Have you had discussions with your children about adoption? Have you thought about what you would say to them? How about what you would tell them about adopting a brother or sister?
My wife and I adopted our daughter Arianna as a newborn in 2007 (see our adoption story). She is now a pre-schooler that is very talkative and very curious. We find ourselves talking to her more and more about adoption, how she was adopted, and a lot about how we are waiting to adopt a baby brother or sister for her.
We have talked to her about adoption since she was barely able to understand. In fact, I have been telling her the “Arianna story” almost every night as I kneel beside her bed while she drifts off to sleep. She let’s me know if I don’t immediately start telling the story by saying,”Daddy, can you tell me the Arianna story?” What child wouldn’t want to hear a story about them?
The story is a simplified version right now while she is still pretty young. We’ll continue to add more details as she gets older. It starts with when we got the call from her birthmother telling us that she was going to the hospital to give birth. It ends with the day we finally brought her home from Nevada, how we said our prayers and sang a special song so she would fall asleep.
We bring up adoption a lot since we are waiting to adopt another baby with the help of Lifetime Adoption Center. We also make it part of our daily prayers to ask God to find a baby brother or sister for Arianna. She has picked up on this and prays as well. In fact, just the other day when we were saying her bedtime prayers, she said “God please bring us a baby brother or sister real soon – I’ve been waiting soooo long!” From her mouth to God’s ears, you gotta believe He heard that one…
Another way we talk about adoption with her is through books. She LOVES books so we read a lot to her. We’ve found some pretty good adoption books, although there seems to be a lot more geared toward international adoption than to domestic adoption. Tapestry books is a great resource for adoption books. We like to find books that tell a variety of adoption stories.
Every adopted child has their own unique story. Knowing when and how to talk to them about adoption can be hard. We’ve found that Arianna likes hearing about how and why we became a family. We have had some questions come up like “did I grow in your tummy Mommy?” and “what is adoption?” We always give simple, honest answers and then if she asks more we explain more.
If you haven’t adopted yet, think about scrapbooking your child’s adoption story or get an adoption baby book that shows the steps in the process. Take a look at these adoption baby books to see some that I recommend getting from Amazon.com.
Check out this great article about how to talk to your children about adoption.
