Tweens and life story work

[Hidingthegoodchocolate]

We're working with a SW to update life story info for our tween at the moment. Emotions are running high and they're desperate to have answers to really painful questions, some of which are unanswerable either because nobody knows, or because the info is definitely not age appropriate.

I'd be really grateful to hear from anyone who's been through a similar age/stage, either in terms of what you found helpful so I can ask the SW, or in terms of what nurture and self care got you and DC through. We're already doing lots of 1:1 connection stuff, taking bedtimes back a stage to increase cuddles and chatting time at the end of the day, but things are quite tough at the moment.

Our children knew everything there is to know (which is a lot) by the age of 10. The advice I came across was to tell them everything before puberty, so they don't have to deal with puberty on top of hearing new and painful information.
Like yours, our children were very keen to know. I always felt if they are old enough to come up with the question, they are old enough to hear the answer. That does not mean it was easy for them to process, but it never weill be. They are very difficult truths. We were neutral and factual in how we presented the information and made a huge effort with their life story book.

We gave lots of positive messages about our children at the same time. We did creative activities (see link). We had lots of books with adoption and foster stories to help them process and watched films with those themes. We met up with many other adoptive families, so our children felt "normal".

This book is very good: https://amzn.eu/d/bc5XH8X

Thank you, that's good to hear. Useful reminder about the importance of keeping connections with adopter peer groups too.

It seems there might be a possibility of 1:1 therapeutic life story sessions via our LA, which potentially sounds useful.