Life story

[ac73]

Hello all,

To those who helped us out in the early days - thank you! All is going well at the moment.

Just a quick question. Have any of your children been involved in writing their life stories? Children's social worker has asked if our eldest (5) could help with this. I feel sceptical and not sure if the information provided would be a true account. Thoughts?

Hi,

I did not involve my children (they were 5 and 6 when they get their first life story books and 9 and 10 when they got a more complete version). Every word counts and you need to think very carefullly about how you explain and phrase things. That is no job for a 5 year old.

I added photos of relevant lifes story art works though and added a list with things we knew about them eg. their favourite film/food/colour etc at the same. I completed that list with them. So I did add things that were created/ influenced by them.

There are lots of life story work projects you can do with your child, maybe you do a few and then add photos of them to the book? This is a fabulous book: Life Story Work With Children Who Are Fostered or Adopted: Creative Ideas and Activities Paperback – 28 Apr 2013 by Katie Wrench

Good luck!

DD1 was involved a little bit but only in as much as including stuff she remembered that wasn't officially documented. So there are some bits that say 'DD1 you say that BD used to shout a lot and that scared you', that kind of thing. She was a bit older age 7.

We did see a draft of the LSB and were able to feed back where we thought it was too sugar coated and not hard hitting enough. We wanted to ensure it was clear why they were adopted, so for example the page that talks about neglect we got them to make explicit (no toys, dirty, no food etc etc)