How to Tell a 6 yr old he is adopted?

Question

I have a 6 yr old son who is biologically mine but not my husbands. I was date raped when i was 16 and ended up pregnant. His real father is lliving around my area but never sees my boy. The only father he knows is my husband. We don't want him to end up finding out too late and hating us for it. We don't want to give him too much info and fry the poor little guys brain with confusion. We just want to give him enough info that it sticks in his head 'for future reference' so he can ask questions at his own leisure. He now has 1 brother and 2 sisters that are my husbands and also a sister that is his fathers to another woman whom we have never seen. We are stumped for ideas on how to tell him but if we dont do it soon it will be too late to make it up to him...........

please any advice is good advice.

Answer 1

At 6, he's not ready for many details and quite frankly, if he has a good daddy, leave sleeping dogs lie until he's 12 or so.

Answer 2

I was in the same position and I'll tell you I would advise you to tell him soon.  I was 11 when I started asking why I was the only one with blonde hair and blue eyes after learning about it in school (genes) and they kept ignoring me.  I began to think I was a kidnaped child (yea I know crazy, but I did).  My mom finally sat me down and told me the man who had been raising me was really not my father and the way she did it was like she was mad.  I felt like she was angry at me for asking questions.  

Just be honest, and make sure you are smiling and that you and your husband both are sitting there talking to him--reassuring him that you love him and are willing to answer questions.  Make him feel welcome to come to you and really tell you how he feels about it.  He'll probably be confused, and work through a bunch of emotions.  

Talk to him first and then the whole family together to lay everything out--possibly.

I would also advise you to NEVER label your children as "half" or "step"---my mom made sure never to do that and I think it made us closer!!

I hope everything goes well for your son and for the entire family <3

Answer 3

Line all the kids up shoulder to shoulder and ask them " if you think Daddy is your real dad, please step forward." When they all step forward,  you can be like "not so fast (whatever your son's name is) where do you think your going". Then after he stops crying you can tell him the truth.

Answer 4

If it were me, I would make a special day. of it,   Tell your son,  that you and dad need to talk to him about something very special,  

Tell  him that your husband is not his birth father, but  loves him so much he wants to be his father.  

Then hold a father and son ceremony.

literally,  I (husbands name),  Take you (sons name)  to be my lawful son,  To love, protect, and to care for all the days of my life.  and  help your son to make up a vow saying I ( sons name),  take you( Husbands name)  to be my lawful father to love and respect and to care for all the days of my life.   You could even get a minister to perform the ceremony ending it with the power invested in me I pronounce you father and son.    

This will take off some of the blow and the child will still feel as loved as he always has.  

Then your son knows he is adopted.  that  your husband took him to be his son, and leaves  no doubt in his mind that he is loved just as much as the other children.  

You also need to tell the kids about the other sibling now,   You never know when a secret can sneak out.  

That is how I would handle it if it were me.

Answer 5

u dont he is to young to know that

Answer 6

maybe wait a couple more eyars so he has a better understanding of things

sit him down and tell him you have something very important to tell him.  Thay you waiting till he was bigger and ready to understnad.  Tell him that no matter what you say that things in his life will not change and you both love him.  Both of you should be there.  then tell him his dad is his daddy but that another man helped you make him.  that that man was not a  good man and that is why you married your now husband.  then ask if he has any questions and answer as honest as possible.

Answer 7

Go up to your local library and ask the librarian for a book about it. They make a ton of preschool level books about being adopted. If you get an age appropriate book it will explain things to your son on his level.

Answer 8

Honesty is the best policy to make it simple.  The hard part is going to be to put it in kid lingo.  

I would suggest starting with telling him that his adopted father and you both love him very much and that if he ever wants to talk you will be there to listen.  I would also suggest (I hope this is already how it is) that the adopted father treat him the same as the other children that are not adopted.  I don't know how to suggest to you to say it to him but I would leave the date rape conception part of the story out of the mix until he is way in the future.

I was adopted at 12 days old and I honestly don't remember a time when I didn't know that I was adopted.  Your situation is different on how it came to be because my parents couldn't conceive.  I am so glad that my parents told me the truth early on.  I have never hated them for adopting me or haven't hated my biological parents for putting me up for adoption.  I am grateful that I wasn't aborted or thrown in a trash can.  I would definately suggest (since it sounds like you know the father) that you try to get as much medical information for you son as possible about the biological father's side because that is the one and only thing I hate about being adopted.  In the family history section at the doctor I just have to write adopted across the whole thing because I know absolutely nothing about my medical history.  

Kids really are smarter than we give them credit for so just tell him the G-rated truth for now.  

I wish you the best of luck and hope that he responds well when and how you decide to tell him.

Answer 9

he isnt old enough my sis was adoupted we were told when  she was 10

Answer 10

I read an answer on yahoo about adoption on how to tell somebody that they are adopted, one of the people that answered had been adopted and they said that his/her parents read them lots of books about adoption so he/she always knew that he/she was adopted.

go to the library or any good bookstores, they should have a kids book about adoption. Or you can even make up your own story about a mummy that had a baby, the child never new his real daddy, but he had a caring, loving daddy that looked after him anyway.

Or you can just tell him about what happened, you never know, he might even find it interesting and cool to have a step dad. He will probably find out later on in his life so it is good that u r going to tell him know.

GOODLUCK! best wishes :)

Answer 11

What do you need to make up to him? He's got a loving mum and dad. Please DON'T get it into your child's head that because he has a different biological father he is somehow entitled to special treatment. You'll end up with a real brat.

Hmmm...yeah, I would have told him sooner, had it as part of the scenery so to speak. Since you didn't, I would save it for when he starts to understand how babies are actually made. Simply tell him that the sperm that made him came from another man who didn't want to be his dad, but your husband wanted to be his dad instead.

Answer 12

Tell him that he's adopted when hes in a good mood,that way hes less likely to be shocked.

That's the advice from my ten year old son, who happens to be adopted.

My advice is to let him know that his dad, (the one who is raising him) loves him so much that he wanted to be his dad legally.  Answer his questions about the man who is the other half of his genetics in an age appropriate fashion, emphasizing that he made some bad choices, and that he's losing out on knowing your son because of the choices he made.

Answer 13

Honestly... wait a few more years.  Six is still a bit young.  It's too late when he gets into the double digits.  If you don't want your son to meet him then don't give out much information until he is 18 when he has the right to decide.  He probably won't.

But when the time comes, make sure he knows that not all families are alike.  That a lot of them are family because they love each other so much.  Go over step-, half-, and adopted siblings and equate it to some type of animal or something.   The older cat takes care of the younger cat because it loves the younger cat.  Even though the older cat didn't give birth to the younger one, it still loves it as it's own. After making sure he understands that, or just not the same day so you don't overload him, start by telling him that some people do bad things when they are young but that doesn't meant that they have to be a bad person (so you aren't outright down-talking his father).  Sometimes they are really bad mistakes that they wish they never did because they hurt people.  Then tell him that he has 2 fathers.  The one he has always known and the other one who wasn't nice when he was younger.  In a way he hurt Mommy but in the end Mommy had son.

I hope that's a good start or gives you some ideas

Answer 14

Well, to be honest, most people would say that 6 years old is already "too late" to be telling him that he is adopted.

Obviously you can't go back in time and tell him sooner though.  Does he understand the situation with his sister (the one who has a different mom)?  Perhaps if he is aware of that situation, that might be a way to help explain it.  Children tend to understand things better that they can relate to real life situations.

I don't think its necessary at this point to let him know the full details of his conception.  (Save that for when/if he asks about the situation and is old enough to understand.)  Just reassure him that your husband is still his father and loves him very much.