{#6} Tell your kid early

I hope I’m preaching to the choir but be upfront, honest, and open with your kids about your adoption journey and start early.   If you decide to hide it, your child will find out eventually.  Whenever he figures out, it will be much more traumatic than if you had just been honest from the beginning.

When I was growing up we celebrated Airplane Day.*  On that day we received a small gift, went out for Chinese, and sat on the sofa as a family and heard the story of our adoption complete with pictures.
*The day we landed in the U.S. aka Family Day, Gotcha Day, etc.

I honestly don’t ever think my parents sat down and said, “We want you to know you’re adopted.”  If they did, I don’t remember.  I just remember always knowing and thinking I was pretty special that I essentially got two birthday celebrations.

Posted in Things Adoptive Parents Should Know and tagged .