Fred and others with difficult pasts to share with their LOs

CaptainSerious

Fred, I put your name in the title because I wanted to be sure you saw this.  I noticed in one of your posts you mentioned not having many details to share with your daughter about her birth family and that the ones you have are not very positive.  I just wanted to share this tidbit I came across (it was thrown-in as a side-point in something I was reading, but I believe it's really significant) and think might help.

I read that it is best to share all information about your child's past with him/her by the time they turn 13.  Of course, you want to keep it age-appropriate, but the thought is that younger children take the information as fact and don't place too much value on it.  As they grow, they come to understand it better, but it's just a part of their past that has always been there.  If you wait until your child is older and then share troubling information, he/she may have a strong reaction and feel hurt/betrayed/or other negative reactions because they have to assimilate the new information into their more-polished view of their family history.

I can't remember where I read this, but with M, it seems to have worked.  Anytime we've discussed the difficult parts of his past, he just takes it in stride, and moves on.  He doesn't like to talk about it for long, but the more we discuss it, the more open he is to sharing and to bringing stuff up on his own.  Some things that I thought would rock his world just seemed to be facts to him, and didn't seem to matter much at all when we told him for the first time.  There's not much we haven't discussed with him on some level, and he's done really well with it.

I know your daughter is much younger, but I just wanted to share this with you so you could keep it in the back of your mind.  We don't go out of our way to open the conversations, but when M says something to open the subject or that doesn't quite represent the truth, we use it as an opportunity to talk about the way things really were.  It's been helpful to all of us, I think.  To him because it's just part of his story that we can discuss at any time, and to us because we're not always worried he'll find out the wrong way or trying to figure out how we'll break the news to him when "it's time."

This unsolicited advice brought to you by my finally being able to spend a bit more time here.  Feel free to disregard as you please!  :-)

Jenn is Silly

Unfortunately, I do have something horrible that will have to eventually be shared with our DD.

Our counselor has expressed the same sentiments with us, Captain, about making sure we drop any "bombs" in an appropriate way by the time she is 12.  She's working with us on how to phrase them at different age levels, and of course how to help us cope with them.

EratMama

For us, it is not just telling information, but correcting a lot of misinformation out there. I feel more comfortable being the one to tell difficult information the first time, than I do being the one to say, essentially, "your mom and many adults in  your life have been lying to you and xxx isn't your dad" or other such info.

 

the book "telling the truth to your adopted or foster child has been helpful to us. 

irismorning

Thank you so much for this post. I have actually been thinking for a while how to frame questions about the past with my LOs. So many of the facts are horiffic and I am just not sure how much to share when. They obviously both know that they are adopted and a few other facts, but the details....I often envy those of you who have birth parents who made an adoption plan. I have always gone out of my way to frame their BPs in a loving manner, but I wonder if they will be upset about that fact later too (feel that I was lying to them about the BPs). I know that some children want information and others never want to know. So I struggle with telling them too much information that they may not want to know until they are much older or never at all. So far I have been following the counselor's (we had to go to one for court) advice and letting the kids guide any questions. She actually made the suggestion that we not speak about the details until they are much older because of the circumstances. We speak about adoption frequently, but never about the circumstances surrounding the TPR. Does anyone have any actual studies regarding this topic? or any personal stories that can guide me?

irismorning

EratMama:

the book "telling the truth to your adopted or foster child has been helpful to us. 

 Thank you for this idea, I added it to my wish list.

Blsd4given

EratMama:

For us, it is not just telling information, but correcting a lot of misinformation out there. I feel more comfortable being the one to tell difficult information the first time, than I do being the one to say, essentially, "your mom and many adults in  your life have been lying to you and xxx isn't your dad" or other such info.

 

the book "telling the truth to your adopted or foster child has been helpful to us. 

I was hoping that a F2A mom would respond.  Thanks for the book suggestion!

Feels like it would be a really tight line to walk in the F2A world.