"Do I have to tell my adopted child the truth?" This is a question that faces every adoptive parent. This work provides parents with the important knowledge of why adopted children need to know the truth about their past. The authors offer practical guidelines and tools that parents can use in communicating with their children the circumstances of their past. It presents the developmental stages of how children understand adoption and what needs to be said. The authors suggest how to share with children the painful and difficult issues regarding their circumstances, birth family and background. The goal is to provide kids with a gateway into life as emotionally and psychologically healthy adults, with solid foundations for identity and self-esteem. The book takes a long look at the practice of secrecy in adoption, the withholding of information from adoptive parents by agencies and withholding or distorting the truth for adopted children. It points out that the task of communicating to foster-adopted children about their past still challenges parents.

Table of Contents

The Power of Secrets of Family Relationships; Truth or Consequences - a Great Debate; Just the Facts, Ma'am - Why Do Children Need Them?; A Fact-Finding Mission -How to Gather What You Need to Know; Adoption Through a Child's Eyes - Developmental Stages; Through a Parent's Eyes - Core Issues, Coping Styles and Communication; The Ten Commandments of Telling - Principles to Consider; Sharing the Hard Stuff - the Adoptive Parent's Challenge; Tools of Communication Between Parents and Children; Transracial or Transcultural Adoption - Talking About Adoption Within a Minority Family; Kinship Foster Care and Adoption - Telling the Truth When It's "All in the Family"; Opening a Closed Adoption for School-Age Children - Questions Most Asked by Parents; Adolescence - Chronic But Not Terminal - Keeping Lines of Communication Open; Opening a Closed Adoption - the Teenage Years; Communicating About Adoption in the Classroom - Teaching the Teachers; Epilogue.

Reviews

"There is a great need for this book and I feel the authors do a wonderful job of giving clear guidelines and examples that adoptive parents can follow to explain even the most difficult of adoption-related circumstances to their children. This book gives parents the concrete tools they need to share information openly and honestly in words their children can understand. Adoption has gone through such a transition over the past 10 to 20 years, and the situations that the children are coming from is often so much more complex, parents need this type of guidance and support. For adoptees, accurate information and facts about themselves and their past are critical, this book gives parents the input and direction they need to build healthy communication and relationships. The authors have given a great gift to the adoption community--this book is a must read for all adoptive parents."-Betsie Norris Executive Director Adoption Network