives.

A strong ethnic identity and self-esteem may help protect the child against the negative psychological effects of racism and discrimination. It is protective to have a well-established feeling of one's own worth as a person, which in turn strengthens one's ability to cope successfully with life's challenges. Adoption researchers and professionals believe that adolescents with a strong ethnic identity may report higher pro-social attitudes and less involvement in problem behaviors.

There are many different ways to incorporate your child's birth culture into your family life. Suggestions from other families include: displaying artifacts throughout the house (not just in the child's room), reading multicultural books together, taking language, cooking, or dance classes, attending heritage camps, periodically including recipes from your child's birth country in your family meals as well as including an ethnic dish on Thanksgiving to show how thankful you are for their birth country, and planting a tree or shrub from your child's country of origin each year on his/her Gotcha Day. The importance of maintaining positive adult role models who share your child's ethnic heritage cannot be overlooked. This helps to embrace diversity within your family circle.