This past Tuesday night I was on a conference call with Sidney Gaskins and Kevin Hofmann. The call was about how to approach the search as a parent and as an adoptee. Sidney is a mother of an adopted child and shared how she approaches the subject with her 10 year old son. Kevin is an adoptee who recently started searching for his birth family again. It was a great conversation. I would like to thank Sidney for putting this together and Kevin for sharing his thoughts and feelings.
Here are some of the topics we talked about:
- Adoptive parent fears
- Adoptee fears of addressing parents with the desire to search
- Terminology used
- Process of addressing biological parents as part of the adoptee
- Non-threatening ways to address biological parentage with adoptees for adoptive parents
We hope this information will be useful for adoptees and parents who are wondering how to approach this sensitive subject. We would love to hear any feedback people have about this conversation.
You can also call in and listen to this interview over the phone:
Playback Dial-in Number: 1-218-936-7995 (Midwest)
Playback Access Code: 107559