How to talk with children about adoption at different ages and stages. Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national adoption & foster care education and support nonprofit talks with Mark Lacava, LCSW-R, the Executive Vice President of the Pre and Post Adoption Services Department at Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children.
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
How to talk with children about adoption at different ages and stages. Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national adoption & foster care education and support nonprofit talks with Mark Lacava, LCSW-R, the Executive Vice President of the Pre and Post Adoption Services Department at Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children.
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
* Note that this is an automatic transcription, please forgive the errors.
Speaker 2:Welcome to creating a family talk about adoption and foster care. Do us a favor, please let your friends know about this podcast. Most people find out about podcasting in general but also about this podcast through their friends, so please spread the word. Today we're going to be talking about talking with kids about adoption at different ages. We'll be talking with Mark Lacava. He is a licensed clinical social worker and the executive vice president of the pre and post adoption services department at Spence shape and services to family and children and they are in New York City. Welcome mark to creating a family. This is a topic as you would imagine that is often asked about and often wondered about. So welcome. Thank you, dawn. I'm so glad that you invited me to your program. Okay. When we think about talking with kids about adoption, I think it helps to begin with understanding how children process and understand adoption at different ages. So just for the sake of discussion, I'm going to break kids down into toddlers and preschools and you could throw infants in there if you want as well. And then school aged kids and then tweens and then teens, and let's also talk about young adults. I think we sometimes forget that our children are still needing information from us as they entered their early adult years. So, uh, we'll, we'll throw that in as well. So how do children, let's, let's start with toddlers and preschoolers. How do toddlers and preschoolers, I understand the concept of adoption. So you don't have really much of an understanding of adoption, whether that young preschool and you tell them their adoption story, what you're really doing. Yes. Starting the foundation, helping them with their identity. They're not going to know this yet. Yeah, because at this particular age, when you talk to them, they're almost going to think that everyone's adopted[inaudible] everyone's story is like their story. They don't realize this until maybe five or six and they go to school where they meet other kids and they're telling their story and other kids are right. That's not your mommy, that type. That's when it comes out. Well, what is adoption? And they tell they're friends or whomever with their parents had told them younger. But it's really a story that they haven't internalized yet. They think everybody else has it and they don't exactly know what this means, but at the same time, it's a base for them. I always think of this stage as the adoption is cool stage. I mean it's a cool story. Mommy and Daddy, they get your attention, you're telling it and they don't make much distinction. I also think of this age as a a gift to parents because parents get to an infancy as well. You get to work the story out in your head, you get to the, the words start flowing more freely off of your tongue and it's kind of a practice round. They, they accept everything you say. It's all pretty cool. And so it's, it's really kind of a gift to you to kind of work the story out in your head and become more comfortable with it.
Speaker 3:Oh absolutely. And that's really the key word. Comfort. The more comfortable you get with the story, even when you know, we'll talk about a little bit later, more difficult topics, but you've already placed to see many years before. This is something that we can talk about. This isn't us, this is our family. All the stuff that goes into it and adoptions of Pete part of it. Right, but it's a part of it that needs to be talked about. It's a not a part that happened and then we moved on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so around you say around, let's say around seven and eight I usually think children began to understand the, up to this point, most kids are focusing in your toddlers, preschoolers and even five and six year olds are focusing more about the get part of adoption. I got mommy and daddy got me, mommy and daddy were happy. It's all the positive aspects. When do kids start putting together that there's a loss aspect to adoption?
Speaker 3:It's actually coming in around them. It's actually come in around depending on your child's intellectual ability, their, their, their sensitivity, five, six, seven and sometimes unless you really know some of these adoption teams, you might be saying, my child's getting cranky. Where did my, like I've heard parents say, where did my lovely little boy go? He was such a sweet boy and now he's taking these temper tantrums. He rejects me, he says mean things to me. He won't believe me at other times. This is really what it's looking like. It's him now internalizing his or her adoption story and he knows that something is different or something is missing because if we started to tell them is adoption stories, we have to tell them about birth. We have to tell them how he or she was in another mommy's body and the whole reproductive process of the, he now knows where he came from, how she came from, about as he or she. And that means that someone else was a part of him for her. And this is where it starts to come out. And some kids, as we know, they feel their adoption much differently. We're much stronger than other kids. And then we're also, you know, kids that come from more difficult places. They've been adopted a little bit later in life from an orphanage, kids from foster care who've been adopted at different ages. You're going to see very seldom, very, very, some does a child not feel their adoption. Even when parents say, well, we look alike, we're Asian, our child's age and we're Caucasian, our child's Caucasian. It shouldn't, but it does. Everybody feels this on an internal level and when you know your story that you're different, this starts to play out this, even at this early stage, you'll see bits and pieces and to answer your question, which you really get into as a little bit of the lossy brief that they're feeling,
Speaker 2:the children will process that loss and grief in different ways and very often through behavior,
Speaker 3:most probably through behavior because they don't yet has the ability to put it to words. You're still working with them on their regulation. So this is a part of that. How do I, you know, and how do we regulate by being able to explain what we're feeling instead of acting it out. That's a hard thing to do. That's when rain was, when we're moving from the back of our brain to the front, from the Cortex to the prefrontal lobe, all that's a part of development.
Speaker 2:How does it change as we start moving into the the tween years, 1112 those ages, maybe even up to 13
Speaker 3:remember, we're always, it's always best practice to start to talk about adoption at a very young age because then it becomes a part, I love your dialogue as your child's developing. Now they have words. Now your conversations with them can be richer. They can be more, it can be more reflective. If you don't have all the information, what do they think? How do they feel? And one of the big things that I always say is you can't take the pain from them. You can just either to help them to hold their hand, do your best to say, I understand, but you can't really teach sides. We're, we're negate their feelings. I know you feel, you know, you have to be able to sit with him and I say listen to it. It's not about you, about what they're feeling.
Speaker 2:And then as we, oh, and to reiterate something you said at the very beginning when they're two and three and four,
Speaker 3:you're laying the groundwork
Speaker 2:and when they're there, five, six, seven and eight, you're adding a little more detail. And then by the time they're 10 11 and 12 you're adding considerably more detail because their understanding is greater. So you're scaffolding the story. So there's never a time that you have
Speaker 3:the talk.
Speaker 2:It's a series of, of many talks and each talk
Speaker 3:you're just adding more and more detail and more and more information and allowing them to process and come back to you with questions. Beautifully put. Yes. Because everybody's adoption story is different. And remember your kids are gonna interpret it different than you because all of us are different. So you don't know how they might be processing it as they start to develop. And if it starts to save her in them by providing that space for them, that it can always come out that you, we can talk about it. And if they don't want to talk about it, they can tell you. I don't want to talk about it. But they have things that you've worked on. Like we'll talk about some things, the Lifebook, all these things are important. Open this up because the more the information they have, the better they can process as we go into this stage, their identity, who they are. Oh, that's the team time. Now we're moving into the teen years, understanding their identity. So let's talk a little about the, when I talk about identity, I'm really talking, well 13 we're not talking later adolescence. It's all happening now. And the interesting thing is society's changed so much and it could be happening online. You want them to be processing this with you and not so much processing it or getting the information online, which a lot of kids we find are doing that on their own and buy information, talking to other adoptees, talking to other people that you wanna find. Help them find the community that you're aware of where you live, what are some adoptee groups. All of these things go into because we'd like to say by the eye if your child's emotionally and intellectually evil, you want them to have the bulk, if not all of their story by 12 and you do that by giving bits and pieces of their story to them because some of their stories are not pleasant rather than waiting and waiting and waiting because then it always looks like this. This is what always comes back to to me when I'm working with adult adoptees, it's a sense that they lied but they didn't lie. They were doing it for the most part. They were doing it from a place of love, but they were afraid it was going to hurt you. The adoptee was saying, but that's my story. That's easy to decide and these are themes that we see. I see over and over. It's not that it doesn't have to be that way, but also when you hold the secrets, it takes a toll on you as a family. We want to share everything, the good, the bad, and you want to be a place that you want your children to view you as a source of information can come to you. Like I said, as opposed to online. So if you move into the latter teen years and early, oh, go ahead. You don't want them. And just to the best of your ability to feel they have to choose at this particular stage. There might be with, I wish you weren't my mom were these fantasies about who their parents can be, but as long as we're talking about holding space for that, yeah, we're going to circle around to the, uh, you're not my mom. That's when all adoptive parents dread. All right, so now moving into the latter
Speaker 2:teen and early young adult stage, how is their understanding of adoption different at that stage?
Speaker 3:Now they're able to abstract things much more clearly, but at the same time it's not fully developed yet and there's so much more emotional brain. The struggle for them is how much of them, his nature from what they've gotten from their adoptive families. And what's this unknown? This is if they're not in an open relationship and what is it that comes from my biological family? How much of my personality is this and how much my personality is not that. What about my looks where, where, what will I look like in five years? What happens if they do know there's their parents there, their birth parents story and they want to act on it. These are all themes that come up. This is how I can get close to my birth mother. Uh, she had me when she was very young. I want to have a child when I'm, these are all themes. Did we hear that? We see in our mentorship group, the kids will talk about, and that's part of this stage. It's once again, dawn, it's opening up the space, respecting who your child is at this stage, what type of information they want and how they process what was given to them. And once again, always listening, always taking in what they're saying, not being so quick to give advice. Would it make the situation better? Just to be present is monumental.
Speaker 2:I think that's going to be a recurring theme is to listen and don't take it personally.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. I've got a whole section on listening if we have a ton, but it's so important because this is always usually new territory for families and even if your family has had more than one adoption, it's always new territory for the child because that always makes that particular child a little bit different.[inaudible] how does that different just play out in the family and create who they're going to be?
Speaker 2:Exactly. This show is brought to you by jockey being family foundation. They are underwriters of this show and they have a national backpack program that provides newly adopted children with a backpack personalized with their very own initials. Each backpack contains a bear in a blanket and from my standpoint, the most important thing is they parent tote full of resources to help navigate the parenting journey. If you're a newly adoptive parent, ask your agency if they are a part of the backpack program. If not, they can join. It's free for the agency and it's a great resource. All right. One of the things that you mentioned when we were talking was if your adoption is close, so how does openness change the whole dynamics of talking
Speaker 3:about adoption? It makes it easier. And what I've learned is that also takes some of the responsibility and the burden off of the parent that has to hold all this inside, hold all the story inside. When you're in an open adoption. Some of that could be given to the parent who explain what happened, why they made that decision. Because the decision is an adult is decision. It's never the child's decision or the child's fault. And that's one of the themes that we see is it maybe I wasn't lovable enough, maybe I wasn't. And it really helps the child understand it's not this part of, it's not about you. These were adult decisions. It wasn't that you, I wanted you to be, make an adoption plan. I would have any child at this particular time that I had, I would've made an adoption plan.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] it takes some of the unknown away. Absolutely. And so for that standpoint, yeah, and I liked what you said. It takes some of the burden off of the adoptive parents being the only ones who can have information.
Speaker 3:I also like to say when open adoption works, which sometimes it needs a little bit of cultivation and once again does sooner to happens. The easier it gets because it cuts down on anxiety, but you can never have too much love in your life. It's a whole different conversation, openness because there needs to be boundaries that are set up[inaudible] and ways to approach certain topics. But in the long run we've, we've found the child benefits and that's really what this is about. It's what is most optimal for your child if you can have an open adoption. And even in, you know, when you said foster care, foster care, lots of times, you know, it started to change that the idea that you could be in foster care for four, five, six years get adopted and not have any relationship with your, your birth family, which she might've been visiting all this as a part of that sense of openness.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] exactly. So how does transracial placements transracial adopted change the child's understanding of adoption? It seems like it would speed it up if only because children at a very young age, we know recognize skin tone and are already making decisions about worthiness based on, on the color of skin. So if they, they will also be noticing at a young age that they look different, be it skin tone or be it facial features or whatever, that they look different from their parents.
Speaker 3:That's a really important piece. And kids, they're going to see the difference, but they're not gonna really understand it. Now, I'll let her forget. A couple of years ago, parent told me, said, mark, I don't know what I was supposed to say. My boy said he was three and a half. When I grow up, dad, I'm going to be white light to you. I said, well, what did you say, Andy? He said, well, I don't think you will be. I still do. You know what? That might've been the best answer. I can go back to it and you can say, no son, you're going to stay this beautiful brown color and this you know and you can point out and but the idea is that you're encouraging the beauty from this. The beauty of this, your child and, and one of the things is when you adopt transracially, the important thing is you can start to want to bring in more families, more people in your life that look like your child. So you're not always having to explain it that they see. Because it's one thing, and this is really important because it's one thing if you, you talk very positively about it, but there's no sign of it in the home, in the community, in the society. And how do you do that? How will you bring, is this in what type of doctor should your child see? Where should you live? Ultimately what type of play groups, where do they go to school? All this is so monumental when you're adopting transracially because every child that is raised and in a family that does not look like them, that is always a theme that we see later on when I work with the older adult to talk to two or one, they come up with all these different names for it. Like who is a coconut, you know, Latin on the outside, white on the inside or add coconut. Yeah, that would be a black child. I'd been told that black on the outside. White on the inside.
Speaker 2:It is. Yeah. It's, it's a black child who acts like,
Speaker 3:right and for numerous reasons we're not going to talk about here, but to your question because the more your child sees those around them that look like him, the easier the transracial adoption is. There's because what you're preaching you're, you are doing yourself.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense? It does make sense. You know, a question that we get when we get deep into the discussion with people about talking is the one about, I understand they'll say adoptive parents will say, I understand how to talk about birth moms because children at a very young age recognize pregnancy and that the baby is growing inside and Susie and and so they understand that babies grow inside of moms. But what they often don't very often don't understand is the role of the birth debt. And some parents will say, I've got a five year old, they know nothing about sex. I don't want them to know when you think about sex. So how do I explain the role of a birth dad and what the birth dad had to do with it. So how do we talk birth dads?
Speaker 3:You talked birth. That's a beautiful question because you're right, we often leave out the birth father, um, in the whole adoption process but couldn't take place with down. It's the same thing. Another mommy carried you in her belly. Have Mommy met a man like Daddy? Because a lot of kids, well think that father is also their biological father because he's that role has never been and that becomes a confusing piece to the, and it's how you view sex. You're going to put it in terms of an in a story that they can understand and then develop it from there. If you feel, if the time to tell the story is it for then another mommy had you in her belly and she met this highlight. I met daddy and she liked him and they taught together and they had a baby. That's enough for a four year old. That can almost be enough for a old, but if you're applied year old or six year old was very inquisitive you can add to, well when they get together, daddy has something called sperm and that has to come to mommy and then you leave it at that and then you build on it from there, but you can't not say you can, but you're setting yourself up for a more difficult conversation a little bit later. You once again is about building a foundation, what they can handle at this particular time so that by the time they're 10 this piece of the puzzle is solved and you can get onto the other piece of it and also that they can come to you because you've been very honest with them.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] yeah, you were a safe source of information
Speaker 3:and you look good, right, and you want, you want to be that source, especially while they're young, because we know that when they hit 1213 they're going to be looking for outside sources. They're going to know that you're did. They can come to you at this point. You want that establish that you're going to give them the answers that you have. If you don't have those answers did you can say, I don't have those answers. What do you think? So that you're starting to listen and hear with their ideas about is this question they just asked you?
Speaker 2:All right, so we've talked about the developmental understanding of adoption. Now let's talk about some common questions that children at different ages and stages of development we'll have about adoption and some, uh, to help prepare parents for how they might want to answer these questions. All right, so what are some common questions that let's say preschoolers and, and uh, yeah. Anybody know the, the below five set might be having about adoption.
Speaker 3:It might happen, especially if it's a transracial adoption child and a parent child is walking across the street and one of their friends on the way the playground says, that's not your mom. You don't look anything like that. These are, these are conversations that you can have before they get asked because they will get asked or you can wait for them too. And then you make some decisions like with the wise up curriculum, this is a little child. You don't have to explain your child's whole adoption story. You can simply say to another five-year-old, hi, yes, I'm this mother. Is that your mom? And put it on that kid to answer. And you're also modeling for the, your child different types of responses for different situations. When did they enter Kim? They educate when it's a friend of theirs. When they want to share. If someone asks an intrusive question, you're going to be modeling for them. Is that your mother? Excuse me. That's a personal question and then keep it moving. There's different types of responses depending on who's asking them and also you want to give different responses so that your child, it has a little bit of repertoire of what they can say and who they want to say things to and then it's always a learning experience because then when you go home, that's an opportunity to speak about adoption. That little boy or girl sets that, what do you, what do you think, how did that make you feel? And depending on their age, does that make you feel mad? Did that make you feel sad? Does that make you feel confused? So you're starting to give them that emotional language that they can use a little bit later instead of them sitting with it? Because if you don't process it with them, you might've felt empowered but your child don't know why you said that. I told that to the boy, you don't want the child to feel that there was any shame in it or different types of responses will elicit different things. What would you want to train? Teach them as? They don't have to explain themselves. Sex. Everybody rests. Question and so look differences in. So children noticing and that's primarily when a child doesn't resemble and often a different race or ethnicity, um, that would elicit that what are due, when do children start thinking about asking and asking questions about why their birth parents and probably more often their birth mom did not want to or did not parent them. Often children will say things that really surprised parents. Parents have always used the, the terminology that you're a birth mom made an adoption plan and then the child will come up and say, oh, so why did she give me away? And that both shocks the parents because they haven't used that language. But that gives you a clue that your parent, your child is internalizing it that way. When do children start focusing in on some of the questions, the harder questions, which are, you know, why was an adoption plan made or why was I given away or, um, what was happening in their life? Why didn't they want me? Things like that. When are those questions are probably going to start? If the child knows more about their adoption, it'll probably started around five or six because it around five, six, seven. They're going to know that not, not everybody has an adoption plan. They might go to school in the first grade or kindergarten and tell everybody that they're adopted and they find out, wait a second, most of the kids in my class aren't adopted. Where if I tell them I'm adopted, they're going to say these things like, well, why didn't your parents, and that's where the education comes in at home beforehand. So you're already talking to them about it, anticipating that someone's going to say something, but it's going to happen probably before eight years old. So your child needs to be prepared, you need to help your child with that.
Speaker 2:Those type of questions usually are going to hit by early elementary school,
Speaker 3:early elementary school. Even if you look like your child looks like you somehow, because you've already told them the adoption story. So they're going to share it with someone, they're going to share it with their friends, they're going to tell people there's going to be a family tree, which usually takes place in the second or third grade. These are all telltale signs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The facts that you've been reading to them as children. These are stories that they're going to remember. What was your favorite book? And they're gonna say the night, maybe the night I came home, I never heard of that book. Don't tell them. And because it's in a sense it's going to come out of them. You want to, you don't want them to be shameful or hide or angry about their adoption story.
Speaker 2:So as they move into the tween years, as you're pointing out, by the time they're about 12 anything, you know you're going to want your child to know.
Speaker 3:That's what we say.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean that's, you know, okay. There could be some exceptions, but I think parents want to believe there are a lot more exceptions than there than in reality that there should be. What are some of the questions, typical questions that tweens will have. The are 10 11 and 12 year olds about their birth family, about their siblings. When is all, when did, what are the typical questions for the tween years?
Speaker 3:I was going to say first on that these are things that you as the parent, you need to ask yourself. You need to kind of get comfortable in your head with these questions. If it's a hard to answer question because it was a are to have, you know, in terms of pregnancy what happened, but what kids are gonna want through and want more information. Even in our groups here, we find out that almost every kid has searched the house for adoption information when their parent was out. So the idea that your child doesn't know, they might know as much as you and they're waiting for you to tell them. And when you don't tell them two things happen[inaudible] angry where they don't want to hurt you. But there are questions now are, yeah, and this is really even around the tween years is I'd like to meet my siblings. I like to meet my birth father. Can I search? These are all what they're going to be asking. Now when they get mad at you, they might say, uh, I'm going to, I wish I could live with my birth mother.
Speaker 2:We'll circle around to that question and just, yeah, cause that's a typical Weiner. Yeah. We'll talk about that in just a minute. Alright, so search, uh, curiosity about siblings.
Speaker 3:I wonder what the eye with a look like. I wonder what I'm going to look like.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Well, because they can now see the future. Remember when you're the young three to six, everything is in the here and now six, seven, eight. You're thinking is more con is, is so concrete, but you can think about tomorrow. You can think about who comes over for Thanksgiving dinner because you've had a couple of Thanksgiving dinner, things that happen and now you're really starting to project into the future and at the same time you're starting to develop this sense of self. Who Am I,
Speaker 2:10, 11, 12 age? Absolutely. We think of it as, as a, as a exclusive to teams. But the idea of who am I and how I relate in the world, um, is, is actually kind of, that's the, the hallmark of, of our twins.
Speaker 3:However, all kids are, have levels of narcissism. It really is about where do I get my eyebrows from? Where do I get my, it's about them. And sometimes if they think about it, it makes them angry. How come? I don't know. How come every kid at school knows but I don't. And when they get mad[inaudible] taken out on, of course we take it out on those closest to us and that's part of adoption. That's also part of being a parent. Because even without adoption, your kids are going to act out against you in different ways. That's just the way it is. Hate to say it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's part of, it's part of the fun part of parenting.
Speaker 3:Yes. Right. I mean, and we, we look at adolescence in preadolescence as being difficult, but it's just another stage. In fact, if anything, you can have these deeper Richard conversations with them. You can get an understanding of who they are in a different way, meaning what type of an adult they're going to be. And the sheet is a little bit different now because they're not looking just you for all their information. They're almost looking to you[inaudible] fine holes in your information because they're testing their own theories. So if you haven't been honest up to that point, it adds to more anger. How can I trust you cause you haven't been sent truthful.
Speaker 2:So now moving into the teen years, are there some common questions that we see for less, less lump teens and young adults into those? What are some common questions they have at that point? Let's start with teens and then we'll say young adults because oftentimes young adults are, are empowered legally to be searching and so not needing your permission.
Speaker 3:I bet. So let's talk twain. I'm sorry, teens now because there's so much accessible online, which is all the more reason why the more conversation you have, it might. I want to meet the mat. If it's not in an open relationship or if it isn't an open relationship. Depending, I want to spend time with my birth parents on my own. I want to meet with them. I want to talk with them. How do you maneuver that? How do you assess if it's the right environment for your child or if you're were, if you think they're ready to meet with them on their own and at the same time the conversation is really about what, what do they want to get from it? What are their, what are they thinking about it? Why are they thinking these things? She went, you want to have the conversations with them as open as possible. Now there are more independent. They could. They're telling it to you. You want them to tell a t what they're thinking, but if they don't, that doesn't mean that they're not going to do it. And that once again, as I continually take us back to the very beginning, the more dialogue you have, the easier this part of it is.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] exactly. And now less. Most, um, most adoption agencies, most parents are thinking in terms of 18 and 18, you know, the child can search. So what are some of the complications at that stage for our children who are entering 18, 19, 20. What are some of their issues?
Speaker 3:[inaudible] are they, are they ready for it? And by ready, I mean what do they one to get out of it? What do they expect to get out of it? We, you know, I come across a lot of teams who when I, you know, they want to, they want to search and all that and they'll, they'll even do the DNA testing and then they'll find a relative, maybe not their birth route, their birth parent and all of a sudden they freeze. The end result was finding you. Now they're at this customer. They can, yeah. What does that mean? And all the anxiety comes up and it's really processing with them. What do they think will happen? What is the best case scenario? What is the worst case scenario? If your parents doesn't want anything to do with you, what does that mean for you? And what happens if they want to meet you at Starbucks next week? Are you ready for this? So to start to as a parent, to start to put ideas into their heads that they're figuring these things out. Just like the parent had to figure out when you were five or six when some, some adult or some child made a comment about you were relationship, kind of help them anticipate what goes into this so that they're more prepared. There's more to it. Dan, just locating, it's what do you want out of the relationship and what do you think they might want out of the relationship?
Speaker 2:And I would argue that at this stage what you want is that your child, that you're a support for them because as is unknown and it is scary, you know, this is making the assumption that they are not an open relationship and that you know, they, they know their birth parents will. But assuming that isn't the case, this is scary. And, uh, as a parent, your, one of your responsibilities is to walk with your kid through scary situations and, and so hopefully you've laid the, your goal is to have laid the groundwork so that your will come and say,
Speaker 3:I'm going to meet, uh, my birth mom, Susie, uh, next week I'm kinda nervous. You want them to come to you with this information and it's not about you. You don't want to freak. Do you want to be able to say that sounds exciting. That sounds scary. You know, what can I do to help? Uh, you want me to come with you? Do you want me to, uh, be waiting down the block so that you could, you know, talk when you're finished or you know, what do you want? What do you need from me? And there's more chance of that. True. International adoptive, the parents didn't want any part of any type of, for unification contacting almost with the field, wasn't I enough? So this adult adopt the digital on their own, but there was something missing not to be able to share it with someone who is so much a part of the story. And then another adult adoptee was very recently telling me that the parents, they're adults now, this particular, but that the parent was with them, I feel anxious or nervous. Can you read with the, the email that I'm going to send them? It's coming from the adult, but he's sharing with the parents and that's really what, so that everybody's in on this together as an adult adoptee, as a young adult, if you're going to do start this as a team because we see it here, kids now 11 and 12 are coming in. This is just so much more information out there. And even the way families come into adoption, we like this conversation. We're asking to have these conversations at a very young age, unlike maybe 2030 years ago where yes, dawn, it's still not on for[inaudible] to get caused where people find out that, uh, when their parents died that they were adopted. And what do they do with how that messes up with that is just such a a hard position. There's so much a sense of betrayal. It's just, yeah, we're hoping that we are moving past that now and demystifying and part of the reason we're talking with you today is so we don't have people, let me remind everybody that this show could not and would not happen without the generous support of our partners. And these are agencies who believe in our mission and our mission is providing unbiased education and support to pre and post adoptive families. And our partner agencies are agencies who not only believe in it but are willing to support it with their money. And so we are truly dependent upon them and thankful to have our partner agencies, one adoptions from the heart. They have helped build over 6,000 families since 1985 through domestic incident options. They work with people all across the u s and are licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Virginia and Connecticut. And we also have hopscotch adoptions. They are a Hague accredited international adoption agency, placing children
Speaker 2:from Armenia or Garia. Croatia, Georgia, Ghana, Kiana, Morocco, Pakistan, Serbia, Ukraine, and they also do kinship adoptions from many other countries and we thank them. Today we're talking about talking with your child about adoption and we are talking with Mark Lacava. He is with Spence Chapen mark, let's talk some about what I am euphemistically calling some of the sticky situations that can arise when we are talking with our children about adoption. One of them comes up when we don't have much information that could come up in domestic infant. It could come up in international and it could come up in foster care. We're talking with our children about the fact that they're adopted, but they're asking us questions about who their birth parents are, why they were placed for adoption and sometimes we have this information. What? How do you handle if you don't have that information,
Speaker 3:you'd be as honest as you possibly can be you. And if it's a difficult story, you space it out over time. But you started off by saying, I wish I had that information but I don't because what you don't want to do, it's filling a false narrative that you then have to correct later on. You can start off with a very generalized, your birth mom and your birth dad couldn't parent a child at the time and we wanted a child and you know when they're very young and you know, we waited and when we've got you and you can go through the whole stories, which kind of answers their question, but also sets the tone of the story of their birth when they came to you and then fill that in later. My advice was never to create something that you then have to untangle at a later point in time.
Speaker 2:Okay, so tell them that. Just say I don't have the information. I wish I did. You can also offer to try to get the information,
Speaker 3:the younger stage Zen. Then when at that maybe six to 10 year old, you want to hear what they think would they have, well what do you think? You know, so that you're hearing like what their fantasy is around it. And their fantasy was like, I wish I could meet them. I went for their fantasies was like they're not that interested, but if they really want, then you can start your well, you know when you're depending on you as the parent, would you, when you're 10 we're going to start to look because we don't have much information. It can take a long time and then you start to include them in whatever that search could be.
Speaker 2:And one thing that you, I'm appreciative that you've mentioned is that by asking them what they think, children very often have fact. Most often if there isn't information, they've created something in their head. So it's helpful for you as a parent to know a, what their fantasy is, are what they're, what they're imagining. And it's very common when there's little information for children to fill it in.
Speaker 3:And they usually fill it in in a negative way. They might tell you a story, but behind that story there's a little bit ashamed of it. No one want to them. That's what they think. And you're always changing that narrative for them. So you want to hear what their narrative is so that we can help correct it. Our minds always seem to go towards the negative. Remember that thing for every, every negative, you have to say seven positives. This is usually a child was gonna go to that place. Yeah. What's wrong with me? And that's the narrative that you're correcting even with information or not. But when there's little information, there's less that you can give them. So you have to stay in character with where they are in this.
Speaker 2:So, and we've talked already a some about the, if we have hard stories, stories of domestic violence or incarceration or substance abuse or rape or incest, if we have hard stories to share, I believe. I think that the ground that what you had said before is to lay the groundwork and continuing to add as the child ages, but that the reality is for the most part, you want your child to have this information. Even the hard information age 12 is that, did I understand you correctly?
Speaker 3:You understood me correctly because then they have this information, it's already with them and I know it sounds difficult and hard, but it's with them as they start to develop into their next phase of development, which is adolescence, which is about identity. So they have to put this in into who they are and your work is to help them say these were choices were things that happened to your parents that they had no choice in. If it's a rape, if it's a something along, but that's not necessarily then their parents are good people, but they made poor choices. Then you develop it because we don't, if you have a lot of history on the parents then colored in is they start to ask questions. What was the circumstances? We don't know that, but if you don't know any of the circumstances, you can just give them what you have. Did you want them to have it? Because not having it creates avoid that somehow it's going to get filled and you don't want it to get filled with them. Finding out later on and saying, you knew that my birth mother was in prison these last 15 years and you didn't think it was important to tell me what I've been asking you about them or my birth father. How did that have, I don't know how it happened. We can go and you know you can, depending on their age and what you feel is the right thing to do as a parent, we can go online and look, but the idea is that you're doing it with them. You're already processing this as a parent before you're having this conversation with your child. You're setting the groundwork for free yourself. And lots of times you don't want to tell information, especially hard information because we want to protect the child, but protect our child from all types of pain. Well that's part of the learning process. And when we don't, we're not helping them and we're not helping in the adoption process because it's their information as much as it is your information. Yes. More so. Yeah, exactly. And we're talking about sticky situations. And the one that I think that parents dread the most is to have their child said and almost always had said an anger. Um, you are not my mom. You are not my dad or some variation, which is my, uh, Mama. Susie would let me, uh, would let me do this. I wish, I wish she, I was living with her or I'm going to want to, I don't know why I have to live with you. Why can't I live with Susanne and her husband? You know, they're nicer. So that's the, you know, the, the story that every parent dreads. So how do you handle that as a parent? You don't personalize it. And you know your char best, so it's coming from somewhere. You kind of want to assess where it might be coming from, but you also want to acknowledge the feeling. What are they really saying? It's a part of that loss. Again, it's the, it's a little bit of the anger that goes with it. It's confusion and you want to speak to that. You want to be able to say, I know it must be hard for you sometimes not knowing where your parent is not or no, it must be hard for you, but you know how much we love. So you're bringing it back to you and you know that this is, this is our family, not your family, but this is our family. Where would we, and sometimes you can even depend, you could put a little playfulness in there. You know you're not going anywhere. So the same thing like that. Like when we're talking about the wise of curriculum, you're acknowledging their pain and then you're making, having being a little playful with it, children up to 12 they can handle that. That older kids don't really think of that as sarcastic. But they can say it to you, but that still opens up lines of communication, man. You're really feeling your adoption today. I wonder why is it something at school? Is it something that's, was it just something you're feeling? You know, I'm here for you. If your child is saying it to get a rise out of you or to divert your attention from the consequences. When you're saying it's time to time to do your homework, I hate you or you're not going to go to that sleepover. I hate you. I wish you weren't my mom or you're not my real mom. You can't make me do that. And it's being said as a, as a point of anger and trying to, and oftentimes trying to divert the, the attention away from the reality is I've told you to go clean up your room. I don't want to clean up my room. And so how to handle it in that situation at that exact moment. That would be one of the more playful moments. I bet. I bet every kid wishes this outtake prepare wasn't their, when they're asking them to do clean up the room. But guess what? That's parental rights. That's parental, whatever my thing is, is like to me used to be, I'm going to go over to my aunt Lillian that lived around the block. I'm going to aunt Lillian's and live with her. You got to clean in Lilian's house too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Before you go clean your room, like I told you. Yeah. Yeah. The way that I have handled it is always,
Speaker 3:well, that may or may not be the case, but right now you still have to clean your room and we'll talk about, we'll talk about who your real mom is or who you could live with later, but right now you still have to clean your room. Right. And then it's about that. It's about picking and choosing your battles and the[inaudible]. That's not a battle that you necessarily need to get into because they're not, if you listened to your inner ear, they're not really saying they don't want you to be their parent. They're telling you they really don't want to clean the room.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You're in your mean and that anybody else would be nicer because, and if you
Speaker 3:no, and you were in an opened up, there was a woman in our support group who said, you know the little girl said Mama, Susie wouldn't make me do it. And the mom bursts out and she goes, you probably aren't thinking about the mom as soon as the, I'm thinking about she didn't make you do that and then come wash the dishes, you know, and, and the little girl. But yeah, you could probably ride on that cause Mama Susie is pretty strict, you know. So you know that Mama Susie was an, was a known commodity in that little girl's life. So we've talked about children asking questions, another perhaps on sticky situation. But another situation arises when a kid shows zero interest and adoption. And when you bring it up, it's like you're facing not really resistance but just boredom or uninteresting. And that's a lot harder, especially for those of us who like to talk and think things through and talk about them. How do you handle a kid who just seemingly is not particularly curious? You've got to respect that too. You've got that. That doesn't mean that you, you don't continue with, put some feelers out there and that's filler. Can Be watching a movie together.[inaudible] a youtube video and asking them, you know, what their thoughts on it and they might give you an, Oh mom, why do you keep up? But yeah, just like I just, you know, I find it interesting you, you, you can take it on you. I just want to make, you know, I want to know when you think about that and regardless if they say anything, you've planted the seed, the seeds in there. So even if you say I've got, if you ever did want to talk to you on here, then you're still might get a little bit of sarcasm, but I call it the seeds that were planted. It will come out at some point. Sometimes, you know, adoptions like a wave. Sometimes it comes in so tide and other times it comes out with some kids to tide us in a lot. They feel their adoption tremendously. Other kids not so much. And the idea is you can't it on them, but you can let them know that every developmental stage you're adopted and we're here to talk about it.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] what's off limits with us. It's not a, we're not fragile. We can handle this discussion. You just have to, yeah.
Speaker 3:Also, we haven't spoken about that. It makes all of these conversations easier.[inaudible] if you're part of some types of adoption community, the more families that you know adopted, maybe children are a little bit older, there's some advice that they can give you. The more kids that your kids see that are adopted, the easier it is for them to put into words what they're feeling. That's really what a lot of these groups are in social groups, in therapy groups. The fun is really just being around and being able to express what you're feeling at that particular point in your life. Excellent. So the more they have, the more opportunity they have because you can't, sometimes you can't answer our questions because parents just can't. As much as we want to, we, there are certain things that your kids are going to find here. Here. They're gonna take your, your information ed, they need other information and the older they get, the more other information they need to take in with yours. That's[inaudible] part of just growing up.
Speaker 2:I love that as an idea of one of the things that you can do is surround your children with other adopted people or at least a few so that they have it in normalizes and they also have someone who they can talk to who has gone through this process. And even if you are adopted and an adoptive parent from your child's standpoint, you're not going through it in a similar time. Uh, and you may have a different personality. Right. Well that's a great segue into the conversation of resources. What are some resources that parents can utilize to help them talk about adoption with their kids? You have mentioned the wise up book and that's from the center for adoption support in education and we have it on the creating a family.org site under books. That's another great resource is most of us at creating a family, our children's literature nuts and we love children's literature. So we have a very extensive list of books with our review suggested age limits and broken out by type of adoption as well. Again, because I love children's literature, but to me books are the easiest entry into talking about adoption and it's fun and they're great books and you can start honestly, you can start, you know, at infancy and just start reading these books and they become part of your trials book library. Are you as much of a book fanatic or a book fan as I am mark?
Speaker 3:Oh, most definitely. I mean I was thinking of things when you were talking. It's like, Oh, you know, I'm a clinician so they should read Dan Hughes
Speaker 2:with pacing and I'm thinking a mother for Choco, you know, but the ideas is make
Speaker 3:use. I'm going to say your website because you're going to need supports no matter what part of the country you live, you're going to want to look at videos regardless if your child is interested in adoption or not. Because this is where you as a parent are going to also start to get your ideas to help answer the questions in your head. Um, there's a Pixar film, there's so much out there now on videos, on books that you give your, you do yourself a disservice. They adopt and just wing it. You don't have to wing it. Yeah. You've been listening to this podcast is a form of information.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Absolutely. So we've, we've talked about books and you just mentioned, uh, movies, another great, uh, resource and, uh, of movies that, and you can just Google movies and adoption. There are different movies at every, every developmental stage. There are movies you can see
Speaker 3:with your time. There's the fosters, which is like a soap opera. There's, uh, the autumn may or may not. You may want to watch the ladies first out there. There's so many like loving books. There's so many books. About how to adopt. You don't have to read the whole book if it doesn't, it's exactly, but you're getting bits and pieces of information to how you're going to formulate this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So and, and that's a good point too. A Lot, not all of the children's books, but many of the children's books, which are a lot of them are geared for, well no actually we haven't broken down all the way up through teens, but I'll, a lot of the beginning ones, uh, have a section for parents in the back. And that's another great place to, to read, um, uh, to get information. We have, uh, a three part guide on talking with your kids, talking. I think it's talking with uh, uh, preschoolers and toddlers and talking with school age and then talking with tweens and teens. So it's a three part guide we have on our website. It's free, just Google creating a family and talking with kids about adoption part one, part two, part three. So that's a resource. We do have other podcasts that creating a family. This podcast, we've covered this topic. Yeah. So that's another great source.
Speaker 3:There's even online communities for people in parts of the country where there is maybe a rich adoption landscape, but you can connect with people in different parts of the country so that you can at least say, my child said this. So there will be other people that can respond and say, oh this is what I just said when my child, this is what I see. You start up understand how other people looked at this, how other people looked at the thing. But the idea if you're going to go on online communities, you want it to be open. It's not about being closed, right. If I didn't tell my child yet, I don't think they need to know. That might not be the best online community for you because we, the experts know that the more information you provide date easier. This will be for you. You can solve something by keeping it a secret or waiting because it just creates built up anxiety tomorrow when they turn 11 cause I can't tell you how many times I'm going to say, tell them when they turn 11 when they turn 12 and then they said, oh my God, I didn't 16 years old. What do I do?
Speaker 2:Yup. When it is easy, if you haven't told to keep putting it off because then it's, it's, it's the talk here, air quotes here, the talk and, and that's something that is it. It becomes overwhelming and it's easy to procrastinate. So when people wait, it is so tempting to keep waiting. And that's why I think children's books are a good entree because it takes zero preparation. It takes, and you don't have to think of the words you're reading the story that's being written for you. But if you have waited, you're so right. Then you're having to sit down and have a major discussion that usually then is bad for you and the kid.
Speaker 3:Right. And there's so much out there. Even when you look at Harry Potter, Harry Potter, you know who doesn't live with his parents and say these are great segues or not a valid option, but there's still some of those themes there that you can ask your kid, what do they think, how about you? And then it opens up space and you always want that space open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. You can look for opportunities for books that aren't specific but, but I talk about loss. You're exactly right and that's another interesting thing and we think in terms of reading to our kids when only when they're little, but I would encourage you to expand that and have a read aloud book all the way through your tween years and actually into the teen years. If you're, if your kid,
Speaker 3:that's cool you can because you're also doing with that, just as with the cha is promoting, bonding, promoting closeness. It's just that you're at, you're asking different questions, you're bringing the book back and forth. It's where you can even do a book club in the family type of thing, what you're doing. It's a way of connecting. It's a way of staying in touch with each other. So yes, I agree with that 100%
Speaker 2:yeah, and even if you're a, I liked that idea of a book club within, even if you, what you're doing is reading simultaneously a book. Although I, I kept reading out loud to my kids and it was always, it was one of the highlights of my evening too, because it was usually a book that I was enjoying as well. So, but nonetheless, yes, even if you're reading, they're reading a book and you're reading a book at the same time or right after them is another, it's a form of bonding. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what they're also going to do with the books is you're going to be recommending books to them, but they're going to be giving you books to read too. It's a reciprocal thing at a later age and it makes them feel hurt. And at the same time that you both enjoy this, this is a work that I enjoyed from sharing it with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. It gives you a piece in an insight into their world. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well. Thank you so much, Mark Lacava for talking with us today about talking with your kids about adoption at different ages. Let me remind everybody that the views expressed in this show are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of creating a family, our partners or our underwriters. Also, keep in mind that the information given in this interview is general advice to understand how it applies to your specific situation. You need to work with your adoption professional. Thank you for listening today and I will see you next week.