Book Review: How Open Should My Adoption Be?

Title:How Open Should My Adoption Be?: Levels of Openness In Adoption (Guide to a Healthy Adoptive Family, Adoption Parenting, and Open Relationships Book 3) by Russell Elkins
Publisher: Inky's Nest Publishing
Format: Kindle
Pages: 50
Genre: Adoption,

Synopsis: This book is part of a four book series that can be purchased together as an ebook set.

An open adoption relationship can be scary! Open adoption means that an adopted child has a relationship with his or her biological family. But just how “open” should that relationship be?
There is nothing in this world like an open adoption. Because of that, it’s hard to foresee the many different scenarios that will come. You do your best to plan ahead, but you’ll still find yourself in situations you hadn’t fully considered. Should you connect with your child’s birthparents on social media? Should you allow face-to-face visits? How often should you share photos and letters?

This book cannot answer these types of questions for you. What it will do, is help you envision how these intimate interactions can positively or negatively affect your relationship so that you can answer them for yourself. It will walk you through many of these situations to help you plan for what could be one of the most rewarding relationships in your life.

(75)Review: This short 50 page book is packed with a lot of really important information.  Russell Elkins adopted two children and has a very open adoption with both of his birth parents.  How these relationships developed is different and you can learn through their mistakes how to navigate these difficult and emotional relationships.  The only shortcoming of this book was the continuous references to his other books and how you should read them.  Which I admit are all great books I just wish he didn't feel the need to advertise in each of them for the others.

The gems in this book touch on social media, extended family, and the importance of communication.  Another really important piece to be aware of is how the 1st year after adopting is often much more stressful than you expect, becoming new parents, establishing that new relationship with the birth parents and with each other, lack of sleep, fear of disruption, and the invasion of social workers who have to check up on you until finalization can all put a lot of strain on what is already a very emotional time.  So maybe lower your expectations of what this year will look like and take it moment by moment.  Also very important is his section on the time in the hospital.  Respecting the birth parents time with the child in the hospital and remembering that this time belongs to them and isn't your time to start parenting. You may have a lifetime to do that and they have the very short period of time spent in the hospital, respect that.

This book can be read in an hour but it is one you may want to keep around to reference when things come up.  He has some really great ideas and some really profound insight.  I appreciate the short length of this book because it wasn't overwhelming amounts of information and gave lots of food for thought.


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