Bookmaking... For Life - Page 2
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1,
2It Starts at BirthMs. O'Malley says that it doesn't matter when or whether a child is adopted - a Lifebook starts at birth. It is a book for and about the child,
not about the adults who start it and who help the child continue to build it. She is quick to remind adoptive parents, foster parents, and social workers, who may be the book initiators, that it takes a commitment, but it isn't rocket science.
She suggests using drawings, photographs, words, and any other materials or objects that are part of the
child's experience. Making pages short and colorful helps to maintain a focus on "child facts" instead of "adult facts."
Her book contains sample pages and ideas for simple text, and covers situations from foster care to domestic to international adoptions. Page order is also suggested with ideas such as
Page Example for explaining that it's not the child's fault:
After children are born, they either live with their birthparents or move into another family or orphanage. There are many reasons why children don't stay with their first mother and father.
All the reasons have to do with the parents, not the kids. Little babies can't do anything wrong. How can they? They are just little goo goo ga ga babies.
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What makes a lifebook so special?Ms. O'Malley draws on her experience as a Social Worker in the foster care system and as an adoptee to stress the importance of a lifebook, instead of a scrapbook or journal. Lifebooks, she says, are living histories that include facts and reality-based concepts. Because lifebooks begin at birth, they include birthmothers and birthfathers. They include the place of birth, date, anecdotes and details such as weight, length, and whether or not the child had any hair. (You'd be surprised, she says, at the questions children ask and the reassurance derived from factual answers.) And she includes heartwarming references to her own lifebook started during the five months she spent in foster care before being adopted.
Difficult situations are not to be avoided, says O'Malley. If a child has had a traumatic experience before coming to your home, she suggests working with a therapist on the lifebook page(s).
By giving a child the gift of a lifebook, parents and social workers can help provide answers to questions children may not know how to verbalize, and they can help build a positive understanding of and pride in a child's individuality and importance.
Imagine! A book all about you, from the day you were born!
LifeBooks: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child55 pages, softcover
Publisher: Adoption-Works, June 2000
ISBN 0970183275
Available through
our online store.
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