The Secret Ingredient in Life Books

If you haven’t already visited our informational articles page, please do so soon!  One article is called “The Secret Ingredient in Life Books”.  It is written to the foster or adoptive parent by Donna Barnes.  Below are some excerpts from her article.

No one talked about “life books” back in the 70’s. That’s when my husband and I began our adoption journey. Armed only with resolve and love, we walked the whole nine yards through four challenging adoptions without a single life book. Our best attempt was a photo album for one of our daughters. It included the only two photos that we were given when she arrived at the tender age of six months and we added many more as she grew up. By age four, she enjoyed “reading” her photo album . . .

Did our kids survive without life books? Of course!
Would life books have been helpful? Absolutely!

Today, “LIFEBOOK” is the buzzword among professionals and parents alike. And rightly so, because an adoption life book should provide a child with a key ingredient – - the TRUTH (as much as is known) – - about his/her “life story.” It should contain the WHO, WHAT, WHERE AND WHY information that kids need to answer their questions and unscramble their lives. In short, it is . . .

more than a photo album, although photos are vitally important.
more than a “baby book,” although the “baby information is also vital to include if available.
more than a scrapbook of achievements.
more than a book that chronicles all the happy, fun times.

Adopted kids, and those who grow up in foster care, have difficulty building self-esteem without uncovering and processing the truth about their lives . . . And now, we have the secret ingredient, p-r-o-c-e-s-s-i-n-g through a life memory book! In addition to providing statistical information, life books are a means for kids to find out that they were not responsible for the problems in the family. This puts a different slant on everything.

A life book should help kids process their feelings!

To facilitate “processing” the child’s feelings, the child needs to be involved in its creation. After all, there is no therapeutic value to the older child if you do it for him/her. As the adult, part of your task is to discover what the child thinks is the truth about his/her life. If the child has a distorted view of events that shaped his/her life or fantasies that stick in his/her mind as the truth, gently, but honestly, bring truth into the picture. The information that you provide should be age-appropriate and will need to be retold as the child gets older and has more in-depth questions. You will then need to help the child process his/her feelings about their true “life story.” In the end, there is a very positive and accomplished feeling the child gains, two-fold: through writing and drawing their memories they gain an understanding about themselves and their life history, and in doing so the child gets to know you better by talking about their life story with their foster or adoptive family.

Bibliotherapy.  Adoption World Specialties specializes in Adoption Life Books.

Bibliotherapy is the use of books to help people solve problems. Literature can help a child increase their self understanding and become better at expressing their feelings. When a child reads about a story character that they are able to identify with, they are better able to examine their own thoughts as well.

Life Books should be a part of the bibliotherapy tool chest. They help foster and adoptive children connect to their current situation as well as their beginnings. They create a living history for children dealing with a chaotic past. They help answer questions about birth families, helping them make sense of loss, trauma and change. The base Life Book actually assists the child in writing their own story. A Life Book is not a scrapbook of memories. It is a specific therapeutic tool. Examples or stories given along the way can open up a child, giving them an opportunity to process their own information which can involve issues such as anger and abandonment.

Have you seen the new cover for The One and Only Me?

Susan did a fantastic job bringing these books to life with color! She stayed with the familiar theme of the book using Ricky the Raccoon. The new cover is so creative using a “ME” riding on a swing hanging from a tree. The simple leaves create a great canopy over the swing. The slight glow of a sunset or sunrise is in the background. Besides bringing a lot of creativity to the book, it now offers some real flexibility. On the previous cover there was a box marked out for a child’s 5 x 7 photo. If a child doesn’t have a photo or even one the right size, the book can look like it is missing something. This new design looks great even if the photo isn’t there.

When my son was about 4 he was amazed at the fact that one of his friends Moms could grow a baby in her tummy! He was even more amazed when he found out she “grew” two at once. I loved that conversation with him. He thought MaryAnn was superhuman or something! Ironically, one of those twins ended up being his assigned buddy in elementary school. He was to show the new Kindergartner around the school. He always acted somewhat protective of the little guy.

He didn’t explain it or express it but I believe at that time he thought people got babies by adopting them. He hadn’t really thought about where they got started before that.

When my husband and I first looked into adoption, we knew so little. We both actually thought for a short while that adoptive kids were not told they were adopted! We learned of course that you tell an adoptive child their story just like a child born biologically to them. A family would tell a child the story of coming home from the hospital or a story of Mom and Dad racing to the hospital before they were born.

We were telling our daughter her story long before she could understand what we meant. We would tell her about the snow storm that was going on the morning we were to bring her home. We were so nervous waiting for the phone call that we should come over to the agency. When we finally met her, she had such an expressive face. We always tease her about the “you two don’t know what you are doing, do you?” look she gave us. She was so right!

As she was growing up, she thought adoption was a very common thing. When she was about 3 years old, she would ask friends and relatives that were expecting, “Are you planning on keeping or placing the baby?” She always seemed surprised when she found out friends that were not adopted. Not sad, just puzzled.

The other day I read an article written by a Foster Mom. In fact I only got as far as the introduction. She started off explaining how it was so easy for her husband to answer the question, “What do you do?” at any social function. She is always lost for words because she is a Foster Mom. Why in the world would this woman be embarrassed by being a Foster Mom! I am always amazed by the amount of selflessness and kindness Foster parents have. They have an amazing amount of energy and drive. I have never been a foster mom myself. I don’t think I have the courage. Why would this woman ever be embarrassed to tell what she does?? I suppose I should go back and read her entire article. She just lost me after that comment.