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How old is your child? Have they started to ask questions about their past/history? We are 13 years in with a 15 and 13 year old, we have done like you, talking about adoption etc in an everyday kind of way. I can honestly say I have never sat them down and given them chapter and verse on their history ( I know from some therapy my 15 year old dd has had she is not interested in her birth family at this time) I would definitely be led by your child, when they want to know stuff they will ask. (My 13 year old ds asked me a couple off years ago how much we had to pay for him! ) this is not meant in anyway as a criticism of you, getting the level of appropriate information right is a minefield, but I would be led by what your wants to know.

We never did a formal sit down and tell. Picture books were always accessible as were pictures of all their adoption days. We did a lot of ‘do you remember when’ and talking about his they came to us. We haven’t used their social worker written life story books because, well, they’re rubbish!

My boys are now 19 and 16 and neither are interested. They’re happy to live in the here and now and know that I will always be honest and tell what they want to know. I follow their lead.

My daughter was more curious so when she was around 12/13 social services agreed to fund proper, professional, therapeutic lifestory work with a therapist I found. We did the work over 9 months and now she knows her story, warts and all.

And that was enough for her.

I agree with E-mog. You say you are getting ready to share her life story book with her which suggests that you are making it into a "big" thing and if you are anxious about it she will pick up on this and probably be more upset about that then what is in her life story book. So I would just continue to drip feed her information and be very casual about it, especially as you say she is still quite young. So I would leave the life story book until she is much older and better able to deal with the information in it.

best wishes xx

We have handled this very differently from previous posters, but my children were 5 and 6 at placement and always asked questions about their background. We have always been very open and we talk about the birth family a lot. It is very much part of our everyday life.

If your child is inquisitive, I would go along with it. If you feel the sw's life story book is lacking/too much in any way, change it and adjust it to what feels right to you. You know your child best.

It is not going to be less of a shock when your child gets older. On the contrary. The advise we were given was: tell them a bit more than they can understand, so once they do understand it is less of a shock, because they feel they have always known. We have never done a formal sit down either. When mine got their first life story book aged 6 and 7, they already knew everything that was in there. They got detailed ones aged 10 after my daughter had repeatedly said she wanted to know everything.

Thank you everyone, your advice makes so much sense! I'm going to hang back and carry on as we are with the 'do you remember when's' to ensure she has that awareness and then be led by her questioning! i'm so glad i asked. I felt under pressure to do the full sit down, and to hear that none of you have done that and you led the child lead it makes me feel much better! thank you xx