Talking to Your Child About the Tough Stuff

Our adopted children do not come wrapped in a bow, delivered by the proverbial stork depicted so pleasantly in Disney's classic "Dumbo." Some of our children were abandoned by a birth parent at a church, or near a dumpster. Some of our children were conceived to a drug addict, or someone with alcohol issues. Some of our children have siblings that live with other, unknown families. Some of our children were abused, by a parent or caregiver. Some of our children were neglected and malnourished. Some of our children were simply born to teenagers, or unprepared, economically distressed, or unstable birth parents. Some were conceived because of rape or prostitution. Some were born to a parent who died of AIDS.

When you and your child become a family, the natural inclination is to want to whisk the sadness away and ignore the fact that loss and bad things ever happened. We presume that knowing the truth can only bring heartache, which is something we must protect them from.

But most adoption experts we've talked to say that adult adoptees in particular have every right to the truth, no matter how difficult it might be to comprehend or hear - or tell. In fact, often it is the adoptive parent's discomfort with telling the story that prevents it from being told, even if they might want to claim they are simply protecting the child's feelings.

Like any difficult information, the story needs to be told in parts, with age-appropriate language. The parent still needs to understand the responsible way to tell a child. (See Resources for suggested reading.) The conversations should start early in your relationship together - even if it is highly simplistic - not start many years later.

Your important role as the adoptive parent is to help your child make sense of the information, not to withhold it. This might involve bringing up the topic casually on a semi-regular basis, to reassure the child that nothing is taboo. It might involve telling it as a simple "Once Upon a Time" story when the child is young, leaving out factual details until they are older. For the parent of a school-aged child, it might involve being prepared to answer questions from your child, and helping him/her deal with questions from others. It might include researching together the background of a particular place and time, to better understand the context that might have led a birth parent in another country to place the child for adoption. As the child matures into adolescence, it might involve dealing with strong emotions and conflicts about personal identity and heredity. It might include explaining the reasons some people make bad judgments, and that it doesn't automatically make them bad people (with bad genes).

Regardless of the many directions the conversations will take with your child over time, it should also include your ability to say, "I wish I knew the answer to that." And, "Does that make you feel angry? Sad?" And "I understand that you feel that way."

It should not excuse bad behavior on the part of the birth parent, or try to convince the child not to be angry or hurt.

What happens as a result of these conversations over time is not only a stronger, open bond of communication between parent and child, but a realization, hopefully, by the child that the birth parent did what they could, in a difficult time of their life.