"He Never Asks: Creating Opportunities to Talk About Adoption"

This session focused on when, how, and how often you should talk to your child about their adoption story. I was interested in this topic because although we have never considered hiding Little Bug's story from him, I've been wondering how to continue the conversations once he gets old enough to ask, or rather, to NOT ask.

The presenter was an adoptee and post adoption specialist. She made it very clear that your children's adoption story should be told early and often. She suggests starting to tell it immediately, even as a bedtime story to an infant. So much of it, she suggested, was practicing the right wording. By talking about it from your child's earliest memories, it becomes normal to them. In addition, it gives you the power to ease your children into the deeper implications and details (obviously your discussions with a two-year-old will be very upper level, e.g., "You grew in your birth mother's tummy, and then went to live with Mrs. XXXX until Mommy and Daddy could come get you and bring you home" and will change as your child gets older). As your child gets older, you can add more details, such as why their birth mother might have had to place them for adoption. The key is to balance age-appropriate concepts with the truth. Not always easy to do, so practice and some brainstorming ahead of time is helpful.

One of the other key benefits to telling your children about their history early on is the fact that YOU will be the one to give the information to your child. I know many people, Appa and I included, have chosen not to share birth history details with people, including close family, for this very reason. Does Grandma need to know the social history of the birth mother? Nope. Could she accidentally let something slip to your child, or even worse, to someone else, before you felt it was time for that information to be shared? Possibly. It's just easier to say to people "That is his information and it is his choice to share it when and with whom he wants."

Although the conversations should start from the moment your child is placed in your arms, the presenter says that children are able to connect their inclusion into your family with a sense of loss of another family as young as age 5. It's critical to have an environment that is safe to ask questions in place by then. This means that we as parents need to come to terms with any lingering issues we might have. Kids pick up on tension. If you are tense or emotional when talking about it, they will pick up on that and most likely avoid asking more questions.

So what happens when the questions stop or never start? It doesn't mean, as was thought in the past, that children are not interested or are "well adjusted." In fact, it is now considered somewhat abnormal and unhealthy if your child doesn't seem interested at all in their adoption. Not necessarily in information about their birth family, but at the very least adoption in general (although by the tween stage they should be interested in information on their birth family, but possibly not before).

The presenter suggested a number of reasons why your child might be avoiding the questions:

1. Your child might not be a verbal child. They might learn and communicate better through other sensory activities, like drawing, reading, music, etc.
2. They might be afraid of hurting you.
3. They might be hiding or avoiding their own hurt.
4. They don't have the words to ask the questions. Just as a chemistry professor might ask "Does anyone have any questions" after a long lesson, only to be met with silence because the students were overloaded with information and had too many questions to articulate what they even wanted to ask, so might our children be so overwhelmed with questions they might not even know what to ask.
5. It might be the wrong time for them.

It's important to note that these conversations will happen over and over with the same information as your child gets older and processes it differently. The one-and-done conversation won't suffice. The presenter said that constant conversation about adoption is probably overkill, but when the weeks stretch into months and months without any sort of off handed comment, it's probably time to put out some feelers.

She suggested using non-personal conversation starters to put out those feelers. Use stories in the news or story lines from TV or movies. Example: "Did you read that article about Brad and Angelina taking their son on a homeland tour? That must have been so interesting for their son to return to ......" If all else fails, she suggested slipping in a comment about the birth family in here or there. Example: "Your have such a musical ear; I wonder if you got that from your birth mother or birth father." The presenter stressed that even if your child ignores these opportunities, they ARE HEARING you talk about these things and will know that they can talk about them when they are so inclined.

The presenter also made no bones about the fact that this will sometimes be unpleasant. It will hurt your child many times over as they come to terms with the loss they have suffered. Just as we fight the good fight with veggies and medicine and wearing a helmet, so must we deal with any unpleasantness here in order to help our children become healthy and happy emotionally.

She stressed that it is very important that we as adoptive parents embrace the fact that our children's curiosity and pain and love for their birth family and birth culture have NOTHING to do with us as their parents. Our relationship with them is completely separated from their inherent connection with their birth family. We cannot be threatened by that, nor do we have a right to be. This is not about us. This is about our children. Bluntly, we need to get over ourselves and our issues.

Positive adoption language was also mentioned. It's a no brainer, but if you haven't checked out the lists of correct adoption language, you should. You should also pass it along to all those who will be in constant contact with your child. These words will help you when you frame your conversations and help your children develop healthy views of their adoptions.

Overall, I found this session enlightening. It's not rocket science, but I did and still do have some trepidation with when to push it and when to let it rest. It was nice to get some ideas and direction for those periods of time when Little Bug might not be talking about such a huge part of who he is. Like she said, it won't always be easy, but it will be important for Little Bug as he discovers who he is, and Appa and I are committed to helping him the best we can.