| | | | Talking with Children about their Adoption |
By Seth Mullins
Most children have a natural need to reconstruct the story of their life and arrive at a clear picture of it. This is often how the “birds and the bees” discussion is initiated – sometimes to the consternation of embarrassed parents. Children simply want to understand where they come from.
There is a lot of concern among parents, however, when considering how early, and how much, to tell children about their adoption. We may wonder if they are too young to understand what it means. Or we may have more personal reservations, because we fear that if they become too interested in their family of origin it might compromise the love that they hold for us.
The problem is that we run the risk of creating more distance with our adopted young ones when we withhold information about their backgrounds. Deep within themselves, kids understand the real truth of their lives. But they will begin to intuit that certain things that they know inside are not to be discussed. They will wonder about our reticence, never feeling certain whether or not they might have done something wrong to deserve it. So our secrecy can become a source of shame or bewilderment for them.
Another factor that comes into play is the way in which children build up their self-image. By the time they reach five or six years of age they will already have formed a lot of ideas about their own identity. The picture of who they are includes their conception of their parents and their whole family history. These notions will then suddenly come into conflict with new revelations about their past if we wait until this time to tell them about their adoption.
It is for this reason that many child psychologists and counselors recommend disclosing the full truth about a child’s background before he or she is eight years old. After this time, beliefs and images become more ingrained and it’s a lot harder for a young person to assimilate a new reality that contradicts what has been taken for granted as truth all along.
Sitting down to talk with our adopted children about their real family circumstances can be a fearful and uncomfortable experience. The ordeal will seem much more worthwhile if we keep in mind that the best way to prepare kids for their lives in the wider world is to give them the truth to work with from the beginning.
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