Talking With Your Adopted or Foster Child About the Hard Parts of Their Story
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
10/13/21
•49m
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Talking with your adopted or foster child about the hard parts of their story can feel like a daunting task. Should you tell your child that her birth father is in jail or that her birth mother is addicted to drugs, or that she was conceived by rape? If so, how in the world do you share this news. We talk with Lesli Johnson, an EMDR therapist who specializes in adoption and foster care and an adult adoptee; and Susan Myers, a licensed Master Social Worker with Adoptions from the Heart Adoption Agency with offices throughout the northeast.
In this episode, we cover:
- Should you tell your child these difficult parts of their history?
- Talking about the hard parts of adoption
- How should you tell your child these hard parts of their background?
- How do you lay the groundwork with young children in order to fill in the details later?
- By what age should you have shared all of your child’s story with him?
- Give specific examples of how a conversation might go with a preschooler, and how would you fill in the gaps for a 6 year old, 10, 13 year old, etc.
- Child abuse
- Addiction
- Parent in jail
- Can you use a lifebook to talk about rape, imprisonment, drug and alcohol addiction?
- What is a lifebook and what should be included in a lifebook?
- How to use a lifebook when there is jail, rape, abuse, etc in the child’s story?
- Specifically, how should parents tell their child that they were conceived during a rape?
- Oversharing can happen with both parents and with children.
- It’s tempting when your child is an infant to tell people private information. Why should foster and adoptive parents avoid this?
- When might it be important to share some details of the child’s background?
- How do you help your child understand how much of his story he should share with others outside the family?
- How can adoptive parents help their children understand that they are more than the hard parts of their history and that they are not doomed to repeat their birth parents’ mistakes?
Additional Resources:
Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child: Making Sense of the Past, by Betsy Keefer and Jayne E. Schooler
Talking with Children about Difficult History, by Holly van Gulden
Lifebooks: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child (2nd Edition September 21, 2011), by Beth O'Malley M.Ed
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Previous Episode
Primary Ovarian Insufficiency
October 6, 2021
•49m
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Primary Ovarian Insufficiency is a difficult and little understood diagnosis for infertility with ramifications for your general health as well as for your fertility. We talk with Dr. Alex Quaas, a Board Certified Reproductive Endocrinologist with Reproductive Partners of San Diego and an Associate Professor at UCSD.
In this episode, we cover:
- What is Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (POI)?
- Is there a difference between the labels/diagnoses - Primary Ovarian Insufficiency, Premature Ovarian Failure, Premature Menopause?
- What are the symptoms (other than an inability to get pregnant)?
- Is there a decrease in egg quality and increase chromosomal abnormalities?
- How is POI diagnosed?
- How does the diagnosis differ from PCOS?
- What causes primary ovarian insufficiency?
- Is there any correlation between POI and taking Accutane (a treatment for acne) as a teen?
- Is there a link between premature ovarian failure and the HPV vaccine (Gardasil or Cervarix)?
- Can losing one ovary lead to Primary Ovarian Insufficiency?
- Are those with autoimmune diseases more susceptible to POI?
- Can IVF lead to Primary Ovarian Insufficiency? Is there any evidence that aggressive stimulation of the ovaries during a typical IVF cycle can contribute to POI?
- How effective is IVF with woman with Primary Ovarian Insufficiency?
- What are the odds of a spontaneous pregnancy for a woman with POI?
- What is the role of the infertility nurse in helping women with POI?
- Is there a medical way to slow down the diminution of ovarian egg reserves?
- Are their lifestyle choices that contribute to POI or contribute to increasing a woman’s ovarian reserves?
- Are there supplements or vitamins that help improve fertility for women with Primary Ovarian Insufficiency?
- Has alternative medical approaches or Eastern Medicine been effective with increasing fertility for women with POI?
- What are the other health implications for women with Primary Ovarian Insufficiency?
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire infertility patients and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Next Episode
A Guide to Raising Your Grandchild
October 20, 2021
•55m
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We talk about raising your grandkids with Christine Adamec, coauthor with Dr. Andrew Adesman, of The Grandfamily Guidebook. She and her husband have been raising their teenage grandson since his infancy.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why are grandparent led families increasing?
- What are some common emotions that grandparents and other kin experience when they realize that they need to step in and raise their grandchildren or other kin?
- What type of decisions should you make about legal custody or permanency? How to protect your grandchild? How to enroll them in school? How to be able to get medical and mental health care for them? How to prevent the child’s parents from removing the child from your home? Becoming a foster parent? A will?
- What are some of the strains that grandparents can experience with their children (the parents of their grandchildren)?
- How to navigate the relationship with your adult child?
- Explaining the situation to the child? (“Why am I living with you and not my parents?”)
- Raising kids that likely experience trauma, including prenatal exposure.
- Adjusting to parenting in this new time.
- Some of the joys of raising your grandchild.
Resources:
- AARP has a Benefits QuickLINK tool to find out if you or your grandchild may qualify for 15 public benefits — 10 for adults and families and five for children.
- Creating a Family podcast: Helping Parents & Kids Manage Phones, Internet, & Gaming
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
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