Before You Adopt: Talking About Your Adoption Story

Lifetime Adoption shared about the importance of getting in shape last post as part of our new blog series “Before You Adopt.”  Today, we’re sharing about another constructive action that you can do during your adoption wait.

Read on, and we’ll share pointers about how you will talk about adoption with your future child.

During your adoption wait, try role playing how you’ll share your future child’s adoption story with them. Talk about your family’s story, and practice for when you bring your baby home. That way, you’re not just rolling into life as adoptive parents, and putting off including the adoption story as part of sharing the beautiful truth about how you became a family.

Talking to your child about their adoption is a great chance to shape their attitude towards adoption. It allows you to make sure they’re fully informed before they’re able to be influenced by others. You’re also able to build their self-esteem and provide them with a sense of security. We believe that every adoptee should be able to speak comfortably about their story.

Start talking about his or her adoption story when they are very young. Starting these talks as early as infancy will help your child learn the language and start to understand his adoption story. Tell them about their adoption early, and tell it frequently. A large part of this task is to get you used to speaking the words of their story before your baby even knows what you’re talking about. This is where role-playing comes in handy. Practice their adoption story in your mind, or role-play your answers to questions your child could ask.

If you’re a two-parent family, it’s important to match up what you plan to say. Both of you will need to be dedicated to talking and sharing his or her adoption story. This will remove a lot of the stress from it.

Here are some additional pointers about sharing your child’s adoption story:

• Make sure to use positive adoption language whenever discussing their story
• Speak in a calm and casual manner
• Along with your talk, also smile at your child and snuggle them
• Use examples that your child will be used to (such as neighbors or pets)
• End your talk with your child with sharing how happy you are that you’ve adopted him.

Use quiet and snuggly times, like reading time or bedtime to bring up your child’s adoption story. In this way, positive emotions will become connected to your words. And, it’ll create the groundwork for you all to explore more complex issues later on.