Making Sense of Adoption: A Parent's Guide – Reassuring Advice for Adoptive Families on Talking with Adopted Children and Building Self-Esteem

by Lois Ruskai Melina

When to tell, What to tell, and How to tell Children who are adopted have predictable and often unspoken concerns about themselves and how they joined their families. In this wise and timely guide, Lois Melina, author of the classic manual Raising Adopted Children, helps parents anticipate and respond to those concerns in ways that build self-esteem. Through sample conversations, reassuring advice, and age-specific activities parents will find answers to such questions as: -- When should I give my child the letter her birthmother wrote?
-- How do I share information that might upset my child?
-- How can I know when my child is wondering about adoption?
-- What should I tell school personnel about my child's history? What about family and friends?
-- How can I be sure we talk about adoption enough, but not too much? Whether parents adopted traditionally, as stepparents, or through donor insemination, surrogacy, or in vitro fertilization, Making Sense of Adoption will open the door to a lifetime of growth and understanding for adoptive families.

Genres: Adoption, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

Reviews

[pianogal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was good, but a little dated at this point. Also, I'm not sure I've ever had a conversation that would go the way she thinks it would. I can see myself, as a parent, starting on her script and my child just laughing in my face b/c it's so corny. The ideas are good, but I'm not sure her dialogues will work.

[Maddie]

Book research- very clear and thorough. A few parts seem a bit outdated but on the whole it seems remarkably ahead of its time.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the book Making Sense of Adoption: A Parent’s Guide by Lois Ruskai Melina, we learn when to tell, what to tell and how to tell our children who are adopted. They often have predictable and often unspoken concerns about themselves and how they joined our families. In this guide the author helps parents anticipate and respond to these concerns in ways that build self-esteem. There are many sample conversations, reassuring advice, and age-specific activities in this book for questions like: When should I give my child the letter her birthmother wrote her? How do I share information that might upset my child? How can I know when my child is wondering about adoption? What should I tell school personnel about my child’s history? What about family and friends? How can I be sure we talk about adoption enough, but not too much? Whether parents adopted traditionally, as stepparents, or through donor insemination, surrogacy, or in vitro fertilization, this book opens doors to a lifetime of growth and understanding for adoptive families.

I recommend this book to anyone adopting.

This was a good book. It made me think of many of the conversations we will be having with our soon to be adopted child. The one I never thought about that this book talked about was when he starts asking about his siblings and why his birth mother didn’t put them up for adoption as well.

This book had a lot of information, especially for adoptions that may have to deal with more like stepparents adopting, or donor insemination, or surrogacy, or in vitro fertilization. I am sure if you are going this route this information would be helpful to you. As it did not pertain to my situation and nothing I really ever desire to pursue I skimmed/skipped those parts.

I rate this book a 3 out of 5 stars.

I only rated this 3 out of 5 because it seemed to have a lot of similar information I have read before but I did enjoy conversation samples and the new thought of discussing the child’s birth siblings.