As the age of secrecy in adoption is slowly falling behind us, families are beginning to realize the importance of talking to their child about adoption from the time the child is placed with them.  There is no “magical” age that should be reached before a child knows their birth history and how they came to be with you.  If you are open and honest with your child from the beginning then adoption will seem normal to them.  It is just a part of who they are and how your family was formed.

Secrets are often seen as being bad.  Think about this.  Why do we keep secrets or not tell the truth about things?  Because what happened was so bad that we don’t want to talk about it.  If a child is not allowed to freely ask questions and discuss their birth history, then their birth history is seen as bad.  This can translate to “I am bad” or “I must not have been loved.”

Studies show that the more open families are with their children about adoption, the more comfortable their children are with the subject.  Being open with your child about adoption does not mean you necessarily have to have an open adoption.  It simply means that you are not going to keep secrets from your child and that you are willing to let them talk about whatever they need to talk about.

We encourage couples to talk about adoption from the day they receive their child.  This means, before they can even understand what you are saying you are practicing telling them about their birth story.  Terms such as “adoption” and “birthfamily” are introduced from the beginning and concepts such as “your birthmother loved you and chose adoption because she loved you” and “your father and I prayed for you to come to us and were so excited the first time we saw you” are concepts that they will always know to be true.

Fortunately we live in an age where there are plenty of children’s books to help you talk to your child about adoption.  Books such as Tell Me Again about the Night I was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis, I Love You Like Crazy Cakes by Rose A. Lewis and Happy Adoption Day by John McCutcheon are available for you to share adoption stories in a way that children can understand.  There are children’s books geared towards International Adoption, open adoption and older child adoption.  Be sure that you read the book before sharing it with your child to make sure that it applies to their story in some way.  For instance, if you have a closed adoption, then a book about an open adoption would not be something they could relate to.

Talking to Your Child About Adoption by Pat Martinez Dorner is an excellent guide for parents.  It covers talking to your child when they are infants, preschoolers, and in the elementary school through high school years. This helps you to determine where they are emotionally and cognitively to present different adoption concepts.  Other good books for adoptive parents include Explaining Adoption To Your Adopted Child — A Guide for Adoptive Parents  by Prue Chennels and Talking With Young Children About Adoption by Mary Watkins and Susan Fisher.  Tapestry Books is an excellent resource for all types of adoption books and subjects.  Even if you did not use an adoption agency for your adoption, contact a local agency for book ideas or guidance on talking to your child about adoption.

When talking to your child about adoption it is important to be open, honest and positive.  Do not lie or make up information about their birthfamily or adoption.  Even if it is hard to say something positive about something, such as a birthfather who did not participate at all in the process, you should still state something good about them, even if it is as simple as “he was not able to take care of you when you were born so he let you come to us so that we could take care of you.”  If you don’t know an answer to a question, just say you don’t know.  This is hard for parents because you want to give your child the answers to all of their questions.  Perhaps you can ask the agency or birthmother if you have contact with her and she might be able to answer the question.

If you are always open about adoption and comfortable with the subject, then your child will be too.  It is also good for you to start an adoption discussion with them occasionally just so they know that they can come to you to discuss things, that you are fine with talking about their birth history and adoption.  The age of secrecy in adoptions is past, so celebrate your child’s adoption and history with them and let them know how thankful and blessed you are to have been chosen to be their parents and to have them in your lives.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 23rd, 2006 at 2:59 am and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.