Talking With Kids About Adoption

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Join us to talk about how kids understand adoption and how best to talk with them about adoption. Our guest is Camillia Whitehead, is a MSW and a licensed clinical social worker, and the Founder of Wise Care Consulting, LLC.
In this episode, we cover:

• How does a child’s understanding of adoption differ by age?
  • Toddlers & Preschoolers
  • School Age
  • Tweens/Teens
  • Young Adults
• How does openness or lack of openness impact a child’s understanding of adoption?
• How does transracial adoption impact a child’s understanding of adoption?
• How to talk about adoption at different ages?
  • What are the important points you want to make sure your child understands at each stage?
• What are some common questions children ask at different developmental stages?
  • Why didn’t my birth parents parent me?
  • Can I go back to my birth parents?
  • Do my birth parents think about me?
  • Did my birth parents love me?
  • Who do I look like?
  • Why did they parent my sibling?
  • How am I like my birth parents, and how am I different.”
• Why not wait for your child to ask questions and then talk with them?
• What if your child shows little or no interest in their adoption story?
• What to say when you know very little about the birth parents?
• How can you talk about adoption and the role of the birth father with young children who do not understand the concept of sex?
• How to handle the “You’re not my real mom or dad” statement?
• How to handle hard birth parent stories?
• What to do when your cultural or ethnic background is strongly prejudiced against adoption?
  • Don’t outright lie.
  • Think through carefully what you are afraid of by telling the child.
    • That the child will be rejected by extended family?
    • That you will be judged or rejected by extended family?
    • That the child will share the information to others in your community?
  • Accept that the odds are extremely high that the child is going to find out from over-the-counter DNA testing or someone in the family will tell or from 8th grade biology assignment.
  • Accept that at some point the failure to tell is the same as lying. When adult adoptees who were not told by their parents were interviewed later in life they almost universally say that it was the lie that hurt the most and did the most damage to their relationship with their parents.
  • Start laying the groundwork at an early age.
    • Families are formed in different ways.
    • All types of families are good.
    • We had trouble having kids and we were so happy when you arrived.
    • Try to establish connections with other adoptive parents
    • Point out adoptive families when you see them in real life or TV or movies
  • Review your reasons for not wanting to tell and decide on an age that you will tell.
  • Explain their adoption story.

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