Adoption, under the best possible circumstances, involves loss. Few birthparents deliberately plan to have a child they will have to let someone else parent. Adoptive parents, like all parents, want to shield their children from sadness and from things they think may be damaging to their self-esteem. However, the loss of trust in their parents that secrecy creates is potentially more damaging than the original losses.
Books such as Lois Melina’s Making Sense of Adoption and Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child, by Betsy Keefer and Jayne Schooler, recommend age-appropriate ways of conveying a child’s story to the child in ways that will not contradict more sensitive facts best shared later.
A few cardinal rules apply. First and foremost, do not lie. Do not allow a child to assume something that will be later revealed to be false. Consider a child’s developmental age. A preschooler will not understand the concept of sex (I hope). A child who has had Drug Abuse Resistance Education in school will comprehend more than a younger child about what drugs can do to someone’s thinking. The whole story need not be shared early on (do you tell any five-year-old the circumstances of her conception, even if positive?) but say nothing that you will have to undo later.
Melina, Keefer and Schooler recommend sharing the full story by about age 12, saying that this gives children time to assimilate difficult information with the support of their parents before adolescent angst sets in, and before the adolescent begins the normal developmental task of mentally and emotionally separating from parents. And yes, they say, the full story does need to be shared. The child’s history belongs to him, not to the adoptive parents. Also remember that nowadays many birthparents later find their children or the children seek out their birthparents.
Don’t wait for a child to bring up the subject—some children believe that discussing their pre-adoption history will be hurtful to the adoptive parents. However, take cues from the child. Note that each situation is different. These comments are more examples for appropriate times in a conversation rather than points to be strung together in a lecture.
Stress that the issue is the parents’ ability to take care of a child at that time. Young children are “magical thinkers”. If they have angry feelings toward a parent and the parent gets sick, they often think they are to blame. They also often blame themselves for their parents’ arguments, divorces or bad behavior, no matter how illogical this seems to adults.
Both the above books, as well as others I have read, show examples of phrases parents might use to talk about various circumstances. In this blog series I will paraphrase what I’ve gleaned from several sources. Melina’s book also includes suggestions for parents whose children’s stories involve surrogacy or donor egg or sperm. My blog reviewing her book can be found here.
Please see these related blogs:
Book Review: Making Sense of Adoption by Lois Ruskai Melina
Book Review: Real Parents, Real Children
What Is Adoption?—A Book Review
Principles for Talking About Special Needs