Parent Homework...

We were asked by Mrs. Niedrach to write a letter about Chloe. She wanted us to tell her our hopes, dreams, fears and anxieties. What we wanted her to get out of kindergarten. I asked Ben to do the honors....


August 12, 2010


Dear Mrs. Niedrach,

As requested, we shall present a letter on the hopes, dreams, fears, anxieties etc. from the parental standpoint on Chloe Caroline Hansard.

Per the insistence of my dear wife Kim, I shall digress a bit in time and provide perhaps a fuller story than you might have expected. Kim had a 16 month “pregnancy” with Chloe. As you likely know, adoption is a lengthy, time-consuming, detail-oriented, costly and stressful endeavor. Meanwhile, throughout the entire journey, you continually ask yourself, “will we really get her?” The internal turmoil of that concern alone was very difficult. Though we encountered numerous setbacks along the way, we obviously got her!

Allow us the opportunity to provide a little more background before lunging ahead. I (Ben) had been married before and have two older daughters (almost 14 and almost 12). Though I have been able to spend a fair amount of time with them through the years, I felt a bit robbed of the joy of fatherhood. I love being a Daddy. Meanwhile, Kim had never been married prior to me and thus no children. She undoubtedly had the God-given maternal desire that she wanted to fill by being a mother. Hence, we set out to become parents together. The primary purpose for adoption was, I suppose, due to a mutual point we had come to in our lives. Our theory was this; rather than bring another child into this crazy world, why not give a kid a better chance who is already in this crazy world? Yes, we took her from a poor environment, being under the care of the Chinese government/orphanage, but make no mistake, it is we who are blessed! By the way, our motto Bible
verse during this time was from James 1:27. “Pure and undefiled religion is this, to care for the widows and the orphans.”

Giving a little background and allowing you to see our strong emotional attachment to your new student and our baby may hopefully allow you to not only see words on a paper, but the status of our hearts. We know that she is certainly no better than any other child and by no means do we place her on a pedestal. However, we take our role as parents that God entrusted us with very seriously. We are committed to do our absolute best as parents.


Now, we tread into the question of, “why choose Berry?” It goes back to our long-lasting desire to be the best parents we can be. The answer rests in the fact that we want to provide the best for Chloe that we can. We explored other schools and were actually considering home-schooling, but after much prayer and investigation we landed at BCEMS. As Christians, our number one, non-negotiable desire is to lead Chloe into a deep fellowship with Christ. Having said that, we know that this training begins and ends in the home. We do not expect Berry as a private school to teach our child the Bible. We simply want a school that can assist us in preserving the innocence of a child. Nothing beneficial comes from learning profanity and the negative ways of the world at a young age. A child is granted only one time to be a child and that time is very precious and sacred.

One last thing before pressing on; We know that we chose Berry and we are enthused about that. However, we are extremely grateful that Berry chose us! We are honored far greater than words can express. This will be a substantial financial challenge for us, but we are up for the task. To all the parties who were involved in allowing us to be “chosen,” we humbly say, “thanks.”

Now into the more specific matters that you requested. It is our hope that the school partner with us in preserving the purity of Chloe. If she or any other child were to bring inappropriate words or conversations into the classroom we hope they will be corrected. It is worth noting again, that character is at the forefront for us. She can be the smartest, brightest, most personable person in the class…or world, but if she lacks character then we have fallen short.

Next, another reason we chose BCEMS over home-schooling was for the social opportunities. She needs interaction. Our desire would be for you all to gently assist us in that. We want her to be kind, share, reach out to the kids on the fringe and simply be a pleasure to be around. When interacting with adults, we expect her to utilize the manners that we have been instilling at home. She has been taught to say, “thank you, sorry, yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, no ma’am” etc. We definitely want her to respect authority and adults in general. We want her to speak up when spoken to and look adults in the eyes as we believe this instills confidence. Lastly, we long for her to be a joy for you, Mrs. Niedrach and for Ms. Taylor as well as you instruct her.

Now the pride surfaces! We want Chloe to do her best. We want her to be smart. We want her to be stretched and challenged. We want her to want to learn. Peer pressure, if used right, can be a good thing. We have sought to place her in a position where positive peer pressure will exist. It is our desire that she gain the very most out of everything she does from music to journaling, to art, to P.E., to library time, to Spanish and everything else. We want her to discover, to figure things out, to be independent, to explore, to be a good decision-maker and so on. We believe a quality education, one that has already begun, will help launch her above the rest of the pack later on in life.

Now on to the fears. I suppose we fear that she may not do her best or try her hardest, though this has not been the case at all thus far. We fear that her shy side may win over and that she will not speak up or interact enough. Lastly, our greatest fear is that she may be left out at times. We, Kim especially, trembles at the thought of her being isolated. Having said this, it must be noted that these are not large fears. These are fears that one would suppose all parents have at times.

Now the book comes to an end. We are excited, enthused, encouraged and just plain pumped-up about this year. Again, we are honored to be part of the Berry family and we now buckle up and launch into the well-renowned “Niedrach” experience! Bring it on!

Living Abundantly,



Ben and Kim Hansard