Talking With Kids About Adoption

Join us to talk about how kids understand adoption and how best to talk with them about adoption. Our guest is Camillia Whitehead, is a MSW and a licensed clinical social worker, and the Founder of Wise Care Consulting, LLC.

In this episode, we cover:

• How does a child’s understanding of adoption differ by age?
  • Toddlers & Preschoolers
  • School Age
  • Tweens/Teens
  • Young Adults
• How does openness or lack of openness impact a child’s understanding of adoption?
• How does transracial adoption impact a child’s understanding of adoption?
• How to talk about adoption at different ages?
  • What are the important points you want to make sure your child understands at each stage?
• What are some common questions children ask at different developmental stages?
  • Why didn’t my birth parents parent me?
  • Can I go back to my birth parents?
  • Do my birth parents think about me?
  • Did my birth parents love me?
  • Who do I look like?
  • Why did they parent my sibling?
  • How am I like my birth parents, and how am I different.”
• Why not wait for your child to ask questions and then talk with them?
• What if your child shows little or no interest in their adoption story?
• What to say when you know very little about the birth parents?
• How can you talk about adoption and the role of the birth father with young children who do not understand the concept of sex?
• How to handle the “You’re not my real mom or dad” statement?
• How to handle hard birth parent stories? 
• What to do when your cultural or ethnic background is strongly prejudiced against adoption? 
  • Don’t outright lie. 
  • Think through carefully what you are afraid of by telling the child.
    • That the child will be rejected by extended family?
    • That you will be judged or rejected by extended family?
    • That the child will share the information to others in your community?
  • Accept that the odds are extremely high that the child is going to find out from over-the-counter DNA testing or someone in the family will tell or from 8th grade biology assignment. 
  • Accept that at some point the failure to tell is the same as lying. When adult adoptees who were not told by their parents were interviewed later in life they almost universally say that it was the lie that hurt the most and did the most damage to their relationship with their parents.
  • Start laying the groundwork at an early age.
    • Families are formed in different ways.
    • All types of families are good.
    • We had trouble having kids and we were so happy when you arrived.
    • Try to establish connections with other adoptive parents
    • Point out adoptive families when you see them in real life or TV or movies
  • Review your reasons for not wanting to tell and decide on an age that you will tell.
  • Explain their adoption story. 

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
This is Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. Welcome back to our regular listeners. We truly appreciate you, and a special welcome to the new folks who are just joining us. We're even more, in some ways, excited to have you. I'm Dawn Davenport, and I am the host of this podcast, as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org Today, we're going to be talking about talking with kids about adoption at different ages and stages. Make sure you listen to the end. We're going to be covering all sorts of aspects, including how to share difficult information that you want to protect your child from things such as that, and we'll be covering the whole waterfront here. Today. We're going to be talking with Camilia Whitehead. She is the founder of wise care consulting, providing specialized one on one consulting and coaching tailored for adoptive, foster and kinship families navigating high needs and complex parenting dynamics, including prenatal substance exposure, trauma, wounds, bonding and attachment, multicultural adoptions and other intricate adoption and fostering situations. She is an active member of our online Facebook support group, which everybody should join. That's facebook.com/groups slash slash creating a family. And regardless, let me start by saying we're talking today about adoption, talking with kids, about adoption, and what we talk about is going to be applicable to all types of adoption, regardless whether it's adopting from foster care, domestic infant adoption or international adoption. Welcome Camelia Whitehead to creating a family.

Speaker 1  1:44  
Thank you dawn. I am excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Dawn Davenport  1:49  
We're going to jump in just at the beginning when we talk about talking about adoption. I think it helps to start with how children understand adoption at different ages and stages. So I'm just roughly dividing ages of kids between toddlers and preschoolers, and then we'll work as children get older, including up through young adulthood. So how do our toddlers and our preschoolers, what is their understanding, their ability to understand, and how do they understand the idea of adoption?

Speaker 1  2:24  
So this is a interesting age, because this is a time where they are learning and curious and they're processing things around them and how they fit into the world. And so when you're talking about this age group, I think people tend to think that, Oh, they're too young. They won't understand but what we have to understand is that they are experiencing things, whether in their schools, communities, churches, you know, they're they're hearing things, they're seeing things, they're noticing things. This is important too, particularly for children who may be in a family of a different race or culture, and they notice that they look different, right? And so they may not know what exactly to say or how to say something, or they have the language, but they know something is different, right? And they don't even know what to say, and so they may get comments. They may get questions from peers in school, peers in the community, neighborhood, you name it. So it's in their face to some degree, and they do have some sort of understanding of something's a little different, right? I don't know what it is. Can't put my finger on it, but something does feel different, and I think particularly for this age group, it's really important to use adoption books, right? Because those books really lead into a conversation. So in other words, if you're reading a story, you can say, you know, did you know that you were adopted too? And you know, that can open the door for the introduction that they need to start asking questions, yeah.

Dawn Davenport  4:06  
You know, something else that I think is the hallmark of toddlers and preschoolers with adoption is many kids at that age think that everyone is adopted. You know, they don't really have made I mean, that's their story. Kids tend to be very egocentric and self focused, and so they assume everyone is and oftentimes, because adoption has been presented in a positive light, if parents are talking with their children about adoption, there's a great deal of pride in being adopted. Once they start making a distinction that not everyone is adopted, there's pride and a desire to share it with the world. They're

Speaker 1  4:46  
excited. You're absolutely right. Don there. There's some excitement about it. They know that they're special, and, you know, they want to talk about it, and they want to say things, and they may, you know, tell their friends, well, I'm adopted, you know, and that's where they you. Live in that moment,

Dawn Davenport  5:01  
sure. Now, when

Speaker 1  5:01  
you're talking to them about adoption in this age group, too. I mean, it could be that they're not interested really in talking about adoption in their story, you know, and so you may get one side of the you know, you're not sure what coin is going to flip when you're talking to them about adoption, but it doesn't mean that you don't still have that conversation. But normally they're pretty excited, and they want to hear more, and, you know, they enjoy it. Okay,

Dawn Davenport  5:26  
so now we're going to move up the ages on how kids understand adoption. We'll talk about later how to talk about adoption, but for now, we've talked about toddlers and preschoolers. How about school aged kids? Elementary school age kids, this is when we start to see that kids understanding that, in addition to the pride and excitement that there may be a loss associated with adoption. So let's talk about our school age kids and their how they understand adoption.

Speaker 1  5:58  
So by this time, your child may have been with their birth of first parents already. They may have been with previous foster families or extended family members, so there's likely confusion about what they're experiencing, and they may feel that they've done something wrong right, especially if they've moved around from different families, and no one has told them otherwise. So they will have thoughts and feelings, but may not be comfortable asking. Part of the fear is, if they say something, maybe they're going to get moved again, right? Are they going to ask the wrong questions? And they may have special memories about a birthday or something special with their birth parents or siblings, and they have those memories, and it's okay to ask them about that, right? It's important to ask them about what they remember about their birth family. You know, from there, it can open the door to discussing what happened and why they couldn't stay with them.

Dawn Davenport  6:57  
You were speaking in some ways, specific to children who are adopted through foster care, but even, and perhaps International, but even children adopted as infants, yes, when they hit the age where they begin, you know, somewhere around the second or third grade generally, but, but it could happen at different times. There's an understanding that, in addition to being chosen or whatever the specialness about adoption, that they also weren't chosen, or this would be their thoughts, they were rejected by a decision was made not to parent them. That realization hits at our school age kids, and that's regardless of the type of adoption. That's

Speaker 1  7:43  
true, that's very true. And it's, you know, they have questions about, why wasn't I able to stay with my parents, right? And it's tricky. You You really don't know how to answer that. There's no real right answer to that. And I think some people are conflicted about being able to say if a child is asking if they were in your tummy or something like that, you know, you can say, you know, mommy and daddy couldn't grow a baby, and so we adopted you to to love and care for. And I know there's some sensitivity around that, especially for parents who've experienced pregnancy loss or miscarriage, and they also have questions about, you know, why their mommy and daddy couldn't keep them and so you can let them know that sometimes a mommy and daddy aren't able to take care of a baby right now, but they didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't their fault that they're no longer able to be with their birth families. The key with these stages is to make them feel loved and wanted, right? Because they don't know they have questions. They're wondering, you know, was I in your tummy? And why wasn't I in your tummy, and things like that. And so they don't really understand fully what all that means,

Dawn Davenport  8:56  
and they're beginning in the school age to come to a greater understanding and to appreciate that a decision was made not to parent them absolutely. Yeah. Okay, now let's move into our tweens and teens who have a much deeper understanding of what's going on. How do they understand adoption and what are some of the developmental stages they're going through that impact their understanding of adoption. So

Speaker 1  9:24  
by this time, you know, tweens and teens are trying to make sense of why they can't return to their birth families. They're longing for a relationship with them and where they belong, period, and they likely have siblings that they bonded with at one point or they were taken care of, you know? And so it's important to when you're having that conversation about them, to speak about their birth parents positively, even if you are seething about what happened to them and the circum. Stances surrounding either while they came into care, while they were adopted, but help them understand, like, what does permanence mean? Because, you know, I've experienced with teens that they don't really understand what that means. Does that mean that they'll no longer be able to see their birth families? Does that mean that, you know, they'll never see a sibling again? So it's being able to explain to them what that means for them and for your family.

Dawn Davenport  10:24  
And you're speaking specific to teens who are adopted at an older age through foster care. But again, I will come back to say that all children who are adopted, including infant adoption, there are certain developmental stages they're going through at their tween and especially their teen years that impact their understanding of adoption, one of which is identity formation. That's one of the primary things our teens are doing, is who are they and and the fact that you're adopted impacts how you identify in any number of ways, we look to our parents and we have an idea of what we will become. Now, sometimes we look to our parents and decide that that's not what we're going to become, but when you have a set of adoptive parents and birth parents, that complicates how you see yourself, and throwing in, if there is a transracial aspect to it or a transcultural aspect, then that also complicates it. If I'm a black man, a black team, and my male role model is a white man that changes things, who am I going to be?

Speaker 1  11:37  
It does. It absolutely does. And you know, when we speak about identity, Don I think sometimes, because we hear the word so much and it's, it's usually associated with gender and sexuality and things like that. But identity is, it has different tentacles. So it could be trying to figure out who they are as a person, where they fit in with their peer circles, intimate relationships, who they are in terms of, like you said, race and culture, how they identify within their birth and adoptive or foster families, and what does that look like, you know, when they like you said, if they're particularly for transracial families, who are they identifying with? You know, because a lot of times they're, you know, kids are trying to figure out who do they identify with within a family, you know, and that could be just from who they look like to how they act, what are some of the character traits that they have, that other family members may or may not have? So they're looking at all of these aspects, and it's all important.

Dawn Davenport  12:39  
And even our tweens and teens who were internationally adopted, regardless of the age at which they joined their adoptive family, they still have their culture from birth and trying to identify, what does it mean to be Colombian in the United States? Because our teens are beginning to understand that they are Colombian or Romanian, Bulgarian, or whatever their nationality is, and that that might mean something different to them, and that continues this work continues into young adulthood. Let me pause here for a moment to remind you that we want your questions. We are doing a new our newish podcast on the weekends where we answer your questions. It will be short to usually about five or 10 minutes, and it's called weekend wisdom. So please send us your questions, send them to info at creating a family.org. That's i n, f o at creating a family.org. All right, most adoptions in the United States currently have some degree of openness, some degree of contact, our connection between adoptive and birth families. Now that is especially the case for infant adoption, for foster care, adoption, it's some degree, but it's usually lesser. For international adoption, it is usually significantly lesser, although that's not always the case. How does openness or lack of openness impact a child's understanding of adoption, and the why they were placed for adoption, why they ended up being raised in an adoptive family.

Speaker 1  14:28  
Yeah, you know, with open adoption, which is so common now for so many reasons, it really allows for children to have some understanding of who they are, right and where they came from. Now, the reality is not all open adoptions are always warm and fuzzy, you know, because you have to have relationships with the birth parents and birth families to be able to make it work. And sometimes there are complications in that, but I know that there are. Lot of adoptive families who are really working hard to keep the lines of communication open for the birth families, because we've seen the evidence right, and the evidence says that when a child feels connected to their birth family, the outcomes are better for that child overall. So it's really important. It's twofold right to have an understanding of the importance of that openness with that child, but also understanding the impact with the birth families as well, and their decision to place a child for adoption. Because there are a lot of things that go into that too. And I think when people are feeling supported and heard, whether it's the birth parent or the adoptive child, it makes for a better union between everybody. When you have closed adoptions, it really feels like this child just sort of appeared at some point, right? They don't have any sort of reference to where they came from or their point of origin, or, you know, if they have siblings, or they aunts, uncles, grandparents? There's a lot of questions that usually are opened up when children don't have that access to their birth families,

Dawn Davenport  16:12  
you know, and we've talked about one of the developmental steps in understanding adoption happening usually in school, beginning in school age kids, but then moving, of course, into our teens, is their understanding that a decision was made not to parent them. And one of the beauties of having an open adoption is you have a person that you can ask who actually knows the answer as to why that decision was made. And while I don't suggest springing it on birth parents, certainly sharing with birth parents that our child is asking a lot of questions, and I'd like for them to talk with you about that, so that the birth parent has a chance to think through how they want to suggest that as well, and how they want to address that as well. Now I'd like to move to talking about the how to how do we talk about adoption at different ages? You already have mentioned that one of the best things we can do, especially with our toddlers and preschoolers, is to read books. There are so many wonderful books about adoption that exists creating a family has a curated list with reviews of the different ages and broken out by types of adoption and age of the child. I cannot recommend our book list enough. You can find that at creating a family.org hover over either adoption, foster care or kinship care, and there's a section on suggested books so you can access it. There anything else you want to say about the how tos of talking about adoption with our toddlers and our preschoolers?

Speaker 1  17:52  
You know, this can be for toddlers, the preschoolers and the school age. I actually like the idea of creating a life book and even helping them write a letter to a parent. You know, that has always been pretty transformative for kids, because it helps to see their you know, it's like the constellation, right with adoptions. It helps them to see the different aspects and who all is involved in their world and who's important to them.

Dawn Davenport  18:19  
Would that be more for our school age, tweens and teens?

Speaker 1  18:23  
It's school age. But you can also do it with the younger kids as well. It depends on the age and how much they understand. Like, you can do the constellations with the younger group. We've seen that go well when we've done that by constellations,

Dawn Davenport  18:36  
what

Speaker 1  18:36  
do you mean the constellations, the stars, right? And you're having them map out, like, who belongs in their constellation? Do they identify birth families? Do they identify, you know, aunts and uncles that they had before? Do they identify, you know, who all is is in their world that they identify with, who's important to them, who's in their family? Yeah, who makes up their family? Absolutely, and they really enjoy the process, like they enjoy thinking through who they want to put on there and all the people that matter to

Dawn Davenport  19:07  
them. We did something different, but a semi version of that, I suppose. And we call them our God blesses. And that was part of our prayers at night. And we would God bless, God bless the people who are important in our family, and that was a way of identifying family, because we could include birth parents, we could include and you know, if there was an aunt or whatever that was in their family prior to they could include that as a way of reminding that family is broad and we can each define our own family now moving into school age, because I love children's literature, I would say continuing to read books, reading out loud to your kids, as long as up to a point, then they start objecting. Although my kids didn't object too much, they continue to enjoy and to have me read through them. But again, the creating a family book list will have. Books for your school aged kids, and they'll actually have some books for our teens and tweens. So continuing to include books, because it is such an easy way to start conversations, there's some wonderful classics, you know, the Anne of Green Gables. There's just a lot of books that you wouldn't even think about that have adoption themes to them that you can tease out so anything else from the How to talking about adoption with school aged kids,

Speaker 1  20:26  
I think it's important to Don that when they're asking about their birth family. You know, if they ask if they are going to see their birth family again, it's okay to say, you know, I'm not sure. Is this something that you're thinking about. You know, are you interested in seeing them? It could be that it's a closed adoption, and they may not be able to it could be it's an open adoption, and maybe the birth family is just not as visible, and maybe they're not around as much, so being able to just be honest with where things are, to share with them. What

Dawn Davenport  21:02  
are some of the important points you want to make sure that your child understands at each stage? We've talked about toddlers and preschoolers, and you mentioned that one of the things you want to make sure this would actually be for all of these ages is that you love them. Yes, you made a choice for them to be in your life, and you are happy that they are there, that type of thing, obviously. I guess that goes for all ages of kids. Are there other kind of general, overarching themes that you want to make sure you're let's start with your toddlers and preschoolers that they understand.

Speaker 1  21:39  
I think that's the key, because, as when you think about the developmental stages kids, regardless of if they're adopted or not, but you know, we're specifically talking about adoption, but they want to feel wanted and loved, and the nuances of adoption are complicated. They don't really understand all of it, but what they understand is mommy and daddy, or mommy and mom and you know, whatever your your family dynamic is that they love you and they want you, right? And that's the important piece in that age range. And I think for our school age, it's important for them to understand that you are their forever family and vice versa, because they're going to learn a lot of things. They're still struggling with understanding some of the nuances of adoption and understanding those impacts. But what they want to know is, you know, am I yours? You know, are you all mine? You know, that's important to them.

Dawn Davenport  22:41  
You know, for again, our toddlers and preschoolers and through our school age, also is understanding that families can look different. Families are formed different. You can have two mommies. You could have two daddies. You could have only one mom. You could have a mom and a dad. You can have moms and dads who look different from their kids. Have a dad who has a handicap, or is it disabled in some way, that families are families, even if they look different. They're all kinds of families that I think that's another thing we could because it lays the groundwork for saying that our family is formed through adoption. Your cousin's family was formed through birth, but we're still family,

Speaker 1  23:20  
absolutely, and I think it's important too, this is for school age and for for teens, the tweens and teens, too, that when they understand as they're trying to understand where they fit in the role of their adoptive parents, if they're in the picture, it's important too, that They understand that their birth parents were experiencing significant emotional behavior hurdles, right that impacted their ability to parent, and so they may hear some really, really terrible things throughout the course of their life or learning things. Because, you know, we're in the age of social media, so kids are finding out all kinds of things and learning more, but that we're helping to mold that picture for them of their birth family so that it doesn't feel like, well, if these things were said about my parents, this must mean this is a reflection of me and who I am, because that's also another piece that our kids go through and for particularly for tweens and teens, they're in an exploration phase in all areas, and so they're trying to explore who they are, who they're becoming. And you you have to let them ask questions and prepare your armor, because this is an interesting age period, whether child is adopted or not. But you got to prepare that armor for whatever's thrown your way, because sometimes things can be said and comments are made that can be really, really hurtful in this process. And just being able to prepare that armor and be able to still respond in kind when certain things are said,

Dawn Davenport  24:57  
we're talking about questions here. So what are some common questions? Questions that children's ask at different developmental stages that relate to their adoption. We've talked about one, and I think it's the fundamental one, and that is, why didn't my birth parents parent me?

Speaker 1  25:14  
Yeah, why didn't they parent you? And they also ask, Can I go back to them, do they think about me? It's the ambiguous, lost pieces too, that are in there. So they're thinking about, you know, who's thinking about them? Do they have siblings? Do their siblings know them? Do they know where they are? Do they know where they live? You know, they have so many questions about just what does this mean in the context of their world? To be able to understand like because they're trying to make it feel tangible. We explain a lot of things, but they don't really feel tangible to children, and so they're trying to understand it in a world where they can, they can grab something, to be able to say, Oh, this makes sense. Okay. I understand it in this way. While the questions range, there's so many, did my birth parents love me? You know,

Dawn Davenport  26:08  
how am I like my birth parents? And how am I different? Yes,

Speaker 1  26:12  
who do I look like? Who do I act like? You know, and those are questions that as an adopted parent, you may not have answers to because you may not know who the birth parents were. You know that's

Dawn Davenport  26:24  
especially the case with adoptions from foster care and international adoptions. Yes, exactly. So if you don't have answers to those questions, who do I look like? Did my birth parent love me? Do they think about me? If you're having an open adoption, then I think, then you can reach out to me. But what about if you don't, if you're through an international adoption or a foster care adoption, and there's, there's not contact between the birth and the adoptive parents, how do you answer those questions of, did they love me? Do they think of me? Who do I look like? You

Speaker 1  27:01  
know, I think it's important, even if you don't have answers, that you're honest with your kids and say, you know, Katie, I'm not sure, honey. I don't know who you look I haven't seen your birth parents, but I can only imagine that they were beautiful, and you want to share things with kids that you're not lying to them about what their birth parents look like, but you're helping them mold their own image based on something that they may not ever know or be able to see, and to say, Oh, I think you look like your mom or I think you look like your dad. You never want to set up that scenario where you're not being honest, or you're exaggerating things or telling them stuff that's

Dawn Davenport  27:45  
not factual. I think the one we get more often is, do they think of me? Do they love me? If we don't know the answer, if you have no contact, which is often the case in international and sometimes the case in foster as well. Should you say yes, they love you when you actually don't know. All parents love children on some level, but yes, you would assume, and you could say that, but do they think of me? Well, what do you say if you don't know?

Speaker 1  28:12  
You know, that's a really good question. And I think at the core, parents do, they do have love for their child, right? And so I think it's hard for them to show that because they're, they're in the midst of struggles, right? Whatever their struggle are. But I think that we're all humans, and I think that when you experience birth of any kind, whether you're a birth father or birth mother, you think about your child. Now it may not be, you know you're not in an active place of thinking about them all the time, depending on where you are in your struggle, but I think it's safe to say to your children, I'm sure that they think about you. I know that they wanted the best for you. I know that they care about what you're doing and who you're with and who you've become, you know, and I don't think that's being dishonest. I think with all the struggles that that birth parents have, I think they do want the best for their kids.

Dawn Davenport  29:09  
I would caution only in the sense of saying, I would start by saying, I don't know, but I

Speaker 1  29:16  
bet I imagine Yes, almost like perhaps, yeah, I

Dawn Davenport  29:20  
think we need to do that, because unless we know, and it was a letter written or something that we might know, but otherwise I don't know. I wish I knew. And I know you wish you knew, but I bet they do think about Yeah, I bet they do. They miss me. I don't know, but I bet they do. Yeah, I bet they wish they could see how fast you run on the soccer fields or whatever.

Speaker 1  29:44  
That's so reaffirming, you know, to say that, yeah.

Dawn Davenport  29:50  
Did you know that most people find out about podcasting through their friends and their family? That is certainly how I find out about podcasting. That's how the majority of people so. Please be our mouthpiece for us. Please let others know about this podcast. It helps us as a podcast, but it also helps our mission as a nonprofit. So please let anyone and everyone know about the creating a family.org podcast. One thing we hear on occasion is, I'm going to wait for my child to ask questions, and then I'm going to talk to them. I'm gonna let the child lead this discussion, especially when we're talking about adoption, that always seems it just doesn't make sense to me. If you never share that they're adopted, they would have no way of knowing to ask a question. But even if some of the other questions that say they know they're adopted, but they're not asking some of the other questions we just mentioned. Why not wait for a child to ask those questions? Why should we be as parents the ones who bring that up

Speaker 1  30:50  
because children sense things, they learn things, and what you don't want is for their story or something about them to come out from someone else. The earlier you can start talking to your child about adoption, the better, because, again, when we're talking about younger children, they feel something they know something is different. They've experienced things. They may not be able to put their words to it exactly, but they have those experiences, right? And so they're feeling it. And as they get older, there are questions that they're having whether or not people are making comments to them. And so they're thinking about the comments and like, Huh, I wonder. I wonder. And so you want to open that door as early as possible, so that they have the freedom to be able to express some of the things that they're feeling and that they're thinking about and having that conversation, because if not, you're dealing with a kid now with not only are they trying to adjust to their new normal, right in their new life, but now they've got all of these unanswered questions and feelings, and they don't know what to do with them. And so it can get real complicated because they're hearing it. Someone is saying something to them, and somebody else might have their story, even if, even if it's one of your family members that might share something inadvertently at a family function, you know. And now this child is hearing this, and they didn't know anything about it, so the the earlier that they know, the better. And when it comes to helping them process things along the continuum right, the earlier they learn things, the more they can start processing and understanding what it is that they're feeling and making sense of it. Now, some things you I would absolutely encourage you to, at least in my opinion, anyway, that you may need support with from a professional counselor, social worker or therapist, to be able to work through with them, to help them work through but yeah, the earlier the better, because they're learning, you

Dawn Davenport  33:09  
know. And here's the reality, if you're waiting for your child, some kids ask questions out loud. That's by their nature. They're going to be the talkers. And some kids simply, it's not that they don't have the questions, but that's just not their MO they are not going to be the ones who jump out there. Very true. And that begs the question, what if you have a child who shows little or no interest in their adoption story? I have had one of those. How do you handle that? What do you suggest when the kid doesn't ask, not only doesn't ask questions, but doesn't particularly engage in the conversation. When you start the conversation,

Speaker 1  33:48  
that's a great question, because, you know, I think some kids are at a point where they may want to hear things and and some kids, it's not necessarily that they're not interested in a story, but they could be very scared to hear their story. They may be afraid of hearing certain things, of learning certain things, but some kids, depending on the age, like your younger group, you know, they they may just want to go play their board game. They might not be interested in this, this story that you're trying to talk to them about at that moment. But I think it's still important to infuse it in it now, as as you get a little older, I think that's where as parents, you would start asking those questions to that child about, you know, what they're thinking about, what they're feeling, or have they had someone said something to them? Or, you know, some children like you said are very quiet and you don't know what they're thinking, and so having that conversation period, because you don't know what's going to open the door for that child to be able to start talking?

Dawn Davenport  34:46  
Yeah, I will share that. A couple of things that I did. I viewed it in a way of throwing a ball. I would introduce the conversation when it's not a okay, we're going to sit down and have a serious conversation. It may be in the car. Maybe. Washing dishes together, or something along those lines. I would throw it out there, but I would respect the child's desire to either catch the ball, to catch the conversation or not, and then I would respect that, but I also another thing I would do is I would try to ask questions as they aged that were not yes or no. More open ended about, do you think about your birth mom? Much? No, okay, that wasn't a good one. So then I think, okay, so if you ever think about your birth mom, what do you think something like that, where at least it required a sentence answer, and one of the main things that I was trying to do was not push it on that particular child, but I wanted that child to know that I was open. I was not scared of these conversations. I'm a safe person to ask. I'm not going to freak out. You're not going to hurt my feelings. There aren't divided loyalties, and if I didn't say those things that child would know, and that's one of the underlying messages that I think we are trying to give our kids when we talk to them about adoption, and that is, this is not an off topic. This is not a topic that I'm afraid Absolutely. It's not a topic that threatens me. My feelings are not going to be hurt if you are wondering these things. I think it is normal. I think it is natural to have all of these thoughts. So if you have them, sure talk to me about absolutely and I love that. That's the one of the reasons that we talk to our kids about adoption, the obvious one being it is their story, and they have the right to know it. But anyway, that's how I tried to handle the apparent lack of interest. Another question we sometimes get is, when you're talking with our children about adoption, the role of the birth mom is an obvious one. The baby grows in her uterus or her belly and she gives birth, there is an obvious connection at a very young age, even our preschoolers know that the lady over there has a baby growing in her belly, but the role of the birth father is a different one, and until a child understands the concept of sex and the reproduction and the intercourse, How do we explain who a birth father is. I

Speaker 1  37:23  
think for this one, I like to use books and drawings and sometimes animal stories too, because what you want them to understand is that a birth father helps bring a child into a world, right? And you try to say it as simply as possible, because you can't go into all of the dynamics of those pieces. But I find when you use more books and doing some drawings and sort of bringing acquisition of kids and love animals and understand a little bit more, I think at least in my experience, when you're when you're doing it that way, of what that means, because they aren't going to understand the nuances of just conception period

Dawn Davenport  38:06  
until a certain age when you're actually talking to

Speaker 1  38:08  
Right, exactly, exactly. So I think it's helpful to just use books and keep the person and keep sharing with them about birth mom, birth dad or first mom, first dad, so that they can hear it, because a lot of times, I think we do tend to forget about Dad period Exactly. Yeah, he's not in the equation at all.

Dawn Davenport  38:29  
And then they think they don't have right, that they were Immaculate Conception exactly,

Speaker 1  38:33  
and being able to just introduce that to them and make sure that they understand that there was a father involved in this scenario. And sometimes the question could be, well, if my mommy couldn't take care of me, why didn't my daddy? Why couldn't my daddy take care of me? You know, sometimes they have a question about that too. And just being able to say, you know, if you know the answer, that your father was struggling with some things too, and he wasn't in a position to be able to care for you at the time. So this was the plan, you know, but it lets them know, it reassures them too, that, like you said, it wasn't an immaculate conception and there wasn't other person involved.

Dawn Davenport  39:15  
Let me interrupt here briefly to remind you that creating a family has 12 free courses that are available through the support of the jockey, being Family Foundation, they're one hour. You can take them on your own time. They are not facilitated, so you can take them whenever you want. You can get a certificate of completion if you need that, and you can find them at Bitly slash JBf support. That's B, I T, dot, l, y, slash, j, b, f, support, I wonder sometimes when adoptive parents are hesitant to talk with their kids about adoption in any detail, if it isn't because they are afraid of the. You're not my real mom or you're not my real dad being thrown out almost always in anger. So how do you suggest adoptive parents handle the You're not my real mom or dad? Statement

Speaker 1  40:13  
I say first take a deep breath, right? Because it's like I said, kids sometimes can trigger you and they can say things that just will catch you off guard. I would say, first, take a deep breath, and then you don't necessarily have to address that. What you can say is, you're my daughter, you're my son. You're my child, whichever word you use, and I love you. I know that you may be angry with me right now. I know that you may not like some of my rules. You may even hate me right now, and that's okay, because I'm still going to love you, but I'm still going to expect certain things from you. There are certain expectations that I'm going to have for whatever it is, you know, whether it's a room or whether it's a curfew, or whether it's whatever the dynamic is that you have going on. Because I think you can easily go down the rabbit hole when, if you started dressing the actual I'm not your mom, I'm not your dad, thing. And I think it's important to just reframe things, reframe it, and just say, I love you. I'm I'm your mom, I'm your dad. You're my son, daughter, child, whatever word you want to use, and I love you. And yeah, there's sometimes you can be angry with me, and sometimes I'm not going to be in the best place with you either. Yeah, but you know, we have to get this together, and we're going to work through it.

Dawn Davenport  41:38  
I'm hearing you say, don't let it derail the conversation. Well, I sure love you, and I sure feel like your mom and you're still not going to be able to go over to John, absolutely,

Speaker 1  41:46  
there's that boundary, because it can easily make you feel like, Oh my gosh. Well, you know, I don't know what to do, and I'm nervous. And maybe we should. Are we being, you know, you start going down all kinds of holes,

Dawn Davenport  41:59  
and then that also gives it power, works to divert you from the task at hand. Then it is effective.

Speaker 1  42:06  
Absolutely, that's part of that armor. Yeah, exactly.

Dawn Davenport  42:12  
You know. The truth is that children are not placed for adoption when everything is going well in their birth family, and some of the situations that led to our child ending up being our child being placed for adoption are us being able to adopt them are particularly hard, things like conception by rape, or incarceration by one of the parents, substance abuse disorder by one or both of the parents, domestic violence, any number of really difficult situations that as parents, we want to protect our kids from. We don't want our kids to view themselves and in relation to these hard things, and that leads to a tendency of parents to want to avoid sharing this information with their precious child. Yes, what are your thoughts on? Should parents protect their children from the really hard stories that may exist? I

Speaker 1  43:16  
think it really depends on where your child is, emotionally, developmentally, and making sure that what you're sharing is age appropriate. So if you have a preschooler, toddler, you know, who's someone who's really young, you have to show judgment about what you're saying about birth parents and the story, you know how detailed you're going into a story about that. Now, once you kids get a little older. And like I said, kids are into social media at earlier ages now, and they are involved. They're on websites. They're looking at all kinds of things. I think, again, going off of where your child is developmentally and emotionally. I think it's appropriate to say, you know, to have that conversation and say, from what we've been told or from what I understand, this is what happened that way, you're not painting the picture of what happened, but this is information that that's been shared with you, right? And being able to say, this is the information that I have, this is what was shared with me about what's now, if you know that your child has been very emotional as in a difficult space, I think you really need to think about when you share this information and how you share this information. Now, again, we're in the age of social media, so it's very possible that they are learning and seeing things through these avenues, or it's coming out, other things are being shared or said by other family members, and you know, you don't want that bear to be poked in that way. But I think it is important to be able to share what you know very sensitively to that child when it's developmentally and emotionally appropriate to do so. So one

Dawn Davenport  45:01  
of my concerns is that people instinctually, people meeting parents. And I understand this, parents instinctually think that that time when it is appropriate is significantly older than what what most mental health providers usually believe. I think that just universally, we think, Okay, we'll talk about these hard things when they are 16, heavy. Yeah. And as we have talked over the years with mental health professionals about this, the age at which these children need to know all the relevant details of their story. It is their story. They have a right to know it is significantly younger than parents often want. We have heard by certainly no later than age 12, but really between the ages of eight and 10, it's when they need to have and one of the things with young children in order for you to be able to share the child's full story, including the hard parts that we would really like to protect them from. In order to be able to share that, let's say by between eight and 10, we have to be laying the groundwork when they are toddlers, when they are preschoolers, in age appropriate without going into detail, you lay a basic framework of whatever their story is, and then as you continue to talk with them, between those preschool ages, and say, around age 10, you're adding a little more detail each time to that story, I think that is the safest way of being able to share what is, in fact, their story, and they have the right to hear it. They have the right to know it.

Speaker 1  46:43  
I agree completely. Don and children sometimes will surprise you, because they'll fill in the gap for you, and

Dawn Davenport  46:50  
usually not correctly, right? They're filling in the gap. Often, they're filling in a gap in a worse way, perhaps, but

Speaker 1  46:57  
yes, yeah. Or they'll ask you things. They may say things that you're not prepared, or thinking that wow, you were really thinking this, or Wow, you you had some understanding of this. They will surprise you at some of the things that they will say, you know, did my dad beat on my mom? That kind of thing? And you're like, you know, you're surprised that they're even talking about that, or even, you know, formulating that idea. But sometimes they have ideas of things, or maybe they've gotten bits and pieces, or, as you say, as you lay the groundwork, sometimes they're connecting things, you know, and then they may have an aha moment,

Dawn Davenport  47:34  
yeah, before you leave, let me remind you that creating a family has a free newsletter. It's monthly. We curate the best of what we have found that month to help you along your foster parenting, our adoptive parenting or kinship parenting journey, you can subscribe at creating a family.org/newsletter that's creating a family.org/newsletter. You all right, in some cultures or ethnic backgrounds, there is a strong prejudice against adoption. It's especially true at times if a child is from an orphanage or coming from a lower socioeconomic or social class. And adoptive families coming from these cultures are hesitant to tell their child that they're adopted for fear of this prejudice. Or they might say we're going to tell the child someday, but we want to wait till they're much older before we share this information. And some families go to the extent where they outright lie to the child. They might say that the child was born of a surrogate, or the adoptive mom may go so far as to disguise that she was pregnant. Yes, this is a particularly challenging situation, because we know there's so much research that when children find out at a later stage that they were adopted. There are so many lies that have gone into keeping that's from them that the fact that they were adopted is less the issue than all the lies that were told. And they may be subtle, they may be lies of omission, but they are still perceived and felt like lies, yes, but it's a real challenge, because these prejudices exist, and it certainly complicates the telling of the story. As we were saying when we went through the developmental stages, we know that our toddlers and our preschoolers are often very proud. They're going to tell the world, they're going to they're going to share with everybody, because that's just, it's their story. So parents who coming from these cultures are in a difficult situation. We have talked camellia and I have talked about we have a seven step approach on how families coming. From these cultures who understand that they should tell their children that they are adopted, but are hesitant to do so because of the cultural prejudices and the desire to protect their child and themselves. These steps are what we would recommend, and I am going to hit the step itself, and then camellia and I will talk about that particular step. So step one would be to don't outright lie. Don't say you were pregnant with them, or that they were born of a surrogate. Don't say that they look like their grandfather, or they have their musical talent inherited from their father's mother or whatever. Don't say the lies, even though you think you're doing it to protect the child. The second step is to think through carefully what you are afraid of by telling the child. Are you afraid that the child will be rejected by their extended family? Are you afraid that you will be judged or rejected by your family? Are you afraid that the child is going to share this information with others in your community, and you don't want that to happen? Talk a little bit about this one, about the thinking carefully and honestly about what you are afraid of. First,

Speaker 1  51:24  
I just want to say that when it comes to cultural traditions and those pieces, they're so entrenched, right? And they're so sensitive and so you know, to get to the point where you are sharing that you had a baby through a surrogate or any other means, I think that just lets you know just how entrenched The importance is placed on the cultural traditions. And I think you have to understand what it is that you are worried about and what that impact so you have to look at the pros and the cons of what you're doing right and so if you are deciding to paint a different story, what that says for that child, when that child finds out is, my whole existence is a lie. My whole existence, you know, was fake, and everybody was a part of it, you know. And you're talking about children who already are dealing with trust and attachment and bonding and all those things, right? And so when you get to the point where you're here, the impact that that's going to have on your child once they find out is so far reaching, and you really have to think about, you know, what is it that you stand to lose? And for some cultures, some people won't accept that child as being a part of the family. Some people it's, you know, when you talk about inheritance, too. And so if there are things that are involving any of those pieces that then comes into question of whether or not your child is considered a legitimate and quotes, you know, part of the family. So you have to think about what all you are really worried about this child finding out. And the reality is, like you said, Don you know, when children are small and they they learn, I know there's a worry about that when they're small, that they're going to share that, but then once they learn older, trying to go back and fix it. It's really, really difficult. It's very difficult.

Dawn Davenport  53:25  
And I think that sometimes parents are confusing that if the child is going to be rejected, or if they are going to be judged or rejected, if they are going to be viewed as defective, and that's for both males and females. The inability to reproduce get pregnant, or to be able to impregnate your spouse, that you are contaminating your family through adoption and contamination being in air quotes. So I think it's important to try to separate your concerns for protecting yourself or protecting your child,

Unknown Speaker  54:04  
right, right?

Dawn Davenport  54:05  
Our third step would be to accept that the odds are extremely high that the child is going to find out, and they can find out so many different ways. Obviously, the over the counter DNA testing, they can find out from if you have told one other person that this child is adopted, you run the risk that that person told one person. That's just the nature, even if they say they aren't, they may have told their spouse, they may have told somebody their best friend, they may have told their mother, and so it grows exponentially the number of people who know or honestly you can find out through eighth grade biology. When you're doing the charts, I'm seeing where eye color comes from, or who can roll their tongue or whatever. There are so many different ways that the odds of your child not knowing are infinitely small. And keep in mind, it's not just that your child might run a. Over the counter DNA test, anybody else in their birth family, running it and reaching out to them absolutely all right. So that, I think, is our third step, and that is, you need to accept that not telling them really isn't an option, because they're going to find out whether you're the person who tells them or not. They're going to find out

Speaker 1  55:20  
and Dawn. It can also take some type of medical condition that your child has very good point. That's another piece, you know, and that maybe there's blood work that needs to be done, and maybe they need donor blood, or something like that. And then now you're into a whole another segment.

Dawn Davenport  55:37  
So true. I I know of a situation that was in our online community many years ago, of a parent who had not told her child. In this case, it was a daughter. The mom then had breast cancer, and there was genetic testing, and the mom, the mom and her sisters all had the braca gene, and the daughter then thought, okay, then I have inherited this. And the daughter was already talking about having a prophylactic mastectomy. Now, she was young at the time, and the mom was like, Oh, I screwed up. You know, she doesn't have this she has no reason to think she would have this gene. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up about medical issues, whether the child develops a medical condition or if somebody in the family

Speaker 1  56:21  
does absolutely All

Dawn Davenport  56:25  
right, our fourth step, we've talked about it earlier, when we were talking about sharing hard adoption stories, and that is to start laying the groundwork at an early age. And by early age we mean toddlers and preschoolers. What are some of the Groundworks that you would want these families to share with their child that's going to prep them for talking about adoption at an older age than we would suggest for other families, when

Speaker 1  56:56  
you aren't laying that groundwork early, you introduce into your family, into your life, you introduce a lot of distrust, right? Once they learn about this, now there's distrust, right? And so now you're trying to move forward. You're trying to fix what happened before, but now you're also trying to move forward, and now that that trusted that child has built in you is eroding, right? And so that's one of the core pieces, if anything else, is to understand that when you do this at a later stage, it really does impact negatively, impact the effect that it's going to have on your relationship with your child when they learn these things, even though we're trying to protect our child from knowing certain things or being exposed to the ramifications of family that may say certain things or feel certain ways, but we also put them in such a deeper hole of Being able to really figure out, like, who they are in the world, because now they've gotten to a point, and you've gotten to like, you know, tween, adolescent, tween, teen age, and now your child has what they thought is the perception of who they are and where they fit in the world, how they fit and Now they've got this bombshell right that can totally erase everything that they were feeling before, and now they're at square one,

Dawn Davenport  58:27  
exactly. So some of the groundwork that we need to start at our toddler, preschool age would include things such as, families are formed in different ways. Yes, all types of families are good. Absolutely. We had trouble having kids if this, if this was your story, and we were so happy when you arrived. And some things you can do is, if possible, try to establish connections with other adoptive families so that your child sees families formed by adoption. And if that is not in your immediate circle, at least point out adoptive families when you see them, either in real life or on TV or on movies and read books where adoption plays a role, so that adoption is seen as just another way that families are formed. And you can do this even before you are telling your child that they are adopted now, keeping in mind that we recommend for families not coming from these cultural backgrounds, that you're doing this at the same time you're telling your child they are all right, another step would be accept that at some point the failure to tail is the same as lying. Yeah, and this is what you were talking about before. And we know that when adult adoptees who were not told by their parents were interviewed later in life, they almost universally say that it was the lie that had the most, which is what you have just said, okay, and then our sixth step would be after you review. Reasons for not wanting to tell you need to decide on an age that you will tell, and what age at the oldest Do you believe that families should tell their child, even if there's cultural prejudice against adoption,

Speaker 1  1:00:19  
at least, I would say, by seven or eight, your child should know, you should have laid some of that groundwork by then, if not earlier, but at least by that point. Because again, you're moving into a whole nother developmental stage for your child, and they're trying to figure out who they are. There's, there's, you know, preteen identity stuff that's going on as well, and where they fit. And, you know, people say, people tend to say High School is a rough age. I really think it's Middle School, when you're in middle school, that I think it's just a hard transitional place to be in. And so you really want to have that conversation with them prior to that,

Dawn Davenport  1:00:57  
long before they hit today, yeah, I would Yeah. And then the last step is explain their adoption story, what you know you need to share with them. And you could also share that not everyone from your country or your culture feels the same way that you do about adoption, and that some people think that adopted kids aren't as much a part of the family as kids born to the family, but you do not agree with that? Yes,

Unknown Speaker  1:01:21  
yes, yeah,

Dawn Davenport  1:01:23  
absolutely. All right. Well, that is our seven step approach. If you are in a situation where your cultural background is not approving of our is discriminatory against adoption, and that brings us to the end. Thank you so much. Camelia Whitehead for talking with us today about how we talk with our kids about adoption at different ages and stages. Thank you, Dawn. You.

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