From Home to Homeland: What Adoptive Families Need to Know before Making a Return Trip to China

Every year, hundreds of adoptive families embark on homeland trips to China and other countries. Homeland trips offer great opportunities for helping adopted children develop a coherent narrative that makes sense of their complicated beginnings. Although the trip can be a joyful experience, it can also raise many challenges. The chapters of this book by Joyce Maguire Pavao, Jane Brown, Jane Leidtke, Rose Lewis, and many others offer the engaging perspectives of adoptive parents, professionals, researchers, and, most importantly, adopted children themselves. Together, they comprise a unique, invaluable resource that will help families prepare for a homeland trip, make decisions about how to travel, anticipate what they might experience in China, and meaningfully integrate events and emotions after arriving back home. From Home to Homeland is for all internationally adoptive families considering a homeland trip or figuring out how to best make sense of a trip after returning home.