Grief & Loss

Grief and loss are part of the life of young adoptees and children and youth in foster care. Professionals and parents offer insight, suggestions, and support to adoptive and foster parents seeking ways to identify these issues, and talk to their children

Happy Adoption Books

Presenting only the happy side of adoption, even to preschool adoptees, may be denying the child's reality. Therapist Marlou Russell, Ph.D., explores one situation.... [more]

The Second Goodbye

Helping young adoptees deal with the first loss of birth parents gives them a strong foundation for dealing with subsequent loss. Therapist Carolyn Garrett shares her personal story.... [more]

Grief and Loss Issues for Adopted Children
Dee Paddock, M.A., NCC, writes about the anxiety grief and loss can cause in our children, and believes parents must validate the feelings and talk about them.

Healing the Primal Wound
Nancy Verrier, author of "The Primal Wound," suggests ways parents can validate their children's feelings and encourage them to talk.

How to Talk to Your Child About Loss and Grief
Helpful techniques in talking to children about grief and loss.

Responding to the Coded Messages of Children's Behavior
Kenneth Watson writes about non-verbal messages our children may be sending and offers suggestions to help parents discern the underlying causes.

Comments

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Posted by: johnnyboyct at 07/18/2006 01:40 PM

Kathleen, I'm so sorry to hear of your son's loss and yours too. Unfortunately, there really isn't a lot of resources out there on this specific topic. What I did find though were the following and hope it helps in some small way.

You might try Betty Jean Lifton's book on Journey of the Adopted Self, and another book called "Finding Your Way After Your Parent Dies", which has a small chapter on adoptees dealing with their parents dying. Not sure of the author of this one.

There is also an online Yahoo group that is a support group for this very situation, where people have searched for a member of their birth family only to find that they have passed on. This group can be found at [url]http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/FoundandLostSupport/[/url] Because they have personal experience with it, they might be a huge source of support and also know of other books/articles to suggest.

Again, I'm sorry for your family's loss.

Posted by: Crick at 06/06/2006 09:39 AM

Hello -
I am the adoptive mother of a beautiful son that I raised from birth he is now 24 years old. He wanted to meet his birthmother when the time was right. She died on Saturday of a massive heart attack and he never had a chance to meet her. He and I are both heart broken. Can you please suggest a book or article about how to deal with this type of grief.
Thank you.
Kathleen...son is Miles.

Posted by: kateckhardt at 06/05/2006 09:17 AM

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