What can I/we do to help a child get to know us?

This really depends on the age of the child. For any child, a family picture book can be helpful to children. Things to include:

• Photo's of your home and community.
• Photo's of everyone who lives in your home including pets.
• Pictures of your favorite activities.
• Picture of the room that is to be the child's room.
• Pictures of family traditions.
• Include some of your favorite foods.
• What the rules in the house are.
  You might want to include what are the consequences for inappropriate behaviors and disobedience.

Be creative and have fun with this.

For young children:

You might consider purchasing an age appropriate stuffed animal. Purchase a blanket for the child to sleep with. Prior to meeting the child you will want to wash the blanket then sleep with it so that the blanket will pick up your scent. When the blanket is left with the child it will also have your scent on it.

For older children:

You could pick out a toy together that will be included in the child's new room. Talk with the child and answer the child's question. Be yourself. This is scary and uncertain for both of you. You are checking the child out and the child is checking you out. Be honest, don't lie to the child, if you don't know then let the child know that and perhaps you can figure it out together.

Adoptees often have mixed feelings about who they are. They may wonder:

• Why didn't my parents keep me?
• Who are my birth parents?
• If you can choose to have me then you can choose to get rid of me?
• Who do I really belong too?
• Who am I really?
• Where did these feet come from?
• How come I have red hair and no one else in the family does?
• How come my siblings seem to grasp things quickly and I can barely get my homework done?
• What do my birth parents look like?
• Did my birth parents love me?
• Did I do something wrong?
• Was it my fault?

Adoptive parents need to think about and address these issues with their children. They need to realize that these questions and feelings are part of the adoptees lifelong developmental process.

Talking to the child about adoption?

You may have mixed feelings about this issue. Some families choose to not tell the child that they were adopted, others may go to the extreme of letting the child and the world know of the adoption on a continual basis. Research indicates that the best solution is a combination of the two extremes. Ultimately though the adoptive family is the one that chooses.

Children who are adopted even as infants and young children have an intrinsic sense that there is something different about them. Children from infancy on experience feelings of grief and loss over parents they did or did not know. Adoptive parents need to let their children know that they were adopted, but not make adoption the central focus of the child and your life. Children need to know that you love them unconditionally, that you aren't going to leave them, they need their feelings validated and to know that it is okay to grieve the loss of the unknown.

Because adoption is a lifelong developmental process, adoption issues never completely go away. The adult adoptee preparing to start a family may experience pangs of uncertainty about their medical history if it is not known. Adoptees' may experience many feelings throughout their development. It is because of this that adoptees' need to know that they were adopted in a thoughtful planned manner. What a five-year-old needs to know about adoption is going to be different than what a 12-year-old needs to know. The following book by David M. Brodzinsky Ph.D., Marshall D. Schechter, M.D., & Robin Marantz Henig provides an eye opening look at developmental stages through adoption from infancy to late adulthood (60's and beyond).