e-mail
If you are considering going to the workshop
http://kazakhstan.adoptionblogs.com/weblogs/jane-brown-adoption-playshops-and-parent – you may wish to read some of Jane Brown’s work….
Shared with Permission –
Part I
How to Talk to Young Children about Adoption
by Jane Brown, M.S.W. Adoption Educator, Adoptive Parent
SETTING THE STAGE: HELPING CHILDREN LEARN TO EXPRESS FEELINGS SO THAT THEY CAN TALK ABOUT ADOPTION
QUESTION: Frequently I ask my preschool child about his adoption, but he never seems to have any questions or have the need to talk about his personal history. Is this all right or should I be doing more?
ANSWER: In order to help our children discuss their questions, thoughts, and feelings about having been adopted into the family, it is important that we familiarize ourselves with how, developmentally, children understand adoption and that we build effective family communication skills so that our children CAN tell us what is on their minds and in their hearts. Age six to seven (although this varies from child to child) is a big turning point in how children view adoption and their personal history, so I’d like to begin by telling you what children understand before and then after this age, typically.
The preschool age is a fascinating and fun time in adoptive families because parents love to tell the story of how their child joined the family and the preschoolers love that! Children of this age are egocentric and so they LOVE their adoption story. They are open to hearing the details again and again and capable of taking in new pieces of their story little by little. They are fascinated by facts and stories about the land of their birth. They are proud to be members of their family and happily share with others all about how they became members of their family. They love to hear parents tell them of the specialness of having been adopted.
A wonderful way to begin to introduce more of his story to your child is to make a lifebook. A lifebook is similar to a traditional baby book, but instead of beginning with the child’s entrance into your family, it begins from the beginning, with his birth parents. It tells, in an age appropriate way, how and why his birth parents may have become pregnant, struggled with what to do, and made the decision to make an adoption plan. It goes on to tell what happened from the time the child was separated from his birth mother until he came home. It might include information about what was going on in the child’s country-of-origin that might have caused his birth parents to have some of the problems that they had. It might tell of how sad and difficult it is for birth parents to make an adoption plan and how they worry and wonder forever after about their child. The book might include a letter from you to your child’s birth parents.
A lifebook is also a tool for the child to retell his story to you. You might label pages and ask your child to draw pictures, write some of the text, write a letter to his birth mother. In that way, parents can get an idea of what their child understands from they story they have told and what he still needs to hear again. The lifebook, if it is constructed with removable pages, can be a work in progress throughout your child’s lifetime. As your child is ready for more information or his cognitive ability grows, the pages can be reworked with more sophisticated language and more detailed information. This is a great project to begin with a preschool child. If parents wait beyond these years, they are likely to find that their child will not be willing to work on a lifebook.
