Ideas for a Life Story book for my foster children? Advice from former foster children or adoptees would help?

Question

I want to start building my children's Life Story books for them. They're long term children, and it's looking more likely that they will be staying with me permanently. Either way, I want to make the books for them, but I'm struggling for ideas.

I've got some sketchy birth info, like times/weights, etc, and I'm going to ask their parents if they can take a few photos of them with the children (they visit each week). There's very few baby photos of them before they came to me at 5 months and 17 months, while they were with their parents so that's not really an option. I'll obviously record important events such as their arrival here, birthdays, milestones, etc, but I can't think of what else to put in. I want it to be a record of their current and former life so they basically have a complete history of themselves.

What else can you think of that they might like to have in there for when they get older?

Answer 1

i was once in foster care i havent got any clues on what to do for the book but you sound like a great foster mother.

Answer 2

Wow Kit, great suggestion hon!  Sorry I can't think of any other ideas but I just wanted to tell you I'm going to start doing a similar thing with our foster kids.  We usually put a small scrapbook together for them for when they leave, but I like the idea you have. Keep up the good work!

Answer 3

I think that is awsome. Their are not enough foster parents that will go that extra mile. I did the same for my 2 foster kids I adopted. I was able to ask teh family if they had any pix of the kids before I got them, maybe newborn, 3-6,6-9,etc. Or any pix of the kids with family members. I explained that I was creating a scrapbook for them, to track their life & family history and it was something that they can look back on. I knew I would be adopting them, but I didn't make that part of waht I expressed to the birth families. I also created a duplicate birth-12 mos scrapbook that I gave to the birth mothers, with pictures and all the babies 1st's and hand & foot prints, etc. Take pix of the social workers, family, I was also able to ask the social worker, if she could find out info about the familys also, names, ets. So she was the one asking the birth mom. Good luck!

Answer 4

KUDOS to you for doing this! It shows you are a fabulous foster parent!!!!!!!!!

You might see if there is a local scrapbooking store in your area? They often have classes and it will give you great ideas.  They might even let you get a good deal on supplies since its for foster children, who knows.  

You also might ask this question on scrapbooking and foster parenting forums?

Answer 5

Hey, my friend has just come out of foster care, social services provided her book for her, it contained pictures of her and her siblings with her birth parents and her adoptive parents and her foster parents.

With captions and facts eg. when she was born/when her mum was born ect.

Answer 6

I write down any information  I get from my daughter's parents...from likes and dislikes of food, favorite subjects in school, books. What they thought about some current event, what they like to do, how they were as children, etc. Any little information I get from the parents I jot down. At the rate the parents are going I don't even know if my daughters parents will even be alive. But when she gets curious about them I will have something to tell her. I want her to have some idea as to the type of people they are. Also, even though they are drug addicts there is good in them and I want her to see that. I also take pictures of my daughter and her mother together. I missed the opportunity with the father, but as soon as he is out of jail I will try to get his photo.

Answer 7

Hmm, this is hard. I'm working on a Lifebook for my daughter from China, and that is hard because I know almost nothing at all about her first parents (just probably the general area where they live, and that is only because the area is very rural and out of the way), and also some of the information is very hard (abandonment, one child policy and preference for boys). Though your situation is completely different, it strikes me that many issues in making the lifebook are similar. And it is hard, because I know I want to present only the truth, but there is so little of it and much of what we do know is hard, but I want my daughter to have a strong and positive sense of herself and her first parents and birth story ARE her self.

If you can, get the parents to write something for their kids, even something very short would be so meaninful. Or if that isn't possible, to pick out a poem or quote for them. Or both. If there is any way to get pictures of the grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc., I'm sure that would be very meaningful to the children also. Or if there is any way you could write down at least the basics of a family tree. Maybe pictures of the hospital where they were born and the house and neighborhood where they lived. Neighbors they would have known? Stores they would have gone to? Not sure how much of it you can get, but small children are so visual, so these details might give them something to "attach" their thoughts and feelings to.

You can make things like birth length and weight more concrete for them by doing things like including a little envelope with a piece of string or yarn as long as they were when they were born -- so they can take it out and hold it up to how big they are now. For weight you can compare it so something that make sense to them. A lot of people use bags of flour or sugar, but unless you bake a lot I'm not sure that makes sense to a kid. Maybe a melon or a jar of peanut butter?

You might do a timeline of their lives that also included other things that were happening in the world, so that they would see themselves as part of the broader world and also so that some parts of their lives would seem less empty.

For a lot of the China lifebooks, many of us use drawings of a mother and child with the faces obscured or very abstract. I don't think that exactly works for your situation, though, since they have known parents, just no pictures. I have used things like cutout footprints--so they obviously aren't their footprints, but they do add interest.

I don't know, it is hard. You have probably seen Beth O'Malley's book and website:

http://www.adoptionlifebooks.com/

Though some of the wording doesn't work for me, I find she has valuable insights and some helpful suggestions. You can sign up for a free monthly email of tips.

You might also check out this free online "course" on lifebooks. They  have different "tracks," so I haven't seen much of the information for foster care lifebooks, but what I did see was helpful to me in formulating some of my thoughts, and even more helpful to some friends who have open adoptions or foster care adoptions.

http://www.adoptionlearningpartners.org/...

Talk to the children's social workers also (in fact, it might make sense to include their pictures also). They may have some more information or some ideas of what others have included.

It is great that you are doing this. My daughter really is fascinated with her book, even though it is far from complete. -- and it brings up a lot of feelings.

Oh, and try to keep it fairly small. Regular 8.5 x 11 is easy, or a scrapbook in 8 x 8 or even 6 x 6. Mine is too big, and it is unweildy for my daughter to look at herself, so I'm planning to scan it and print it out smaller.