Helping children search for birth family

Psychologist David Brodzinsky, PhD, shares advice for parents of an internationally adopted child on how to help your child find their birth parents and understand their culture better
How Parents Can Help Adopted Child Find Birth Family
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Helping children search for birth family

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Parents can help their children with the search process, first and foremost, by validating their children’s curiosity about their origins, affirming the child’s connection to both families, celebrating it even. They can support the search by providing age appropriate information that they have. Many families have held back on information, not sure what to provide when and that’s when adoption professionals are helpful. But for those families who’ve adopted from abroad, they can help their children with the search process by visiting the birth country to get to know the culture, to get to know what conditions are like in the birth country, to perhaps…to even visit the orphanage. And more and more families are finding that they can make contact with birth family members, even if the child has been adopted from abroad.

Psychologist David Brodzinsky, PhD, shares advice for parents of an internationally adopted child on how to help your child find their birth parents and understand their culture better

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David Brodzinsky, PhD

Psychologist & Author

David Brodzinsky is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Foster Care Counseling Project at Rutgers University. He also maintains an active private practice serving the clinical needs of children and families, including individuals who are part of the adoption triad. Brodzinsky has written and lectured extensively in the fields of developmental and clinical psychology and is an internationally known expert in the field of adoption. He is co-author of such well-known books as, The Psychology of Adoption, Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self, and Children's Adjustment to Adoption: Developmental and Clinical Issues.

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Transcription: 
Parents can help their children with the search process, first and foremost, by validating their children’s curiosity about their origins, affirming the child’s connection to both families, celebrating it even. They can support the search by providing age appropriate information that they have. Many families have held back on information, not sure what to provide when and that’s when adoption professionals are helpful. But for those families who’ve adopted from abroad, they can help their children with the search process by visiting the birth country to get to know the culture, to get to know what conditions are like in the birth country, to perhaps…to even visit the orphanage. And more and more families are finding that they can make contact with birth family members, even if the child has been adopted from abroad.