How to Talk with Kids About Adoption

How do you talk about adoption with your young child? How do you share their adoption story? When should you start the adoption conversation? Does it matter what you say? Join me and my guest Mary Watkins, author of Talking with Young Children about Adoption.

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Hit the Highlights

When should you start telling your child his adoption story, at what point in the adoption story should you start and what language should you use for preschoolers and older children.
How to tell the adoption story when you have little information, such as when adopting from China. How much supposition should you engage in? Should you try to fill in the blanks?
How do you handle the adoption story when you have more than one child that is adopted and have varying degrees of information about each child’s story?
How to share difficult adoption related information with children (birth father in jail for murder, birth mother may have drank or taken drugs during pregnancy resulting in learning disabilities, child’s conception was product of rape)?
What to tell your child when her birth parents are still together and they kept other birth siblings?
A teen says she would never give a child up for adoption hurts adoptive mom’s feelings.