Scrapbooks and Adoption

Scrapbooks are a good way to begin introducing yourself and your family to your new adoptive child.

Include photos of your home (inside and out), family, bedrooms, any pets, your car, your church, places where Mommy and Daddy work (if applicable). View this scrapbook as a 'snap shot' of your life and home, the life and home that your adoptive child will soon belong to.

At this point, include information on people that will be involved in your child’s life on a regular basis.

Do not include too much to make your child feel overwhelmed. You do not need to include ALL family members. Immediate members of the household, or children that your child would interact with on a regular basis, are a good place to start. A large family or a lot of pictures of YOUR friends can be frightening.

Other things to include are what you like to do as a family. Are you active in any sports? Do you have a favourite hobby you like to do? What are your favorite foods?

If the child is old enough to go to school, a photograph of the school and some information about the school would be reassuring.

Allow your child to keep the scrapbook. It will give them a chance to look through when they are comfortable with it, and can look at as many pages as they are comfortable with.

You will also want to create a Lifebook for your child, if one has not already been created. Whether we like it or not, a child’s biological family, and previous foster parents are part of their life, and deserve be honored and represented. The more you try to ignore these parts of your child’s past, the more they will resent you.

Ask if there are any photographs or momentos from when the child was a baby. If you don't ask now, they may be lost forever.

Be sure to gather any photos from former foster parents, or if at all possible from the child’s birth family. These may be hard to get, but get them if at all possible. If the photos are unavailable, have your child draw pictures to add to their book.

A lifebook does not have to be completely positive, but keep the main tone of it positive. You don’t want your child to view his life as negative. Creating this together will also provide wonderful bonding time with your child, as well as the ability to show that you honor his past.