Advice re lifestory book please

I'm a bit confused here... How come you have to write your own?!? I got a brilliant, detailed, age-appropriate book for Starlet which was compiled by the family support team. I also have additional chapters to introduce later when she's ready to hear about why she couldn't stay with her BF. Do you have to do it all yourself?

Hi Squeak.
It's great that you have your LSB ready and waiting, but I wouldn't bother showing it to imp until he starts asking questions like Sivier's DD did, because he's only 2.5 and that is still very young.

It's usually when they start asking about babies and growing in your tummy, that's a good time to start explaining that no, you grew in X's tummy, and drip feed it to him bit by bit as he starts asking questions. I don't really feel there is any benefit in starting now if he hasn't been asking any relevent questions, as you are more likely to confuse him by doing it too early. As long as he hears the word adoption now and again in conversation, I'd wait until he starts asking some questions if I were you and then just tell him bit by bit.

Gosh, that's not good that several of you have had to compile the LSBs yourself. They are produced in house here (though can be variable in presentation)and should always be completed by the time the Adoption is finalised.

What sort of materials are you given to compile the book? Surely difficult to do your self.
In our LA they have recently changed the format and start where the child is---with their Adoptive family, then go backwards through their life. I haven't seen a completed one as they are never finished before the end of Intros, but I certainly have a meeting with the compiler to hand over photos and give snippets on info about the LOs time with us.

Our DH's life story book is quite poor. Spelling and grammar mistakes. Photos printed on standard white paper rather than photo quality paper etc. I started showing it to Monkey Boy when he was about 2.5 but he was made anxious by pictures of his BM, so I stopped. I now just talk about his early life. 'When you were a tiny baby, like Mouse, you lived with x and y. They couldn't keep you safe so you stayed with y and z and then the SWs decided that we would be really good at being your Mummy and Daddy, so you came to live with us. You'll live with us until you can drive a car and until you get your first job. Then maybe if you get a girlfriend or a boyfriend you'll want your own house and Mummy and Daddy will come and visit for Sunday lunch!' That kind of thing.

I think you could aim for doing a complete LSB and just make the narrative more detailed as Imp gets older.

Good luck. I find life story work quite tricky (not to sat that you will, just that I do!)

Totally agree about the 'post code lottery' jmk, which also actually makes it difficult sometimes to give support, when standards and practice vary so much (despite minimum standards and best practice)
Also,like schools, so much depends on those 'at the top'. We are shortly about to have a change of Ops Manager in Fostering, our brilliant one is retiring, so who knows what will happen next.

Wow - thanks for all your replies!!!

SW has given text and suggested layout, and we agreed to put it together, partly cos we thought it would be faster!

What do you all think about including copy of birth certificate? (!?!?!?!)

Daffin - my guess is imp will be worried about pictures of BF like your monkey boy. I think he associates pictures of himself and/or others in albums with the intro book we made, and so he associates them with change/transitions/uncertainty.

Sivier & JFK - I think it would be good to be led by him, but at some point we will need to look at pics. SW was of view that the earlier introduced, the less difficult it would be, and that he wouldnt understand any of it until he was at least five anyway. My sense is that some proper life story work when he is about older is more likely to be a useful way of introducing pictures and that if he is unlikely to understand until he is older its a bit pointless risking unsettling him and confusing him. But I feel odd about doing it very differently to how we were advised. I guess I'm hoping this conversation will increase my confidence!

We read the teazles which he enjoys,and also Todd parr's we belong together, so we have some nice stories that helps to introduce the conversation too. (Useful as he generally wants to avoid conversation about anything before us).

I really appreciate your advice. Thank you
Squeak

Its interesting your SW suggested looking at the book. My SW has suggested that I throw a pebble out and see where the ripples "land" (her phrase not mine!!!) and so talk a bit about adoption and see where it leads.

She says that it helps the child manage the pace of things, even when they are quite little but makes sure that the story is natural/part of their developing narrative. She explained that she felt the lifestory book might be too much too soon. However, she did suggest putting a small picture up of foster family, for example, which he could then ask questions about (this was because this was what he was asking about at the time). And, I have to say this has worked. He got used the picture as its always up and would go through who was in it and it opened up me talking about how he lived there before coming to live with me.

She said that then, when it becomes part of the conversation, I might want to introduce a picture of birth mother to help him put things together, so for example, when he asks about babies growing in tummies etc. I am finding that I am using a bit of a drip drip approach with the story building over time and I guess introducing pictures one at a time.

A bit like you mention, my LO does sometimes seem to avoid talking about things before me but this means doing it in bits seems to work for him. I am very conscious though that my SW clearly has a very different approach/view to yours so don't know if this is at all helpful.

Following on from some difficulties that have arisen from adoptive children trying to trace their birth families before they were emotionally ready (e.g. through facebook), I would personally be very hesitant about including birth certificate as this will have their names/surnames. It can cause massive fallout for everyone.

Joy Rees does a good training day which is worth going on although you may already have done this.

Minnie x

Hi
We have a reasonable LSB and later life letter, i think our later life letter is for around an early teen, and our LSB seems appropriate for 5-7 ish. ours are much littler so we recently have made a toddler version for squirrel., and we are creating them for the others

before this in their bedroooms we used little photoframe decals that danced in a line across a bedroom wall and had pics of los with bps, ff, us, our extended family and every now and then with we'd do this is who made you, this is ff who you lived with as a baby and this is mummy and daddy who you will live with forever, and say goodnight to all the faces and just get used to who everyone was, we wouldn't do it all the time, just every now and then. i also used to tell them a gentle version of their story every now and then while i was rocking them, at a quiet moment when they were little, in some ways for me to get used to saying out loud as well as it just going into them gently.

then we made a snapfish album with pictures and text, lo loves books and she liked having a proper book about her,,,you can als order another if anything happens to it.
it starts with a photo of lo and then a double page with a huge collage of lo with everyone significant in her life, with a look how many people love you question and she goes through and says muummy loves me, daddy loves me, sister loves me etc

it then has a picture of the moon as it was the night she was born and a baby pic and some toddlery details about the night she was born...(she loves the story of 'the night you were born' so i found out what the wind and moon and stars were doing at the time she was born).

it then has a baby what babies need to stay safepage

a page with pictures of the bp and saying they loved her but didn't know that they forgot to feed babies and it wasn't ok to hit each other, babies and other people, so they couldn't keep her safe

next 2 pages... one with fc saying she is a lovely person who loves babies and keeps them safe until they can find mummy and daddy (we have seen fc lots so have pics of lots of different foster babes that she has had ... and can say this baby has found their family etc so she can see that lots of people are adopted) and then a pic of ff with speech bubbles saying what they like

another page with pic of sw with huge pile of paper as lo had so many responses to her profile in cww...

page pic of panel checking we were good enough and then celebrating outside

pic of whole family celebrating at a baby shower and my mini (long gone) stuffed so full of gifts for the girls from when o left work that i could only just fit in so she knows how excited everyone was that she was coming

then a selection of pics from intro to adoption order (including pics of new sibs arriving and visits to ff) with captions about lo and what she is like, her personality, likes and significant moments

lots of smily cuddly pics of her with immediate family and some stuff about how lucky we are to have found each other and how much we love her and how she is a great little person and we belong to her and some pics of things she thinks she might be at the moment...ballet dancer/ action chugger/ mummy/ wood cutter/ princess and say we finish saying she can grow up into whoever she wants to be and we will help her and love her always...

she likes a book about her and we read it everynow and then, it is somewhere accssible, but we don't push it... we have recently brought her baby brother home and see ff and their new ff babies from time to time and she has done quite a bit of child lead processing around this.

hope this helps, our lo does like all pics of her...what she is not keen on is looking at pics of us from before she was here... she always asks where's we? meaning her and sibs, and if we say you weren't here yet she looks a bit troubled. she has a name that is a song that i always liked, so i tell her that before she was here i used to listen to her song all the time and think of her which i did!! and that terrible military wives wherever you are song which was out whilst we were linked and i'd think of her and be teary...dh used to joke it was adoption hormones...

anyway i digress...hope this helps, squirrel is three and loves books, so we have used bits of stories she is familiar with to help her make connections to her life and at the moment she doesnt really understand where babies come from, so is happy with the vague someone made you ... she does have a v good understanding that she lived with a foster family and they look after v special babies until they can find a special family that is just right for them, and she is good on the concept of permanence, she used to worry about me leaving her, but now if i have to pop out then she is v secure in the knowledge that i always come back...

more indepth stuff about the bf will come later when she wants to know..

smaller los aren't ready for this yet, but we will do similar when they are ready...think different children will be ready at different times

I think the problem of showing LSB at a very young age like 2-3 is that your children haven't been with you very long and it might make them think they are about to be moved on again, as B11 implied with her LO becoming distressed.

That's why I think it is better to wait until the child starts saying the kind of things like "when I was in your tummy" etc. That's the time to gently explain that "no you didn't grow in my tummy you grew in X's tummy" etc etc. Then you could explain who X is and say would you like to see a picture of X and gently introduce the LSB depending on the level of interest the child is showing at that time.

Personally I think that introducing LSB's before the child is ready for it is not a great idea as it will cause distress and will make the child think they are moving on again when they are still settling in so to speak.

As long as they hear the word adoption now and again, like if someone is on the TV, you can say "she's adopted like you are", and one day they will say what's adoption and you can start a conversation in a natural way.

We do bits an pieces with Sqk already - and my sister a couple of weeks back asked her elder son what he, his brother, Sqk and a teaching assistant at school all had in common. we talk about adoption and have some age appropriate books that he brings out to be read occasionally. In many ways he is lucky as at the moment the majority of children he sees (other than at his one session at pre-school) are adopted so it is normal for him. We do have a later life letter for him which is incredibly well written - but we were fortunate in his original SW.

Thanks everyone for great thoughts. I really appreciate them.

I think we are going to finish pulling together the LSB at least so the two of us feel we have a clear story to tell and we have something for when we need it. But I think we will be led by him.

Interestingly he has been talking about his FC this week, so I think that following his lead will probably be the way forward & happen in ways we don't expect ... All the more interesting for all of us!

Hugs
Squeak