The Pros and Cons of Talking to Children about their Origins



The Pros and Cons of Talking to Children about their Origins

At Different Ages and Stages of Development*

Judith Kottick, LCSW, Fertility Counseling & Consulting Services

* This information comes from the book Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates: Answering Tough Questions and Building Strong Families, by Diane Ehrensaft, PhD.

| | | |

|Age of Telling |Pros |Cons |

| |1. Gives parents a chance to practice the story and |1. It may be a lot to ask a new parent in the throes of |

| |“get it right” before the child understands. |bonding and falling in love with their baby, to start talking|

|From Birth |2. Child becomes familiar with the language and will |about a 3rd party before they feel secure in the bond. |

| |integrate it into their vocabulary. | |

| |3. Child gets the message this is a topic you are | |

| |comfortable talking about so it must be ok. | |

| |1. Parents and children have had time to build |1. May overwhelm young children with concepts that are too |

| |confidence in their ties to each other. |complex. |

|Ages 2-5 |2. Coincides with the child’s natural curiosity about | |

| |where babies come from. | |

| |1. Parents are secure in their role as the “real |1. Too late for same sex and single parent families. By this|

| |parent.” |time kids already know that many of their friends have |

|Preschool |2. The child is developmentally prepared to understand |mommies and daddies. |

|Ages 7-10 |the concepts. |2. Most children already understand how families are formed |

| | |and have made assumptions about their own family. Receiving |

| | |this information may be jarring and erode their sense of |

| | |trust. |

| | |3. If other people have been told, there is a risk the |

| | |information will leak out. |

| |1. Better late than never |1. Teens are already struggling with identity issues. This |

| | |information can complicate a challenging life stage. |

|Adolescence | |2. The child may feel betrayed and wonder if their parents |

| | |have deceived them about anything else. |

Ultimately, Dr. Ehrensaft, a child psychologist, recommends starting this family story when children are very young, “in the first two years of life, or in the preschool years, when children first become curious about where babies come from and how they were made. This way the child is never led astray with false information or misconceptions that have to be undone later, there are no untoward surprises or feelings of betrayal and distrust, and family life is built on a foundation of honesty and forthrightness.”

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