Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew (Paperback)

by Sherrie Eldridge (Author) "Row upon row of tombstones lined the lush lawns as I drove through the tall black iron gates toward my adoptive parents' graves..." (more)
Key Phrases: adopted kids, unresolved adoption loss, adoptee anger, Talking With Young Children About Adoption, Adoptive Parents Knew, Jewel Among Jewels Adoption News (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
As both an adoptee and president of Jewel Among Jewels Adoption Network, Eldridge brings an original approach to the topic of adoption. In an attempt to inform adoptive parents of the unique issues adoptees face, she discusses adoptee anger, mourning, and shame and adoption acknowledgment while using case studies to illustrate how parents can better relate to their adopted child. This book is solidly written but not without its flaws; most importantly, it lacks information concerning child development, e.g., whether parents should use the same approach to questions with a three-year-old as with a 14-year-old. Still, this book will go well in any collection dealing with adoption, complementing David M. Brodzinsky's Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self (Anchor, 1993) and Joyce Maguire Pavao's The Family of Adoption (Beacon, 1998).AMee-Len Hom, Hunter Coll. Lib., New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
As a psychiatrist who has worked with dozens of adoptive families, and as an adoptive father myself, I can appreciate the sensitivity, understanding, common sense, and helpful suggestions given in this book. Sherrie has thrown the light of appreciation and understanding on the unique issues that often lie buried in the corners of adoptees' lives. -- Foster W. Cline, M.D., internationally acclaimed child and adult psychiatrist and co-author of PARENTING WITH LOVE AND LOGIC

What a useful book! Sherrie Eldridge has illuminated many issues adoptees and adoptive families face. Many books have addressed problems in adoption, but Eldridge tackles the real villain: unresolved loss and grief issues and the trauma that precedes all adoptions. [This book] is a gift to everyone involved in adoption. Eldridge's personal disclosures add a level of warmth and genuineness and yet do not overshadow her message but rather focus and heighten it. I am adding this book to my list of highly recommended books. -- Gregory C. Keck, Ph.D., founder/director of the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio and co-author of ADOPTING THE HURT CHILD

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Delta (October 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 044050838X
• ISBN-13: 978-0440508380
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (186 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,840 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

135 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the truth about the loss but not enough of the positive, June 19, 2005

By	A. E Rothert (Edwardsville) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am now an adult. I was adopted as an infant. This is the first time I have seen in print many of the feelings of loss and abandonment being given up created in me. These are really feelings that should be experienced, experiences that should be grieved. The author advocates for openness about adoption, which I think is the solution: Don't pretend there wasn't an abandonment (even if it was for good reasons) and don't hide adoption like it is something to be ashamed of or over-do the opposite by labelling the adoptee "special."
The weakness of this book, as others have written, is that it dwells on the negative. There is a lot of good that comes out of adoption. It is probably the most important good thing that has happened to me to help make me who I am today. And most adoptees are like me in that they are accepted into loving families who are open about the adoption and do the best they can to make it day by day.
The author at times seems to be overly dramatizing the loss that adopted children feel. But this is likely intentional. This is, afterall, a book about what adopted children wish their adoptive parents knew. I *do* wish my adoptive parents had known that the feelings of loss and abandonment would be there... I wish I could have put words to what I was feeling earlier and to have known that I was not the only person to have such feelings, that I was, oddly enough, normal. We all dealt with it, but it would have been easier for me (and I would have been a more pleasant child) had we known to expect this issue instead of waiting for me to discover it myself while exploring my anger and seeming unwillingness to get too close emotionally to anyone.
So I recommend this book for adoptive parents and those considering adoption. That said, it should not be read or considered in isolation. Adoption is a positive thing that can change a child's life much for the better. Listening to the author's explanation of what an adopted child feels should not make anyone afraid of adopting; rather, it should help them recognize what their child is experiencing. For, as the author says so nicely, the child is going to experience the loss whether the adoptive parent knows it will happen, believes it will happen, wants it to happen, or not. Like so many other painful things in life, understanding and coping with being given away by one's mother at birth can make the adopted child a stronger, more empathic individual. Failing to do so can make him or her angry, unhappy, and generally disgruntled. Much better to deal with the issues than pretend they don't exist.

169 of 176 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Kris -- Reader from Ohio, April 17, 2000

By	Kristina Sander (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews

As a prospective adoptive parent AND adoptee, I found this book to be helpful in emphasizing some of the communication issues in adoption. This book emphasizes regret and loss on the part of the adoptee -- feelings that as an adoptee, I do not feel strongly about. I believe reading this book as an adoptive parent may give good insight into concerns and feelings, but as an ADOPTEE, I want prospective parents to know that my experience has been positive and happy -- therefore do not let this book discourage you. I found some interesting parallels to my life in this book, including hating birthdays and some of my actions growing up. I believe adoption can be more positive than the portrait the author paints. Readers can, however, use some of the communication suggestions the author makes.

62 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A well-intentioned, deeply flawed book about an important subject., September 19, 2005

By	David A. Guberman (Newton, Mass.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Sherrie Eldridge means well: she wants to help adoptive parents do a better job of parenting their adoptive children. But Eldridge has written a deeply-flawed book that cannot be relied upon regarding either its descriptions or prescriptions.

The first problem is that Eldridge makes sweeping statements about how adoptees feel and what adoptees need from their adoptive parents without, however, supporting her claims with any scientific research, either her own or others. On reading the many claims Eldridge makes in her book, I kept wanting to ask: how do you know this? She never tells us.

At most, Eldridge offers annecdotes from her own experience and that of other adoptees. But we have no way of knowing whether these experiences fairly represent the experiences of most adoptees; whether they were selected because they support Eldridge's views; or whether, in talking with other adoptees, Eldridge "found" just what she was looking for.

Another problem is the absence of any serious comparative perspective: how, for example, do non-adopted children experience and cope with the loss of a parent? Or, let's consider a major theme in Eldridge's writing: the idea that all adoptees suffer a loss that must be grieved because, having lived for nine months in her birth mother's womb, adoption removes the infant from the only environment she has known. Well, birth does that to all of us: we all are expelled from the Eden of our mothers' wombs; all of us are cut off from our pre-natal environment.

If the pre-natal experience is as important as Eldridge wants us to believe, then the "loss" involved in being born should be universal. It thus becomes essential to understand the effects of that experience and to distinguish them from the effects of adoption as such. Eldridge fails to address this issue.

I'll conclude with a much smaller example. One that, however, illustrates the problem I had trusting Eldridge's judgment and reliability. One of the works included in her bibliography is "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales" by Bruno Bettleheim, whom Eldridge identifies as "German author Bruno Bettelheim" (p. 75), and, subsequently, as "renowned psychologist and author Bruno Bettelheim" (p. 77).

What's wrong with this? First, Bettelheim was born and educated in Austria, not Germany. Second, he did all his work in the United States (and so might be described as American), to which he came in 1939 as a Jewish refugee from Nazism (so that simply calling him "German," even if he had been born there, would have been misleading). Third, Bettelheim's reputation as a psychologist was exploded at least two years before Eldridge published her book: a widely-reviewed biography by Richard Pollak ("The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim"), exposed him as a fraud.

That Eldridge cannot properly identify Bettelheim and that she relies on someone so discredited substantially undermines my confidence in her knowledge and judgment.