Advice for Parents of Adopted Children: How to Handle Questions About Birth Parents

Parents of adopted children have varying degrees of anxiety about the birth parents of their children. This can be for several reasons for this. Sometimes, adoptive parents possess information about the birth parents that make them uneasy. Sometimes, it is the lack of information is what makes them uncomfortable. And, for many parents of adopted children, the simple idea of the birth parents, of any connection to them or information about them, lays host to fears and insecurities that they could somehow lose the precious children they worked so hard and waited so long for.

Regardless of their feelings about the birth parents of their children, it is important that the parents of adopted children prepare themselves for the inevitability that, at some point, their children will be looking for information about them. It is natural for all children to have questions about where they came from and what makes them who they are. Although many of these answers can be found in the manner in which they are raised, there are many questions that biology alone can answer. For adopted children, these questions often remain unanswered. It is important that their adoptive parents are willing to help them by providing them with what information they can.

The information that parents of adopted children have about the birth parents of their children is widely varied. Some parents have actually met the birth parents and have contact information for them, while others may not even know what geographical region the birth parents came from. What matters most is that the parents of adopted children provide honest answers to the questions that their children ask them. Even if they do not like the answers that they have to give, there is no substitute for honesty in these situations.