Many adoptive families wonder how to start out telling their child about adoption in a healthy way. Gone are the days when adoption is a secret, as if it is something to hide (thankfully). No, as a matter of fact, being adopted is just part of what makes a child special. In a world where we have all kinds of families, an adopted child should grow up feeling proud of their story. Birth families often wonder how their child will perceive them growing up, and sometimes worry that their child will resent them for placing them for adoption. At Transitions, and most adoption agencies, we want our birth families to know that will never be something we support. Instead, we want to come alongside our adoptive families to show them how to present adoption every step of a child’s life, throughout life, starting from the beginning. Our children should know that adoption is a loving choice their birth family made for them, not without much thought, and not with any sort of ease. It was one of the biggest decisions their birth mother ever faced, and she did so trying to keep their child’s best interests in mind.
You see, when you start off by telling your child there are adopted from day one, it becomes natural and normal. They will always know it and they will begin to establish some basic knowledge of the positive adoption culture at a young age. One of the easiest ways to do this is to purchase some adoption children’s books. There are many available on Amazon and other websites and a simply search for Children’s Adoption Books will give you the option of looking through the books to see which ones apply best to your story.
Here are a few that I like:
Tell Me Again About The Night I was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis
Why Was I Adopted by Carole Livingston (this is out of print but is often available on Amazon)
Growing Grace by Erin Mason
There are so many more good ones, you just have to find the ones that speak to your story. There are also some books that I don’t personally care for, and these tend to be ones that speak from the adoptive parents’ perspective. It is more that the story is for the parent. Yes, they are cute but they aren’t teaching the child anything necessary about their story. So, look and see what you think. For those who are registering for baby items, it is always nice to put a few of these books on the baby registry.
When you start off reading these books something funny might happen. A little boy and his mom were out having lunch with some friends. He turned to the person sitting next to him and casually asked, “So, who is your birth mom?” In his little brain he had learned about adoption from day one, and like so many children hadn’t yet discovered that not all babies came into their family through in the same way he had. So he just assumed that all children have a birth mom. Well, actually that’s true, it’s just that not all children are placed for adoption. What a sweet little mind!
As your child gets older they may have periods of time where they have no questions, and other times when they have lots of questions. There is no magic age of when a child should be asking more about their adoption. The important step is that they know they always have permission to ask you their parents about their adoption. These questions may bring up different feelings for the parents as well. Just as you have your own journey to adoption, your child must have their own path to understanding their adoption. It’s okay to feel whatever you feel about it, and the same is true for them. Most people don’t come to the decision to adopt without asking a lot of questions right? So, naturally your child may have a lot of questions as well. They also may have no questions and you may worry that isn’t normal. Guess what, it’s all normal so long as everyone involved feels they have the ability to talk as little or as much as they need to about it. That’s going to depend partly on personality, gender, circumstances, family dynamics, and so many other factors.
Often in the adoption field we find that questions start to surface as the child starts to develop their sense of self identity. They may start to see the world around them with new eyes, and thus see themselves in that space differently. When recently talking to an adoptive mom who called for advice on this, I asked her, “Do you think these questions are about adoption issues, or about self-identity?” After thinking about it, the mother realized her daughter was actually asking questions based on her journey of self-identity, a normal developmental stage that would happen whether or not she was adopted. So, just a reminder that it isn’t always about adoption.
Finally, there is one really important thing to remember. You cannot have your child grow up embracing their adoption story, unless you have embraced your own story. That is how did you end up at the decision to adopt? Have you processed that fully? Have you dealt with your own losses? For some that’s the loss of the ability to have a biological child, for others it is pregnancy loss, and for some it’s the loss of some other kind. As with any healthy parent, you cannot take care of others if you do not take care of yourself. And this includes dealing with your own losses in life that led you to adoption. Once you do that you are in the healthy position to process and embrace the inevitable losses that come with your child’s story. There is the loss for the birth family of raising this child, the loss for the child of not being raised by their family of birth, and so many other losses. But here’s the beauty in this, loss is a normal part of life. And with overcoming and dealing with loss, we grow into well-adjusted beautifully powerful human beings. Isn’t that what we all hope for? And isn’t adoption just facilitating that growth in our children’s lives?
