Tuesday, November 27, 2012

How Will You Find Me?

I am often asked by adoptive parents, "How do I tell my child he/she is adopted?".  My answer is, you don't make an event of it.  From an early age, you talk to your child about how your family was born.  If your child is from China, you talk about your excitement of going there and finding her.  If your child was placed into your arms by a birth mother, you talk about how she came to the decision and how she picked you and that it was a loving, thoughtful choice.  Each child will have a different adoption story.  How do you start?  I think the earlier the better, so you start by reading a bedtime story.  For that reason, I wrote a book specifically for this purpose.  How Will You Find Me? is a book designed for young children.  Through the magic of animal families, a child can learn that there's more than one way to build a family.  At the end, it asks the question, "How DID you find me?"  Each family can then share their adoption story with their child in a natural progression of the book.  In this way, a child can learn early on how they came into their family and what a joy their parents felt when they came home.  Years later, when someone asks them, "How did you find out you were adopted?", they can answer, "I always knew".

www.howwillyoufindme.com