Family Trees

by Deb Fjeld

With so much diversity in our communities and schools nowadays, it’s time to rethink some of our traditional school activities. Many schools still have classroom activities based on holidays, family trees, autobiographies, baby pictures and family memorabilia, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and family background research or genetics. Offering students the option of participating and providing an alternative project will let each child approach the task at his or her own comfort level. Some children may wish to keep information about themselves and their families private, and they should be allowed to do so in a way that doesn’t single them out.

Grade-schoolers are just becoming aware of differences in families, and they are mostly concerned about fitting in and being like their classmates. Adopted or foster children may be happy to include only their current family in family trees. But they may also be spurred to think about their birth-family members, making the assignment emotionally edgy.

Even the idea of creating a family tree can raise questions of belonging, relatedness, difference, divided loyalty, confusion, and embarrassment—not only for the adopted student, but also for birth and adopted siblings and students in foster families and divorced and step families.

With a little creativity and foresight, we can make these activities a comfortable learning experience for everyone—and contribute to each child’s self-esteem at the same time.

Here are a few alternatives to the traditional family tree project:

A Tree with Roots: Children put themselves on the trunk, and then fill in the roots and branches with other family members. Birth or foster parents could be the roots, and the branches for adoptive or stepparents, other parents, siblings, and other family members.

Family Houses: This approach uses small houses, instead of family trees, to show links between family members and to show how family members, including parents, have moved from one home to start another with new members. The

Loving Tree: Children draw themselves on the tree trunk, and then put the faces and names of people they love (and tell why) inside hearts on the branches. A variation of this is The Caring Tree, where instead of filling in the hearts, children draw the heads of the people they care about and briefly tell how each person cares for them.

The Hedgerow: Children draw each current family member as one bush in a row of hedges. Roots can signify birthparents, grandparents, foster parents, countries of origin, etc. Branches intermingle to help show that all are equally important.

The Wheel Pedigree: This system of divided concentric circles or half circles (see illustration, below) places the child at the center, with parents in the next circle, grandparents in the next, etc. In a full circle, one side can be used for a birthfamily and the other side for the adoptive or foster family. Names, along with other information (talents, interests, nationality, etc), can be added where known.

familytree1

(The following diagram and text was taken from The National Society of Genetic Counselors, Inc. web site.)

The Genogram: This diagram approach uses symbols to represent each gender (a square for males and a circle for females), with straight lines connecting parents to each other and to children. An X over a symbol indicates a death, and a diagonal line crossing a connecting line indicates a divorce. Households are enclosed within a circle around the figures that are part of a child’s current family unit.

To Draw Your Family Tree

Follow instructions in the “Your Family History-Your Future” guide.
Make list of all of your family members.
Use this sample family tree as a guide to draw your own family tree.
Write your name at the top of your paper and date you drew your family tree.
In place of the words father, mother etc., write the names of your family members.
When possible, draw your brothers and sisters and your parents’ brothers and sisters starting with the oldest to the youngest, going from left to right across the paper.
If dates-of-birth or ages are not known, guess (e.g. 50’s, late 60’s)

familytree2

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