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Argh! I am a member - I'm Hope33 - in case the PM comes from "anonymous - not a member"Hx

HiAlthough I am married and not sinle like you and my husband and I are both white AND we live in predominantly white area of the country we were matched with a duel heritage child who was 3 and he is now 4. As far as his heritage is concerned we have not had an issues at all from other people and we have had him nearly 8 months now. His behaviour generally is something we were absolutely NOT prepared for and I guess this is why he found it so hard to find adoptive parents of a similar ethnicity...i.e.they took one look at his form F and said no, hence SS had to broaden their search on the families they would consider.Like you, there were specific reasons that they asked us to be this lads new parents, i.e (just to highlight a few reasons and by no means all)we have travelled far and wide and are very culturally aware and we lived in Jamaica for some time and also were initially planning to adopt from China (which unfortunately all went pear shaped through no fault of our own)and hence did lots of prep for having a child of a different race. So..... although we might have alot of explaining to do to our child in the future about his heritage we haven't actually had any racial comments at all from our immediate community.We had to virtually write a thesis on why we thought we could parent this child (with the main focus on the different ethnicity) which we had to present to panel. Panel then defferred and asked to to provide even more information on how we would specifically cope with the 'teenage years' etc. and then finally the match was approved.It can work and although controversial, if there's no one willing to parent the child you are interested in who is of the 'correct' ethnicity, and if you believe you can provide an excellent alternative then give it a go. Please don't be fooled by a cute face though, please read all the information you can get your hands on about the child. SS do like to match a child with a similar ethnicity, if they can't find a match then maybe this child has underlying issues that are possibly quite difficult and you need to be 100% sure that you can cope, especially as a single parent????? Hope that helps. PM me if you want any further advice

Hi DaffodilI am a single woman and I adopted my daughter nearly 5 years ago. She is African American (black) and I am white. I adopted her when I lived in the US but have been back in the UK for the past 4 years. I live in Nottingham but live in a predomianately white area. So far I have not had any problems. If you ask her if mummy and her are different colours she would reply that no, we are both pink and look at the palms of her hand. I know there will be questions ahead , I am open with her about adoption but there is a real limit to what she can understand at the moment.If you have any questions just let me know.

We are a white couple.DD is black.DS 1 and 2 white. Live in mainly white area but more mixed in culture as time goes by.She is fab.People assume dh is black if me and her. If dh and her they assume his oh is black. If all together they dont know [hee hee]. No problems but just very culturally aware.xx. Good luck..

We are being visited (for the second time) for a mixed race boy 1:5. My husband is mixed race and I am white. One question the sw has asked us to prepare is what will we do if our child hates his skin/hair. Has anyone had any experience of this or did anyone else prepare answers for this question.BBB

HiLots and lots of answers to this question and more, I can send you the document we prepared to answer it all. Our panel was postponed because our sw didn't think we were ready to answer the difficult questions about ethnicity, but waited until 3 weeks away from panel to do it, we've been in hs for 8 months, you'd have thought she had an idea before that! We read a good book I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla, a bit american, but really good at supporting what we already think.We always felt a bit strange being asked these questions by white people who have no idea what it's like being in a different skin (I don't either as I'm white) but don't like the answer 'I'm happy in my skin, it's the last part of my identity I think about, I've never really experienced serious racism'. If you want the answers we put together then pm me your email address.Good luck,

I've pm'd it to you anyway!

Other questions areHow will you feel being the only white face in your family?How will you feel about pushing a pram with a mixed race child in it down your local high street?What will you say if your child tells you they want to be the same colour as you? Or worse, how will you respond if you walk in on your child scrubbing their skin because they want to be white?Pretty obscure is 'How will you actively reflect your child's ethnicity?', the answer is difficult to put into words, you know, but it's difficult to explain as it's in so many things, some are really small.Good luck to any adopter going through this process!!

Thank you so much for all your help. I am wondering what you would tell a child who is trying to scrub their skin white. This is something that all sw's involved have bought up and asked us to think about and research. Any ideas? (although your paper that you pm's goes a long way to answering it)

HiYou have to find out the reason why? If they want to be like one of their parents then an answer I really liked was 'I am your mum and I am paler than you but can you imagine what I would look like if I was the same colour as you? or Daddy was milky like me? Wouldn't we look silly! You are my son and my son is this colour he wouldn't be my son if he didn't look like this! Like an orange wouldn't be an orange if it was yellow, it'd be a grapefruit!'M&Ms look different on the outside, colours and shapes, but if you bite into them they are all chocolate and peanut inside.Another good analogy is flowers in the garden, lots of different flowers which makes the garden beautiful, the garden would be boring if they were all the same.These all come from I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla.Hope this helps too.Sel

Hi Selg,I am looking into being matched with a little girl who is dual heritage. I noticed on your post that you had offered to pm someone some questions that you had.Would you be able to pm me - I would have pm'd you but I'm not a full member (yet)regardsWass

SNAP! I'm a single white mum and I'm being put forward for a potential link with a little girl who is black. Was going to post exactly the same thing - so anyone who's got any good advice or thoughts around answers to questions which are bound to be asked, I'd really appreciate some support! (Have just ordered 'I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla' on Amazon!)

Hi I also wanted to get the answers to questions to tranracial matching panel questions from selg. I wonderedmifmu could forward me the ideal answers?Thanks in anticipation.

Hi I also wanted to get the answers to questions to tranracial matching panel questions from selg. I wonderedmifmu could forward me the ideal answers?Thanks in anticipation.

HiI wouldn't say they are the 'ideal' answers but just what we (I!) put together to try and explain how we would raise a mixed or black child.We now have a black little boy and as my husband is mixed and I'm white he's not an ideal ethnic match to us. The other couple we were in competition with were. Now I talk to his SW and FF and they both agreed they just liked who we were and what we were like when they met us and ethnicity wasn't really considered beyond whether the other couple were equal or better than us in all those ways, which they weren't, so they went with us.PM me your email address and I'll send you all the relevant documents we put together and two photos of all the multi-cultural books we bought. Some of them I'm happy to send you as I don't think my little boy finds a lot of them interesting.Good luckSel x

So sorry selg I didn't get in to message board until now. Something funny with login.I would really appreciate anything u have that will help me with the nerve wracking panel etc...Really appreciate all your help.Thanks again

Hello,Please remember not to share your email addresses on the open message boards. We do provide a private messaging system instead, to keep your privacy intact. If you do experience problems with logging in, please contact the online team using this form: http://www.adoptionuk.org/form/103126/f_cononlineteam/Kind regards,Mod

Hi EmsyFeel free to pm me with your email address and I'll send all the relevant stuff we put together.Best wishesSel