How do I tell my children difficult information about their birth families or their personal histories?
Parents often struggle with this situation. Sometimes out of their love for their children they want to “spare” them knowledge of the information. The parents may fear the results of their children’s knowledge of negative facts about their birth families. Or parents feel so sad about their children’s early experiences that they do not want the children to know what happened. Unfortunately, “sparing” them does not work. Ignoring or denying it cannot change the reality of the children’s lives and background. In addition, their background and experiences will have effects on their lives whether the effects are identified or not. Your child will benefit more from gradually integrating information with your loving support. You should be ready to accept a wide range of emotions perhaps including sadness, anger, denial, family loyalty, fear, and confusion. Sometimes your child might direct the emotions at you, the adoptive parent, because the true targets of the emotions are not available. Yo
