Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child: Making Sense of the Past

When starting out on a search for birth parents, particularly with international adoptions where one has no idea of who (or what circumstances) one will find, this is a superb guide. They key point here, something most psychiatrists apparently have yet to learn, is that adopted children from the youngest ages frequently and actively wonder about their birth parents, and often conceptualize circumstances that cause serious acting out. During their teen years especially--a time of emotional upheaval even for kids raised in their biological families--adopted children experience a wide range of feelings that must be dealt with. There is no way for parents to successfully take their children "around" their natural grief, the authors note. The only way to handle it is to help them "through." This, of course, is contrary to traditional thinking. "Oh just forget the past," relatives may say. Don't listen to them. Adopted children need to find out who they are, and even though they most likely never met them, they have love and concerns for their birth parents, feelings that the best adoptive parents will help them digest and manage. Schooler describes the various levels at which adopted children may conceptualize their origins, depending on their age. And anger can be a big factor particularly during the middle school and high school years. Not dealing with these fantasies and feelings is a prescription for disaster. So is dealing with them in an insensitive or unthinking way. The message is plain: share everything you know with your adopted child, as soon as you know, with as much respect for the child's feelings as you can. You cannot erase their pain. You can only help them cope with it. And in this way, help them grow into productive young men and women in their own rights. A fabulous resource, which all adoptive parents, all pediatricians, and all mental health professionals, should study.

All parents who have adopted a child with a difficult birth family history should read this book. Parents natural tendency is to protect their child from information that they fear will hurt the child or damage their self-esteem. The authors do a great job of explaining why children need to be told the truth, in an age-appropriate manner at the appropriate time. This book helped to resolve doubts I had on this issue. Christine Mitchell, author and illustrator of: Family Day: Celebrating Ethan's Adoption Anniversary and Welcome Home, Forever Child: A Celebration of Children Adopted as Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Beyond

Excellent step by step instruction on how to tell kids difficult information about their birth parents. E.g., your birth mother was a drug addict. Also shows how to present this information for kids of different ages: what you say to a 5 year old, a 10 year old, a 15 year old. I have read just about every book on adoption/fostering and this is one of the best. Since reading it I have known how to answer my son's questions and have felt much more comfortable discussing his birth parents with him.

I loved this book for a variety of reasons. It begins by laying a groundwork of WHY information can be so powerful and destructive in a family. It contrasts that with how openness can build a foundation of honesty between adopted youths and their parents. In that sense it starts out very conceptual. But it does not stop there, it goes on to give very concrete and practical ways you can give your children possibly hurtful information about their pasts in developmentally sensitive ways. I highly reccommend this book for anyone who plans on adopting from the foster care system. Sometimes questions come from our kids we don't always know how to answer. This book can help us to do that AND understand how our children respond to those answers.

This is the most comprehensive and "on target" book about adoption I have found. If you are adopted, reading this book will make you feel very understood...and if you are an adoptive parent, reading this book will be one of the best things you can do for your child!