5 year olds and adoption

[Kathy]

WOAH!

I'm coming here directly from tucking Sophia in for a nap. She had a total melt down on me. She said she missed "N" and wanted to go see her and live with her right now. ("N" is her bmom)

This comes so out of the blue, but it seems that every talk about my kids' and their bio families do. So, I handled it pretty well. But I did quesiton her at lenght. I asked her if she really understood what that would mean....leaving her family and her things here like dance, preschool, Gparents, camping trips...all that. And she said yes and she wanted to go. I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt, even though I know this was a child talking with no real understanding of what that actually meant.

I asked her why and she said she just wanted to because she missed her. I explained some of what I know to be true on how living with "N" would be. Concrete stuff appropriate for 5 and she said she didn't care, she wanted to go.

I explained her birthstory to her and how "N" choose us for her being a big emphasis this time...and explained that "N" as her Mom made this decision for her and that it was a forever decsion. That Mom's and Dad's make those decisions for kids and kids need to accept them even though sometimes it might be hard. I told her I didn't get to choose where I grew up and that that was the same for everyone I knew.


It was getting quite tearful by this point and so I gave her many more hugs and kisses and suggested that maybe a nap might help her feel a b it better, that I wish she weren't sad, but it was ok to be sad.

Has anyone at this age had issues like this? I'm remembering right now that Jacob did have a bunch of questions around this age too, and we were actually able to have a visit that put his issues to rest at that point. Lately at 11 he has had more questions again and peridically has the grass HAS to be greener thoughts. Adolescene is hard and I often thought the same way myself with him.

Wow, what a way to kick off the afternoon!

[Annabellz]

Wow Kathy. Andrew is 3 almost 4 now and we haven't discussed adoption with him but likely it will come up (it just has not come up for us and I'm not sure what a good age is all around to just force it out although we talk often about adoption? As well as foster care and possibly adopting again).

Anyhow I really would be thrown by that and I really don't know what to say. I appreciate you bringing it up here because we all need to be prepared for everything. Hopefully someone else has had this experience. I wonder if Bek has dealt with it?

Anne

[mallow]

Totally different situation here Kathy so I can't help you on that but sounds like you did a great job dealing with it.

Becky

[blessedx3]

I think you handled it perfectly. I think kids go through adoption stuff at different times. She knows about adoption but she really doens't know what it really means. I think that can be hard for kids.

My oldest went through some times when he was balking at a rule, he could be quite hurtful to me regarding his adoption. That "grass is greener" stuff.

In recent weeks my 13 year old has brought up the comment that he wonders what it would have been like had he lived with his birthmom. We talked in length about what we thought things would be like. I guess that's about all we can do.

When my middle son was 5 we went through a failed adoption and it brought out some feelings for him about his birthfamily. Really sad stuff.

[blessedx3]

How were things for S when she woke up from her nap? How is she today. I'm thinking about you.

[Kathy]

she woke up ok. The next day she was talking about it, I found pictures of her bmom holding her as a baby. These were a huge hit for her. We put them in a place that she can easily access.....and she looked at them several times a day for several days.

She seemed to take comfort in telling her story to Gabbie repeatedly. I thought it was going well, there were no more tears. Some of the stories bordered pretty romanticized type side of things, but I told myself she is 5 and maybe at this time, that was ok.

Then Friday night we had our good friends over for dinner....she brought the pictures out and shared them with them, which was ok...sorta....these are close friends.....I thought we'd have a talk about the pictures being private...but wanted to think about it more. Maybe they didnt' need to be? I wanted to think about it some.

BUT, as they were leaving, S got rather emotional, she was tired and she hates when "parties" end. She got mad at me for telling her to stop..she was pushing it on the obnoxious scale. Anyway, she started yelling at me and said, "I WANT TO GO LIVE WITH MY OTHER MOTHER N!!"

Nice huh?

So, after they left we had a talk. Rather sternly this time told her that "I" AM her Mother. That she will NOT be living with "N" that I AM her mother forever. Hopefully someday, "N" will be ready to have a visit but right now, she is not. And that I had no idea when she might be. I also said, that lets talk before we show pictures to people. She seemed ok with that. Lots of hugs later it seemed she was ok with things.

She has not brought the subject up again or looked at the pictures once since and its been 3 days.

I think stern talk at the beginning wouldn't have been best. But after a week of talking about it, and using it against me when things weren't going her way? It seemed to have brought full reality back to the surface.

I do want to be sympathetic/understanding as possible while the kids sort through things in regard to adoption. And I think I handle it pretty OK. But at a certain point sometimes bruntness (is that a word) just has to happen. Adoption has hard facts in it. Sometimes painful ones.



Thank you everyone for you input!

[Deanna]

Oh Kathy, that sounds so hard. I think you have handled things great. Sort of takes the breath out of me to read your post. I'm not looking forward to that part of adoption. I talked to Jake about being born the other day. He was asking about his belly button. It was the first time I've had the chance to broach the subject.

On Saturday we drove past the hospital where he was born. Hubby said, "That's were Jakey was born" and so I told him the story of how we watched him be born and how daddy cut the cord, etc. He said, "I was borned there" matter of fact like.

I'm going to pull out the photo album of his birth family soon. (Need to unpack and find it first).

I'm hoping to learn from you Kathy so that I'll be ready for Jake's "bomb dropping" in a couple of years.

[Jennifer]

I think you are handling it well. Cora had told me twice when she was 4 that she wanted to go live with her real parents. I told her that Daddy and me looked real to me but she just said you know what I mean. I have to admit it did hurt at the time. I haven't heard it for a few months. I thought I would have more time before that happened.

Cora does know she has an older bio brother. She has cried about "missing" him.

[Annabellz]

I know I'd be really frustrated Kathy. Right now even when Andrew says "I HATE YOU MOMMY"... I know he loves me but he's mad. It still upsets me terribly though. Anyhow I think you handled it well. What bothers me to think about is how my girls would feel? We waited for this little guy for so long and we love him I think sometimes more because we waited and he was such a huge wonderful bundle of surprise that I hope we can be as strong as you are.

Anne

[Pat]

I hadn´t seen this thread before. Kathy, it must had been so hard to hear your girl say those things to you, even though sometimes is just a result of anger. I think you handle it pretty well and I`ll have that in mind to answer my DD the same if she tells me something like that.

I have a friend whose little boy told her the same thing, she told him... Ok, would you like me to tell you that I am not considering you my son anymore? or that I will not want to live with you anymore?... He stopped saing those things to her, `cos everytime they had a fight and stuff, he would bring it up.

You guys have open adoptions which are different than closed; but I always tell DD that I am her only mom, I reffer to her bmom as M, the woman who brought her to this world. So that she doesn´t think of her as mom in any connotation. At least by now. It must be confusing for a 4 year old to think about 2 moms. One here and the other there, so they can pick one when they want, have a fight or when they are simply bored. Their minds are that practical and simple.

I hope Kathy that she is not saying those things to you anymore .

[chilemom]

Kathy, I am coming into the conversation a little late but can truly say this ... You are a wise and patient momma and I think you handled it very well, my friend.

[Annabellz]

This is rather pertinent to me in another way right now Kathy. My 5 year old foster daughter who is living with us for an unknown amount of time is struggling with bio mom issues. I go to do something and she will tell me "my mom won't let me do that!" I have to remind her that her mom is not here right now and that in our house we do things differently (mind you these are things like using catsup on hot dogs... eating fish... playing outside. Nothing more serious than that). She can be really nasty about it though to the other kids. I'm working to level out the fact that she is with us now and we are her caretakers (this could only last another week or so for all we know so I don't want to be too abrupt). Anyhow as you said ... she's 5? I'm working to balance this out with love and kindness but not sure. I can understand in some ways what she's feeling... at least I really work at compassion but I also want to let her know she's loved and care about her here while she's here as well as appreciating she has roots elsewhere. The way she behaves right now she is just mean sometimes to the point that she upsets the other kids she is around both in our household and outside.

Anne

[Kathy]

I think saying, "well here, we play outside" and going on with business as quicly as possible is a great idea. Give her as little fuel as possible.

THanks for all your kind words, I think being able to talk these things out with people who have been trhough similar helps tremendously for the times when kids sorta blindside you with stuff!!