Yesterday I wrote about some different ways to approach the subject of adoption with your adopted stepchild. One of the ideas on broaching the topic was to read stories about adoption with your adopted stepchild. Adoption.com has a wonderfully written, and heartwarming story written by Mark Schneider, for his adopted children, about their own adoption and how their family came to be. While writing a story for your child is an excellent idea, those who do not feel up to the task of compiling their own story can follow the link at the bottom of the post, and read Mark’s story to their children.

An imaginative tale about a young boy walking in the woods with his father, the boy begins to learn about all the different baby animals in the forest, and how they came to be. Some were hatched out of eggs into their family, while others grew inside of their mother’s tummies. Seeing all of the different types of animals, along with how they came into the world, gets the young boy, Arik, thinking about himself, and just how it is that he came into this world.

While it is a very warm and touching story, the author does use God’s Plan to describe their adoption situation, and explain adoption to his children in the story. Beliefs, and religions can be as individual as the families, which hold them, so those who are not comfortable with talking about God’s Plan, or using it to describe their own adoption story, may not want to use this particular short story when speaking with their children about adoption.

The story is about six pages long, and only takes a few minutes to read through. It seems to be written for younger children, and is long enough to get the point across well, while still being short enough to hold the attention of younger listeners. Since it is an online story though, there are no pictures to go along with the story so parents may want to have some props ready to help their child, or children, to visualize the story and keep their attention focused. Parents can use their children’s toys, or perhaps have their children make paper bag, or popsicle stick puppets before reading the story, allowing the child to act out the story as the parent reads it aloud to him or her.

While this story seems to be about domestic infant adoption, it can be used for stepparent adoption situations, especially if his or her stepmother adopted the child, as it explains how Arik grew in another woman’s tummy before coming to his adoptive family. Even if the story does not match up your situation exactly it can be used to get your child familiar with the idea of adoption, the basics of what adoption means, and to become comfortable enough with the concept of adoption to begin to ask questions about it. “You Came From My Heart” by Mark Schneider, is a great way to introduce the idea of adoption to your young adopted stepchild.

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