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Post by pingu on Apr 20, 2014 17:05:08 GMT
I have just read an article by Holy van Gulden in which she expresses the opinion that it is better for adopted kids to have a true picture of their background BEFORE they reach adolescent rather than later, to do with processing things and what is going on developmentally in teens.
I wondered what anyone else thinks, or if anyone knows of any other material I could read. There is stuff I am thinking DS2 ought to know, but pros and cons being weighed up at the moment. Anyone any experience of doing this, how did you tackle it, did you bring in profs or not?
Thanks
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Post by flowerpower on Apr 20, 2014 17:29:38 GMT
We don't talk about our LO's back ground all the time but they do know and if ever they ask we explain in an age appropriate way ie why is BM not looking after us I will say " I am sorry she can not look after you because she has made some bad choices and she was not able to put you first when she made those choices so a SW thought you needed to be in a safe place".
Mine tend to ask at the strangest of times so I have learnt to have my answers ready. I have a grown up BD and her BF died (not in a very good way) when she was 2, she always knew about it so when we talk now she says she just always knew and she did say that when she was about 12 she was at a friends home and heard friends parents talking about her dad she says "imagine how I would of felt if I did not already know". Xx
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Post by milly on Apr 20, 2014 17:38:51 GMT
We had to tell DD1 some difficult stuff when she was 9. It was an event in her BF and we didn't want to leave telling her in case she held it against us that we had known for ages before her.
Also because we felt she should grow up knowing. (we did have to leave it until after Christmas as we didn't want to spoil that for her ever afterwards, and we left it until we had a clear weekend coming up where we could be emotionally available for her) - and the first thing she said was why didn't you tell me before?
We had no idea how she would respond and were somewhat taken aback by her strength of feeling.
We did get some advice from the PASW - she was the one who gave us the information, in fact. We found it went in waves - things would subside, then a few months later it would come up again.
DD did behave very strangely at times - rather recklessly eg once sat with her legs dangling out of a second floor window, ran away from us in a strange town, that kind of thing. But she was also quite good (for her) at expressing her feelings and often talked about it with us (or less appropriately, everyone at school). But after about 18 months she had definitely processed her feelings and moved on, so I feel it was right to tell her when we did.
BTW she also saw a psychotherapist (she was seeing him anyway) during this time - she wouldn't open up to him, but he did address it with her a bit.
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Post by pluto on Apr 20, 2014 19:52:43 GMT
I think it very much depends what the information is.
There are things no child or early teen can understand or process, why tell all details when this is the case? (it is probably not what HvG meant as she talks about a picture not the full picture, I have not read the article) All you do is compromising your childs mental health.
Of course children need to know from a young age they are adopted and some details like who is dead etc. There are certain things I do not tell, and I have no intention telling.
If they say "why did you not tell me when I was young", I will say because you would not have been able to process this information, it would have made you confused and afraid. That is the choice I made for you, I am sorry you do not agree, I did not tell you because I was and still am of the opinion that this information is not good for children to know.
You know what it is, whatever you do and whatever choice you make it can and probably will be used against you, so do not worry and follow your heart as you have the best intentions, that is good enough!
I have a lot of information for both children, and some of it has to wait until they are adults, my opinion is make the child first mentally strong and as stable as possible before you feed the very sick details.
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Post by esty (archive) on Apr 20, 2014 20:37:55 GMT
Interested in your reply Pluto. Is that because you think they wouldn't remember it?
I was led to believe that if the child has lived through it and probably remembers it then talking about it is the way to go if they bring it up.
With LM if he mentions his BM or BF and the reasons he went into care or his memories then I explore it a little with him. Hopefully giving him the 'I can cope and manage what you are telling me' and therefore hopefully giving him the message that he doesn't have to manage it all alone.
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Post by flowerpower on Apr 20, 2014 21:41:21 GMT
I don't think anyone of us intends giving our LO all the horrid gore of the life they might of had before always age appropriate and just as much as they can manage at that age.
Some of our LO come to us already knowing more about life than most children know. However stable a teenager is they can go off the rails for the smallest of mistakes we parents/life make.
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Post by pingu on Apr 21, 2014 8:14:39 GMT
That is part of my dilemma.
There is stuff that is also his female siblings stuff, if you know what I mean, and I don't think it's right to share their info, and he certainly isn't old enough for that yet, but it is a big part of why he didn't go back to birth family.
But I don't want him to feel that I kept secrets from him, and he is very sharp, so I think I have to stay alert to what might need said over the next few years, and how to say it, as he does have a lot of memories, good and bad.
The way Pluto mentions sounds a good way to explain a lack of sharing, later, if he asks about that particular stuff. Finding age appropriate ways to talk about bad stuff is quite a challenge though, isn't it?
Thing is, that not being completely honest, brings up big resentments.
SS asked us to keep the birth of a sibling of DS1 secret, till he had settled in here, and he still struggles not to hold that against us, even though he knows why we had no choice at the time.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2014 10:21:29 GMT
Why not talk to your PAS SW Pingu?
He/she might be able to advise you on how to proceed and they must come up against this all the time.
At least you could run it by them to voice your concerns and worries.
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Post by daffin on Apr 21, 2014 17:20:55 GMT
We are going to get mentoring from PASW about life history work, and are trying to access good quality training, too, as this is a really complex area, I think.
What do you tell, when?
What do you never tell (if anything)?
How do you start talking about the tricky stuff?
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Post by pluto on Apr 21, 2014 18:08:45 GMT
However stable a teenager is they can go off the rails for the smallest of mistakes we parents/life make.- flowergirl
Really? In that case when you look deeper the teen was not as stable as everyone thought. And that 'one mistake' was just the drop.
I do believe that how children are parented makes a difference, but in extreme cases there is often more to it, one factor is mental health what kicks in, or kids are on the asd spectrum, have brain damage from alcohol (but not the facial features to have fas) etc.
I do not believe it is about the fact or you told them too much/not enough etc. On the end of the day there are no children anymore who find out at 29 they were adopted, the children we parent come from disfunction, are high risk. Telling a bit less early on might be better to protect them if the information is severe.
The child hold the fact that they were not informed against the parent- I think in most cases this is not really true, but it is a way to control the parent. Especially if the child mentions how upset they are again and again.
Of course if children remember you let them talk, but I am also very careful as memories from children are highly unreliable, my youngest has vivid memories, a few too many lol, he just fantasises and lies and somewhere in there is a little truth. He also mixes up events from the past with those what happen now.
Another point is that you have to be very careful to 'awaken' forgotten memories, as it can be the brain who protects by 'forgetting', maybe at a later date when the child matures those memories come to the surface, this might be a better time to deal with them.
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Post by flowerpower on Apr 21, 2014 18:56:06 GMT
Yes Really I still think teenagers can be fragile even with good parenting and if you have not told them stuff and they find out anyway from one of the many online places or just other people
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Post by sooz on Apr 21, 2014 19:16:42 GMT
I think you have a good point there, Pluto. My concern with ds is what he is told, against what he believes. Lots of mixing up here and timelines are squiffed.
The other day we visited a village I lived in because he wanted to know where I lived and what school I went to when I was his age. On the drive there I was telling him about some things I did in this village. We visited this same spot a few years ago where he climbed a small tree and I said it would be nice if we could take another photo of him in the tree and compare the photo from last time and see how much he's grown. He loved this idea, but said something like 'yes because when I lived here when I was your age I used to love climbing that tree all the time, didn't i?'
It's one of my huge concerns about how he interprets information given. He has just started life story work which I'm hoping will help clarify things for him.
So, I guess when and what to tell depends on the child, but I would give as much information, age appropriately, earlier rather than later. I am also of the opinion that there are some things that really don't need to be divulged unless that incident was directly responsible for removal from birth family or had a direct impact on the child.
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Post by ham on Apr 21, 2014 20:31:38 GMT
me times a child needs a narrative to fill in the blanks of their early life and we can't always do that as we don't have the info either so to say 'when I lived here I climbed the tree' is possibly a way for him to feel in his gaps.
I handle it by saying maybe you did but I don't know but we are making our own memories.
I have to say mine at 21,22,19 don't know everything I know, but do know a fair amount..mentally they could not handle the rest. but if the need arose it would be shared with them.
The only backlash I have had was from my eldest the other day when I informed them of another sibling I discovered the info recently, but I held off from passing info as I had nothing else to tell and he felt I should know more but sw refusing to give me anymore.
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Post by pingu on Apr 21, 2014 21:53:22 GMT
Pluto, when you say about the brain "forgetting" so as to protect, that would suggest not raising things unless the child does.
I know this is accepted wisdom in some quarters. Others would argue that bad stuff is better out, talked through gently or whatever.
I think DS2 would want me to continue to be as honest as I reasonably can be, when he asks me questions.
Doesn't help that the person who did life story work with him, never sent the final book!
I will ask PASW and see what he advises but I just wanted to hear what others here thought. perhaps from their own experience, or what they have read.
Thanks
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flora
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Post by flora on Apr 21, 2014 21:58:02 GMT
This is all really interesting to read - and I'm really trying to decide on the best way to introduce information.
AS is just 3 and is a very happy little boy at the moment and even though we talk about adoption and his time with his foster family, he just isn't that interested - and he's much more interested in Topsy and Tim than his life story book.
We have a later life letter, which makes for some really hard reading - and we were advised that this is usually given to adopted child in early adolescence. However, I do worry that this is not the best time to receive this information - and I think I will try and get some advice from post-adoption support before sharing this information. I think I will also re-write his later life letter as some of the language used is unnecessary as it doesn't provide any information, but could potentially be quite stigmatising.
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Post by flowerpower on Apr 22, 2014 7:00:00 GMT
I think you are right Flora at age 3 he knows the facts ie he is adopted and it will not mean very much they are just words at his age.
But as long as he knows the words as and when he is ready he will ask anything he needs to know, I think they become inquisitive around age 6 or 7 and the penny drops and they begin to look at other families and question things about them self.
I think you should answer what you can in the best way you can for them to understand but we don't always have all the answers because we were not there.
In my experience girls ask more about life then boys.
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Post by sooz on Apr 22, 2014 7:40:15 GMT
Certainly my DS was not particularly interested in adoption or birth family until maybe 6.
It's really picked up since then and he is asking questions a fair bit, hence getting him the life story sessions.
I'll have a think about what you've said, ham, interesting!
Thank you xx
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Post by moo on Apr 22, 2014 11:09:30 GMT
Great Thread...
I have been drip feeding in info in age appropriate ways was since the boys first moved in....
What I have noticed to my horror of late is some ' memories ' have 'morphed' & have me featuring in them ( some quite bad memories) It has been very hard to shake baa out of the ' it was you mummee you were there too ' angle.... I have been very very upset about it once the boys have been in bed....

I may have to contact PAS about getting some advice on how to deal with it & if this sort of transference is common... Not got the best of relationships with pas right now coz of letterbox issues.....
Very very sad about it I hope he has 'got' it straight now but I am not 100%..... It's so odd isn't it how things like this stay hidden & o.k. in their view... But this is megga.... Feel really very scared deep down..... 
Xx. moo. Xx
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Post by ham on Apr 22, 2014 13:50:32 GMT
Sadly Moo that is why some adopters get accused of all sorts as our children can have difficulty is remembering correctly the events they have experienced. And I do believe that we should be afforded protection from this.
Yes it needs to be looked at to ensure the adoptive family is not abusing the child but we should not be blamed for early stuff.
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Post by pingu on Apr 22, 2014 14:06:24 GMT
I do think we can't always go by what PASW say.
Some are very experienced, some not, or years out of date with their methods or what they have studied.
I am lucky at the moment, we have a good one, but I think it's also worth doing some reading up on things for oneself , hearing from other people's experience, and also listening to your gut feelings as your child is an individual after all, and you know them best.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2014 14:28:57 GMT
Very interesting discussion.
Yes 6/7 is definately an age when kids start to question things, their place in the world, who is who, how they got to be where they are etc. This is also when they start to become more independant, and you go from being their world into not being needed so much as they know it all now don't they, and don't need you to do so much for them?
As Flowerpower says, I do think girls are far more interested in their birth families than boys, I know I am generalising and all children are different, but from my own observations of various adopted children I know, that definately seems to be the case, quite often the boys just aren't interested.
Depending on their life story, this is a good time to start drip feeding some info re BF and their lives with BF before the came into care or what ever, obviously age appropriate and if it's tough stuff, they do not need to know the "whole story" at the age of 6 or 7, but with sensitive handling little bits can be drip fed through, even if you have to be a bit economical with the truth to protect them. Little and often, as and when they ask, is the best way to go, that way they can absorb it a bit at a time and it won't be a "big/overwhelming" discussion when they are older.
Kids are more clever than we give them credit for and if their background is "difficult" they will piece things together eventually and work it out for themselves, but no 6 year old needs to hear all the gorey details at their age.
We know our kids best and know what they need to know at any particular age, how much they can cope with etc. I'm not sure I would fully trust a PAS SW to do this for me TBH if my DD's had anything unsavoury in their background, which thankfully they don't. I'd rather discuss it with the experts myself and take their advice and then decide when I thought it was the right time to tell or not to tell as the case may be.
Interesting what you say about transference though Moo, that is a tricky one and might need some professional help if it continues to cause confusion. One to keep an eye on I think.
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Post by milly on Apr 22, 2014 19:16:08 GMT
I think you have to use your knowledge of the child and what they seem to want to know. They won't understand something which is beyond their cognitive capabilities at the time and won't always 'believe' what they don't wish to believe.
The difficulty is where they don't ask or bring up things that you feel they should know - but I have only the one experience of that, where it was something we knew dd should be told. Otherwise I let things arise naturally - with dd1, I used to look for opportunities to explain adoption when she was very young, but once she was around 7 or 8, she would bring it up herself and I stopped trying so hard. Only last week she suddenly asked me something about bm. She has 'changed' the facts at times - for example,she has often said that she lived with bm, though this isn't the case - obviously wishful thinking. But last week she had clearly accepted this and asked questions about bm's visiting her as a baby.
It's a long process, not a one-off thing - and it develops over time. dd2 has never been interested much in her bm or birth family - even at nearly 9, she almost never brings it up, but does talk about her last fc from time to time. I didn't try that hard to 'tell' her things when she was younger, partly as we have no photos of her bf to bring it to life, but she certainly understands what adoption means. And she has talked about it with another adoptee in her class - which surprised me when I first heard about it. Both mine have similar backgrounds in terms of why they came into care - I have told dd1 the less palatable facts, but not dd2 yet as it hasn't come up. As long as they know they CAN talk to you about it, mostly it seems to work out - so far anyway.
Moo - would it help to make a book or timeline of Baa's life story - so there is tangible 'proof' that x happened BEFORE he met you? Lots of repetition in reading it might eventually help him get the facts straight. dd2 has a recurring story that we stole her from her fc - I don't know if she truly believes it - she has a tendency to be all 'hard-done-by' in general at times and I wonder if it suits her to have a reason to be angry with us?
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Post by moo on Apr 22, 2014 19:42:16 GMT
Thanx milly like the idea of a life story timeline.....
xx. moo. Xx
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