Talking to your Child about Adoption

Talking to your Child about Adoption
by Mary Grossnickle

When I was growing up, my parents believed that as long as I knew I was adopted, they didn’t have to talk about adoption any more. I call it the “Once and Done” theory of talking to kids about adoption. It was the conventional wisdom of the times. We now know that children have different questions about their adoptions at different ages, and so the telling and re-telling of the adoption story needs to continue throughout their growing-up years. Simple answers are fine when a child is young, but parents need to expand the explanations as their child grows into a logical thinker and can understand more complex ideas.

At about the time they start school, children begin to realize that if they were adopted, that means they have another family somewhere. They know that they have their adoptive parents, and they also have birth parents. And as they try to understand and cope with adoption issues, they may begin to develop fantasies about their birth parents.

Fueled by facts (if they have any) and hopes and expectations, children form a mental image of their birth parents. They are often curious about their birth parents and they want to figure out their connection to them. "What do they look like?” “Do I look like them?” “Where are they?” “Can I see them?” Often children keep these questions inside, not wanting to make Mom and Dad sad by talking about, or caring about, their birth parents.

As I looked for children’s books to help a child realize that it’s OK to ask those questions, and it’s OK to think about and care about their birth parents, I found that although there are some children’s books with a positive adoption theme, none really addressed the birth parent fantasy issue head-on.

And so I decided to write the book myself.

In my book, A Place in My Heart, Charlie loves to hear his adoption story. It makes him think about his birthparents, and he wonders about the same things that many adopted children think about. What do my birthparents look like? Do they think about me? Can I give them a place in my heart? A Place in My Heart reassures children that it's OK to ask those questions.

The message for parents is that when children ask about their birth parents, it doesn’t mean that they are unhappy or wish they lived somewhere else. They are curious, and they need to know their history. And they need to have a positive view of their birthparents, which fosters a positive image of themselves. I hope that reading A Place in My Heart helps to reassure both parents and children that there’s room in our hearts for two families.