When to tell an adopted child that they are adopted, if ever?

[thumbwitch]

Asking on behalf of someone else - her oldest child is not biologically hers and she has decided not to tell the child until it is 18 that this is the case.

What is anyone's experience of this - is sooner better than later, and if so, what age is a good age to do it? I realise people will all have different experiences of this and what works for some won't work for others necessarily but am trying to get a "feel" for general experiences.

Am not a journalist - this is a family member but I am being cagey to avoid potentially outing her by accident (haven't namechanged to avoid being called troll/journo etc.)

I also realise this isn't the best time to post this but hey - if I don't do it now I might forget.

My brother was adopted as a baby and my parents told him even before he could understand. It was kind of a bed time story to hear about the nice lady who just couldn't look after him properly so asked my parents if they could look after him. As my parents didn't have a boy they thought this was a great idea bla bla bla. He's in his 30s now and has never been phased at all by the idea.

An interesting observation I would make from talking to other adopted people is that it's different for girls and boys. Girls generally want to know more info and meet the birth family, boys generally don't, until they get married and wife wants more info.

FWIW I would be very cross if I were adopted and I didn't find out til I was 18! What is her reasoning for this? Has she done any research about the psychological implications?

well that's what I thought too, whatdoesn't - it seems wrong to leave it so late, especially when the child is just reaching adulthood - like pulling the rug out from under them just when they think they know who they are. I don't know her exact reasoning, I have to say.

I like your parents' idea - clever.

Tell as soon as possible, as young as possible. Over and over as years progress, be willing to discuss it in a loving and sensitive way. That way, there is no single 'big conversation' and/or a 'coming to terms' - just an 'always been that way'.

Do not wait - it is a huge bombshell to drop, and creates issues of identity, betrayal and breach of trust.

Unthinkable not to tell at all - the truth will come out eventually, and finding out 'accidentally' must be painful beyond belief for the child.

its a really bad idea not to tell the child. in reality there is no way of keeping the secret, its bound to come out during childhood. and usually the child is very upset that they have been lied to all their lives.

18 year olds are busy finding their identity apart from their family - its the worst time to tell

she should tell the child as soon as he/she is able to talk, in an age appropriate way

your friend should also not lie about any part of the story eg don't say a nice lady gave you up because loved you ( no offense to whatdoesntkillu's parents - but that was 30 years ago)

this is especially important if the child life pre adoption was very bad

IMO the same applies to children who are conceived by donor insemmiation / surrogacy etc.

thumbwitch - i'm assuming that your family member doesn't live in the UK or she would have support / advice on this pre adoption?

oops x posted - must learn to type faster

thumbwitch - dont worry about being called a troll on adoption threads - we hardly have any

we do get a few irritating threads like

" we are a totally perfect family and we want to share our wonderfulness with an unwanted child like Bragelina and Madonna and other cool slebs. where can we get a cute white healthy NT baby girl? "

or

" my sister had adopted an 8yo old with special needs and i dont agree with how she is doing it. please give me some ammunition so i can attack her"

[rolls eyes]

but usually no trolls

Baby should be told when very young, as soon as she starts asking questions about how she got into the world. There are lots of books on different families and how they all came together, love each other, etc. Leaving it until 18 is asking for complete disaster.

What are her problems with adoption -- I'm assuming she has some or she wouldn't even be considering leaving the child in the dark until 18. How come her adoption agency hasn't talked about this kind of issue with her? It's kind of important, and can reveal a lot about the fitness of potential parents, imo.

I know a family who have two girls adopted from China and initially (at age 3 or so) the girls understood that there was an emperor who had made a law that each family could only have one child so their parents all had to find another family for each of them -- fair enough for little children to grasp. They have since developed a better understanding of the details, appropriate to their ages. Probably not going to work for every situation, but children can accept the gist of the facts surrounding their placement for adoption and still love their adoptive parents and accept them as their family.

Totally agree with everything already said.

DD4 is now 13 and adopted. She has always known that she is and has asked lots of questions about her birth mother which we have answered as they come up. Sometimes it is just a passing question, other times it has been an emotionally draining, but rewarding longer, indepth conversation.

I have felt the same about the adoption issue as I do about anything that is a "big deal" to DCs - If they ask a question then we answer fully and honestly. They will only take in what they are mature enough to understand and will ask questions about anything they are unsure of.

The breakdown of trust by leaving this huge part of a child's life unspoken, in my opinion, is going to cause HUGE problems and will rock an 18yr old's life terribly.

BUT Thumbwich I dont know how you could broach this subject with your friend. I am not sure she will take it well.

Thank you all so much - you have reinforced my own feelings about this. It is a family member, not a friend, so I think we can address it within the family in terms of what you have said.

The complication, if you like, is that the father of the family is the father of all the DC - only the mother isn't biologically involved with the first one - and there has been no outside adoption agency involved because of this, hence no support or counselling/advice etc.

The child is now 7 and unaware of the situation but I think now would be a better time to introduce the idea than 18, seeing that the child currently has no idea. The birth mother abandoned the child at 7mo, since when my family member has been as a mother to it.

(Sorry to be so cryptic, just trying to maintain some anonymity)

Sorry, I do agree entirely that not ever telling is so damaging because it will nearly always come out and that must be so much worse - not sure why I put it in the title, to be honest. It can't be an option not to tell.

My eldest child was placed at 5 months and he's always known right from the start that he didn't grow in my tummy but in X's tummy.

This is information that should be drip fed right from the very beginning - age appropriate obviously - but starting from the time that they're very young. That way it's something that they just grow up always knowing and it's not such a big deal.

Mine are now 9, 6 and 4. They all came separately as babies but they all know everything that they need to know for their ages.

I think it's a truly terrible idea to not tell. It's his life story and he needs to know about it.

Not personal experience, but one of my friends was adopted - as were his two (adoptive, not birth IYSWIM) siblings. They always all knew, and he said they were happy to always know, but it would have been a terrible shock to have found out later. Secrets within a family are corrosive and always come out in the end.

that's far less complicated than most adoption stories! so dad was in a relationship, it broke down, mum left. she did so because of probelems in her life, she could barely look after herself, let alone a baby. she was ill in someway ( depression, drugs, alcohol addiction)

she didn't leave BECAUSE of the baby - he/she was very small and didnt do anything wrong. most mothers don't leave their children so its hard to understand why she did, but she was very mixed up in her head

then dad got in a relationship with mum, she grew to love the baby and became his / her mummy.

there are different parts of being a mum - conceiving, carrying and giving birth to the baby, caring for it and the legal bit of having parental responsibilty

for some children, they have the same mum for all 3

in many families, its different ( child will knwo others children in class with step parents)

parenst will need to show child photos of birth mum and explain more about why she left and why the child cant see her again right now

if she is still alive you shoudl be aware that child may try to contact her him/herself, so parents shoudl offer to help with this is at all possible

saying " you cant do til you are 18 " is just stupid - if child want to he/she will just use in internet / FB etc

given that other adults knwo the truth here, you really need to tell child asap, befroe it coems out another way

HTH

I thought it must not have been a formal adoption process because they are very big on advising parents to be honest with their children from the outset. It's denying them knowledge about themsevles which is dreadful IMO.

I know a girl who found out aged 13 from a new friend at boarding school who didn't realise she didn't know - she didnt say it maliciously, just said "Oh yes, you're X- my mum said to look out for you because you're adopted, like me"

Obviously, hugely upsetting for the girl concerned to find out so late and in that way.

But, as others have pointed out, almost impossible to keep a secret I would have thought.

My 3 year old has always known. She doesn't properly understand but she knows she didn't grow in my tummy and that BM couldn't look after her so I became her mummy.

I think it would be a terrible mistake to wait until the child is 18. They have enough to deal with at that age with rampant hormones,peer pressure ect. To find something like that out would IMO be devastating.

I agree with everyone else on here. Would only add that someone in my family circle grew up not knowing that her dad wasn't her biological dad. Everybody else knew - even quite distant friends. Eventually, when she was well into her 20s, somebody (a friend of a family member) took it upon themselves to enlighten her - because "she has the right to know". General anger against pompous busybody, but also recognition that it really was going to come out at some point, and how fantastically unfair it was for the parents to keep it from her, as well as to let a whole network of people know then expect them to collude in a lie.

It was such a mess. I really hope your relative finds a way to avoid this.

I was adopted. I don't remember being told. I have just always known. To be honest I don't even remember any conversation about it ever with my parents. It wasn't a secret. I don't think I felt that I couldn't ask about it. I just didn't ever need to and they didn't ask me questions about how I felt about it. In retrospect perhaps a bit of conversation might have been good but in general it appears to have worked for me if the purpose was to ensure that the child felt comfortable about belonging and who she was.

DH was told when he was 24years old when we couldnt get his birth cert for our marriage. When we ask he was told that they planned to leave the information in his dads will!
please do it earlier as soon as possible.

PMG, lisad that is nuts!! How bloody awful would that have been, to find out after your parent(s) have died and you can't ask any questions!! :(

I think it has to be from the very start-so that they have always know. I can't think of any reason for not giving them such vital information.

my Aubt was told in an argument with my grandmother when she was 13 . Its the chapter of my book "How not to tell your child they were adopted"

Research shows that the children who deal best with the fact of their adoption are the ones who can;t remember when they were told (becasue they were so young).

If your child discovers that you lied about something so fundamental how are they ever meant to trust you again and if their parens lie, how much less trustworthy must veryone else be

barking mad. (I'm sure there is a more PC way of phrasing that)

doesn't need to be, Kewc - I totally agree with you. Just got to persuade said family member of the sanity of letting the child know now really, rather than in 11 years time. I think I may have one idea as to the theory behind waiting that long - just in case the child turns into a stroppy teen and lobs the "you're not even my real mother" into the argument. But I can't see that is a good enough reason at all, compared with everything else.

"you're not even my real mother" - but thats adoption equivalent to "I didn't ask to be born"!

I also feel quite stringly that it is part of someones identity which you have no right to withhold from them. Your teenage years are your years for working out who you are and what you place in teh world is. How do you rationalise it when you subsequently discover you weren;t who you thought you were

Exactly my fear for the child.

All teenagers will throw something back in your face, if they want to.

DD4 (adopted) has not yet thrown that one at me, but out of my 4 birth DC, 2 have crushed me totally by shouting at me, DD3 said she wished we had given her away, DD1 has said that she knew we wished she had been the one htat had died (we also had another DC who died, thats where she got that one from). I cannot imagine that DD4 saying that I am not her "real" mum could possibly be anymore hurtful. It's life, I'm her mum, so I will react as I have with the others and let them calm down and tell them how much I love them.

I can understand the mum's fear, but it really is not a big enough reason to not tell the DC.