09/06/2026
Part of my journey as a Life Coach - and as someone with lived experience - involves working with trauma and behaviour in both children and adults.
Today, I want to focus on adoption.
Being an adopted child often comes with the trauma of loss: loss of birth parents, loss of identity, and loss of a birth family and friends. These feelings often become more apparent during teenage years, when the thirst for information grows stronger.
The way adoptive parents share their child’s adoption story plays a crucial role in shaping confidence, mental health, and social relationships.
Unfortunately, many parents don’t know how or where to begin. Some rush through it, mention it, or avoid it altogether. But telling is not a single moment; it’s a process. It requires ongoing conversations about birth parents, adoption, the present, and future goals.
Parenting styles must be flexible, especially when trauma such as abuse or neglect is involved. Parents also need to decide early on whether their child’s culture and ethnicity will be honoured as part of their life, or whether only the adoptive family’s culture will be emphasised.
To support families, I created the Adoption Journey Toolbox - a resource filled with tools to guide the telling process, manage emotions, and answer the difficult questions children may ask.
The toolbox is designed to grow with the child, offering guidelines that can be revisited as they mature and see the world differently.
I’ve completed countless short courses on trauma, behaviour, and cultural differences, and I’ve drawn deeply from my own lived experience as a double adoptee. I built what I wished I had as a child - tools to cope with fear, emotions, and uncertainty.
This isn’t only for adoptive children.
All children deserve a foundation of security and confidence from a young age.
Teach children to respect adopted peers, to see them as normal rather than targets for bullying.
Teach your adoptive child that they were chosen, wanted, and loved.
www.kindroots.me
