For years adoption was largely invisible because infants were closely matched with their adoptive families. Today, with more and more children in our area being adopted transracially as infants, adoption is far more noticeable, so it's not surprising that our children are curious about it at an earlier age. Still, many parents haven't discussed adoption with their children and aren't sure what to say when the topic comes up. "I was surprised my son noticed," says Julie Mikalis of Rockville. "He was having fun running around with 15 other 6-year-old boys so I didn't expect him to ask why this one little boy was Chinese when his parents were not. Then, once he asked, I wanted to encourage his curiosity without going into a complex explanation."

As with so many things related to childhood, your answers to questions about adoption are going to depend on the age and temperament of your child. Simple or complex, any explanation will start with the basic notion that there are many ways to form a real family. "Mommies and daddies and children come together in lots of ways," says Rachel Eidelman, LCSW-C, and Director of Family and Post-Adoption Services at the Barker Foundation in Bethesda. Adoption is just one way to form a forever family, as permanent and real as any other. "I am my daughters' 'real' parent," says Richard Fischer, publisher of Adoption TODAY. "I am not their first parent, but I am their very protective and loving real parent. I am the only parent they know." Once you've introduced this concept, the rest will largely depend on the developmental stage of the child.

When your preschooler asks a question that indicates she's curious about why Andy is Chinese and his parents are not, simply saying that he joined his family through adoption is probably enough. Additional details, like the fact that Andy is Korean rather than Chinese, aren't going to have much meaning to your child because that really isn't what her question was about. "Young children try to work out simple rules to navigate the world. What they see gets stereotyped and plotted as their norm," says Dr. Scott Buehler, a psychologist in Rockville. Your daughter probably asked about Andy because his family didn't "match" in the same way as the families she's seen in books and on television. Once you've explained adoption as a way of creating a family, reading books in which adoption is a theme will reinforce what you've told her while keeping the whole topic open for future conversations. (See sidebar)

When Andy's family adopts another child, and your child wants to know why Andy's mom didn't have "a baby in her tummy" before Andy's little sister arrived, you can explain the baby grew in another woman's tummy. This other woman (the birth mother) was not ready or able to parent her baby, so she made an adoption plan before Andy's sister was even born. Andy's family adopted that baby and now they are her family forever. For most preschool children this is more than enough information. Your use of adoption language (see sidebar) will give your child the vocabulary for future questions.

Most children in the early primary grades are already asking questions about babies and birth. They know from experience that women have babies that "match" their families. They can intuit that a baby who is a different race than his mother has come to his family in a way that is different from their experience. When your child asks why the baby is "different," your explanation of adoption as a means of forming a family, even if it includes the birth of the baby to a birth mother, isn't going to cover her underlying question of race unless you explain that people from her friend's birth country are a different race. Her friend, Andy, is the same race as his birth mother but not his adoptive mother. You can show her Andy's birth country on the map and explain how he came to the United States. Once your answer addresses all aspects of the puzzle, most children this age are satisfied.

For a 5- or 6-year-old who already has some anxiety about separating from her family, learning about the adoption process can tweak that anxiety. After all, your first-grader might wonder, "Why couldn't this happen to me?" Reiterating that adoption plans are made before a baby is born will make it clear this is not something your child's going to experience firsthand in her lifetime. Help her focus on the fact that her friend is loved in his forever family just the same as she is in your family.

If the topic of adoption hasn't come up before this, or even if it has, children of this age will have a concept of adoption that's been shaped by what they've seen in the movies or on television. This means their understanding is largely based on Tarzan, Stuart Little and at least one old cartoon with a baby in a basket and a note pinned to the blanket. At least that's how it was for my kids. And two of them are adopted!

Simplistic explanations of adoption, adoption plans, racial differences and what it means to be a forever family are not likely to satisfy a child in second or third grade. They're old enough to understand that to be part of an adoptive family, their classmate had to leave some other sort of family. It may help to let your child know that, in most cases, her classmate would not have lived with a family in the traditional sense. The reason for the adoption plan was to be certain Andy would be with a person or people who were ready and able to parent him. You can assure your child that Andy's place in his family is permanent and that the way they love him is not different because he joined his family through adoption. In fact, many families have both adopted and biological children, and there's no distinction made between them. "I don't differentiate my kids in my head. I don't think of them as biological or adopted," says Sari Warren, an adoptive mom from Virginia. "They're just my kids and I love them all in the same way."

Encourage your child to come to you with her adoption questions. "My kids wanted to know if it was okay to ask their friend about his adoption. I told them it wasn't a secret but it was personal, and he would share what he wanted when it felt right to him," says Charles Capaldi, a writer in Vermont. That concept — that Andy's story is his to share as he sees fit — is an important one for this age. Your child needs to know that it's not appropriate to ask her friend for details of his adoption. It's possible there are parts he doesn't know or that are even painful to him. He's also likely not an expert on his birth country. "I don't like it when kids ask me about adoption things because I don't remember Korea or my birth mom," says Seth Hagler, an 8-year-old from Rockville. "Sometimes I don't know what to say."

You can also let your child know that it's likely that adoption is not a topic that comes up every day in Andy's house. It's probably something that's important to him at some times and not at others. He's going through the same changes and discoveries about life that your daughter is, with an added layer that has to do with how he came to be with his family. The best thing for your child to do is to follow Andy's lead in talking about adoption.

These discussions with your 8- or 9-year-old child will give her the information she needs to understand adoption in a new, more accurate way. Her attitude about adoption and adopted people will be shaped by this information, combined with her real-life interactions with her adopted friends, rather than what she sees portrayed on television or in the movies.

Talking about adoption and setting yourself as the source of adoption information for your child is important. It ensures she's getting accurate information from someone who knows her well. It sets the tone for future conversations about other sensitive topics that will inevitably come up. And it makes it clear that there are no subjects the two of you can't discuss. It's also important for an adopted classmate like Andy, because it takes him out of the role of "adoption expert." It moves him out of the spotlight and lets him be what he's been all along — just another kid in the classroom.

Check out your local library, bookseller or www.tapestrybooks.com for these and other adoption-themed books for young listeners:

A Mother for Choco, by Keiko Kasza

When You Were Born in Korea, by Brian Boyd

Happy Adoption Day! by John McCutcheon

RESOURCES

Adoptions Together: www.adoptionstogether.org

Center for Adoption Support and Education, Inc.: www.adoptionsupport.org