LIFE BOOKS

[hifi]

dd has just asked me to read her a story, walked into sitting room and theres her dusty life book, her first one from foster carers. we have gone through it before but shes not been that interested.

i found it very difficult explaining, one photo i skipped over as i couldnt bring myself to explain. plus theres so many different people in her early life,no idea where to start.

its also difficult as her birth name is used,shes starting to recognise her name now.

shes nearly 4, shall i be totally honest yet? what has anyone else done?

I'm starting thsi weekend hopefully - have you read the stuff on reverse life books by jean somebody. I rather liked it and becasue it starts and ends with the child in their current family is considered less threatening for a child.

thanks kew i will check amazon.

Hi Hifi

i have 3 adopted DC and we talk about their previous life quite openly. It is easier though as mine were 4 1/4, 2 and 10 mths when they came to us. So the eldest can remember her birth parents, we also have pictures of the birth parents in each childs bedroom.

We weren't allowed to change their first names only their middle names.

Would just start with the basics and follow her lead. Our childrens life books were done by the Foster carers but each picture is clearly labelled to help us.

best of luck as know how difficult it can be and it could open a can of worms up.

no Hifi - its a free downloaf from EMK press i think. Ilook up the link later and post it.

I also think that a lifebook is not a one off event and should be worked on by you and the child together and reworked as they get older until the point that they can take it over on their own if they want to.

Lifeboko sare to help them make sense of their situation, that will change as they get older surely.

There is a yahoo group set up just to discuss lifebooks but I found it was just too busy to keep up with!

kew, we have looked at it since she came to us, now shes asking questions, her life was so complicated its knowing where to start.not saying shes the only one with a complicated life, ive never known one with a simple one tbh.

I was lecturing a bit there wasn;t I - I'm just jealous that you have a lifebook already prepared for you!

ooh no didnt think you were.

my dd joined our family aged 9 months, she is 5.5 years now, i kept putting off life story work, mainly to avoid it , also as her speech was delayed i thought it unfair as she would find it difficult to express her feelings , bit of a cop out but a degree of sense i still think.
we have a lifestory book from ss , i have nt used it ,feel it is more appropriate for older child, too much info, with too many leading questions from it.
then we have lifestory book from foster carers, again abit top heavy, loads of pics first this, first that etc and a page at the end with forever family on.
i did my own, a very basic photo album with us now and captions special girl with mum and dad that love you lots, then sneaked in the middle picture of mum and dad you used to have.
at first this page was turned over straight away, like as if to say i,m not ready for that.but it must of stuck with her as at some stage maybe months she opened it studied it and quite matter of fact stated who it was people she used to live with.
for the time being she is content with this amount of info ,knows she had a different mum and dad when she was a little baby.
i was told it would be best for her to be aware of her history before she started school as we live in a small village many people know her background so it is unfair for her if others know and she does nt.
i have also been told that problems come around age 7 years as children start to question why and feel a sense of being unwanted by their birth parent, well i ve a few years to wait and see on that one, but for me i feel it has gone well for us so just wanted to share it with you.
i believe only you know the right time and way to handle it for your child, but listening to others may help, good luck.

thank you very much maggie.

Funnily enough maggie - I was told to aim lifebook at a child of about 5!

To make the book in the third person, and start with

"This is Fred's story.

Fred lives with his mummy and daddy in Wisteria Lane. His favorite games are ... he likes playing blah blah blah...

But Fred wasn;t alwyas called fred (if he wasn;t) because Fred was adopted. Most children join a family by being born in thier mummy's tummy but some children join a family by being adopted. Some people arent able to look after anyone except themselves. Fred grew in the tummy of XX (name bm and use name form then on) and she could only look after herself so when Fred was born he was looked after by ... until his mummy and Daddy came to take him home..

blah blah blah - talk more about pre-adoption.

Then end story saying something positive about their role in the family or somethign planned for the future. The child needs to feel secure that their family is permanent.

I'm paraphrasing terribly and I'm sure that there are lots of different ways to do lifebooks but I know this approach is recommended by Surrey Council after they commissioned research into lifebooks of adopted children.

I agree that life story work is best done within your family at the child's pace. - As and when things present themselves in questions or wonderings you should just try and respond naturally.

It is difficult to revisit stuff that we ourselves would quite like to keep buried as it can bring up issues after issue, but with my DD we just wait for her to ask questions and then answer her as fully and honestly as possible.

TBH we have never used the book given to us by Soc Services or Foster carers as it was a combination of dire(!) and far too detailed for one sitting. However we have looked through it in detail ourselves so that we know her story well. I intend to make up her own book with her at a time when she needs this to happen.

Two things were very useful to us, the first was feeling allowed to 'take a breath' before launching into great explanations of things. By this I don't mean literally one breath but rather feeling able to hear her question (usually asked at an inappropriate time - like in Tesco!), process it there and then but say to her 'what you have asked me is a very important thing: SO important that I need a little while to think about how I'm going to talk to you. So, if you can wait a little while, I WILL talk to you, but it will need to be at a better time and after I've had a think.' My DD has been able to cope with this, though I'm sure some children would find it hard to have to wait til YOU are ready.

The other thing that was good was to draw out a sort of timeline starting with the day she born (or earlier if relevant) - which included details of her original name etc -and carrying on to today (and into the future) mapping out her lifestory. We wrote significant things on and she drew some pictures too. (not just adoption stuff - everyday but important things too, starting nursery, losing a first tooth etc, etc)

We found this put her early life experiences in a context, but also didn't just focus on why she went into care and what that was like. It was useful for us all to see her 'difficult' life period in the context of her whole life and also to look forward to things in the future and in doing so state that we were all moving on from the past as a family together.

Not sure if this helps, but just thought I'd share some things we've done.

We also found a basic life story book online at a site called foreverfamily dot co dot uk (IYSWIM!) which was really good for us. Similar to a 'baby' book (got it because I wanted it to go alongside baby books for birth sons) - it has enough details of birth/foster families to satisfy a basic need at the 4-9 age without going into any difficult detail.

My DD (now 8) has taken this into school to show teachers and friends. Mainly focusses on the here and now, but acknowledges the past too. Space for relevant photgraphs.

Hope this also might be handy at some stage.

this is the backwards life book

Thanks Kewcumber - I've found looking at that link really insightful...It's given me some stuff to think about regarding our own family work with DD.

It's quite a good site generally for adoption resources that isn;t just US focused