People not telling children they’re adopted.

[Rainallnight]

I’ve recently heard that a friend of a friend has an adopted child who is 6, and the child has no idea they are adopted.

I just didn’t think that happened these days, at all. When we adopted our DC, it was made very clear to us that we needed to tell them about their origins, in an age appropriate way, etc.

So I can’t believe that someone who would have adopted around the same time as us would think this was acceptable. But maybe it’s more common than I think?

That is shocking.
Either I guess they just said the right things to 'jump through hoops', or more likely they keep putting it off 'until they can really understand'.

@Rainallnight

I would just be a bit wary of second hand information about a friend of a friend.
You don't really know the situation with the family or the child.
Yes of course the child should know, but you don't really know that this child doesn't.
Maybe the family are being very private about it.

This.

Just because the child doesn't want it public doesn't mean they don't know.

It would be very unusual for a family these days to pretend to a child they gave birth to them.

Sorry, I probably wasn’t clear enough in my OP. The friend’s friend - the adoptive mum - told my friend that she and her DH had not told the child. So it wasn’t an impression my child formed from meeting the child.

I agree it does seem rare but I had a meeting with my AS4 school recently to discuss my son and she asked me about how open they can discuss adoption as they have another child in the school who doesn't know they are adopted yet (I did say she shouldn't of said that to me) so they know they need to consider his life story in class.
I was shocked to hear about this though as it's so against what we were told when adopting.

That is highly unusual and not in the best interest of the child. If the child or parents need support at some point, it will most likely come out and escalate the problems. Very uninformed, short-sighted and, to be quite frank, dumb.

I think it's more common than we realise! I attend our agency stakeholder group meetings and it was discussed recently that they had discovered quite a large number of children (sorry I can't remember actual figures) hadn't been told, despite the fact it is covered in the training. The agency were exploring the reasons for it and quite often it seemed to be parents not knowing how to explain it or not thinking it was the right time.

Seems like that part of training needs improvement. There are books available with scripted conversations on how to tell your child difficult truths ("Adoption Conversations").

I learned that children should know everything about their story before puberty, because the last thing they need during puberty is to deal with very difficult new information on top of everything else. Adopters are supposed to tell children information even if they do not fully understand it so that, looking back, they feel they've always known.

Could it be an overseas adoption?

I think it's tricky. Certainly in our adoption circle there are mixed approaches

Once a child is officially adopted then people are able to make their own choices, and I've certainly seen people quickly do things that they were told they shouldn't eg name changes, drop letter boxes etc

Take things like parenting methods for trauma such as pace and Some people go through training etc whilst thinking it doesn't apply to them. A larger chunk do listen, and honestly take it on board and when the going gets tough quickly revert back into the way they were raised

It seems ludicrous telling tiny babies that they are adopted etc but mostly I found it helpful in order for me to practice the words, so by the time they were old enough I was used to saying the words

One of the fellow adopters we are closest with have definitely let the conversation drop. They had all the right intentions eg books with adopted parents and planned on talking about it regularly but I think struggled getting the words out. It's not that they would lie, but simply that they aren't revisiting the conversation actively, mostly (imo) because I think it hurts them to talk about his other family.

I've definitely caught wind of their kid and mine talking about families and suspect their child isn't asking questions so they've let it drop