Later life letter

[Rocsand03]

What age have parents handed these to their children?

I think aged 11, so very early. We did this based on the advise that children should know everything before puberty and because our children wanted to know everything by age 10. I have talked a lot with my children about their (very complex) background over the years and they managed the letters fine. In fact, they found them quite boring, because they contained much less detail than their life story books.

DD1 was I think soon after GCSEs. She had come to us at 8 with therefore strong memories and a very detailed life story book. The LLL only had a very few actual details that she didn't already know.

DD2 is teenage and doesn't really want to engage in her life story book, I think she'll get her LLL after GCSEs too unless she suddenly shows a desire to engage more earlier, in which case we might include it then.

Recently we discovered DD1 had actually forgotten she had had her LLL and so we dug it out for her again. (We keep it as one shared letter and DD is scatterbrained.)

(we were advised mid teens as appropriate age)

This is good to know. Our story sounds similar to your DD1. He and age 7 with a good memory of what went on in his life but his sw refused to get life story work done because she insisted he understood everything. He was 7! He may know what happened but did she really think he’d understand why? We spent loads of time ourselves trying to explain to him. He’s now 14 and we’re thinking maybe after exams as he’s always had the idea he will go and meet up with his birth mum at the relevant age. I dint want him under any false illusions as most of the details in the letter he does know but there are others that nobody even told us.

When they are 7/8 they think they know stuff, but really they only have their own angle on it and the perceptions of a child, though valid, are not the same an adult might have.

DD1 'revisited' her understanding and 'upgraded' it about every 3 years I would say.

We are 'risk averse' when it comes to upsetting exam times. My view was to try very hard not to rock the boat in y10/y11, then there's a 3 month window to focus on emotional stuff.