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Adoption educator Ronny Diamond, MSW, answered questions from adoptive parents about how and when to talk to their children about adoption. From kids too young to understand to the "you're not my parent" comment, we covered it all!

Continue reading Expert Chat: Talking to Your Child About Adoption

can i post a question in here, instead of comment. thank you.

I think my favorite part of this article was the idea of associating the word "adoption" with "love" from the very beginning. It's a rare thing that any of us, even those that have been adopted or those that have not been adopted but are proponents of the process, ever truly think of "adoption" and "love" as constant companions, but it is and should be true. And talking about this concept to all children, adopted or not, from a young age, even infancy, I think is critical to changing some of the stygma that is still sometimes a secret part of talking about adoption.

When I was growing up, my sister's biggest insult was to tell me I was adopted, even though I wasn't. To me, based on what I had heard in the world, being adopted meant I didn't belong, and that someone didn't want me. It also meant that I was abandoned, and it was implied it meant that my parents "had" to take me because no one else wanted me. It meant I was different from the rest of my family and, in a way, less loved than any other member. Later in life, as I grew into being more comfortable and sure of who I was, I realized that I WAS different from any member of my family, in terms of talents, abilities and what I brought to the family unit as a whole, I finally realized that being different wasn't the worst thing.

Adoptive children ARE different from regular children, but if anything, they are even more special because they are brought into the world with double the love. They are loved by their birth parents, and their adoptive parents, and are chosen out of love by their adoptive parents that have decided to love them forever. Adoption is the ultimate act of love -- a free will choice to give a special and unique child a place in a family that will be forever changed because of his/her presence. And the adopted child finds this situation because of birth parents that knew no child should be denied the chance to be loved for her individuality, and to be nurtured and part of a family that can meet his/her needs no matter what. An adopted child is not "left on a doorstep" or "taken because no one else wants her." I think the idea of "adoption" as "synonymous with love" is not a novel concept, but one that is not vocalized nearly enough. It should become a permanent part of our vocabulary!

This area is for questions, comments, or just thoughts about the article or its topic.

The story of the 5-year-old Asian girl tickles me. My kids were like that around that age: any subject that was highly charged for me gave them a chance to experiment with feeling powerful. I would try to talk, thinking my desire was to reassure them, but it was really to make me feel better! They already felt terrific, because they were having so much fun watching me squirm. Finally, in each case, I would learn to let go, and just talk to people who were interested (their dad, my friends, whoever would listen). As they got a little older, they came back to water those seeds I planted, and I didn't have to beg.

Really, I think planting those seeds is exactly what this article is about!

Reading about the woman that introduces her Guatemalan child as "adopted" to everyone she meets left me with an odd feeling. I can understand why she does it -- she is proud of the choice she made, proud of her son, and excited about the whole thing in general -- but I also wonder, as Ronny mentioned, if the son would really feel comfortable with that once he's old enough to understand what it means. It brings up questions of how to handle the issue of adoption when it comes to development of personal identiity; I would imagine how much a part of your identity the "adopted" word would be would depend on the individual adoptee. Cearly, it can't be ignored because it is an important part of an adoptee's origins. I would think also the way a parent treats it growing up would depend on how much or little the child liked to acknowledge it. If the parent connotes "adoption" with love in the way the article suggests, and explains it in a way that makes the child feel full and cared for, the child would be more likely to acknowledge it openly and even with enthusiasm. Of course, as the article also points out, we can't control how peers and other people around us feel about "adoption," so that would be a challenge to overcome as well. I would find it interesting to hear some adoptees' feelings about their adoption from different perspectives, in the context of how their parents handled it and talked to them about it as they grew up.