Supporting young children through contact: A calm and informed approach

For adoptive parents, few things feel as delicate or as loaded as helping a young child navigate contact with their birth family. It is not just about managing logistics or following what was agreed in a contact plan. It is about guiding a child through something they can feel but may not yet fully understand.

Between the ages of three and ten, children begin to ask big questions with small words. They might not say, I feel conflicted about my two families, but they will show you in a sideways drawing, a question whispered at bedtime, or in the shift in their mood after a letter arrives. Contact, at this stage, often lands in the nervous system before it reaches conscious thought.

Of course we don't have to tell you this is why your role matters so much, not as the person who has all the answers, but as the person who helps make sense of a situation that can feel blurry and emotionally charged. What follows in this blog is a set of grounded, practical strategies designed for real families, informed by clinical insight and what we know from UK adoption research. This is not about smoothing over discomfort. It is about helping your child develop the confidence to hold their story, and trust you to hold it with them.

Use clear language that respects your child’s age and curiosity

Young children process the world through what is tangible and immediately relevant. When it comes to contact, whether a letter arrives or a supervised visit is scheduled, the experience can be confusing if it is not clearly explained in advance. Young children need information that is truthful, consistent, and tailored to their stage of understanding. That does not mean giving them everything at once. It means using the same words, over time, to help build a secure framework.

Do not assume that the word “adopted” means anything to them. Many children who hear the word used don’t know what it really means until they’re much older. You may need to revisit and reinforce this context repeatedly across the year. Each time, use consistent phrasing, and always leave room for follow-up questions.

For example, if a letter arrives from a birth parent, you might say:

“This is from your birth mum, the mummy who looked after you before you came to live with us. She cannot look after children now, but she wanted to write and say she is thinking of you.”

This is age-appropriate, emotionally clear, and avoids overloading the child with more than they can process. It also avoids softening the truth to the point that it becomes confusing.

Try to avoid vague references to “your other mum” or “someone who used to know you.” Use simple, specific language that helps them understand who is writing or visiting and why. For example:

“This letter is from your birth mum. She is your first mummy, the one you were born to. She cannot look after you now, but she thinks about you and wanted to write to say hello.”

Real parent moment: Lucy, adoptive mum to five-year-old Theo, explains:

“When his letter arrived, I wanted to protect him from the sadness, so I nearly didn’t read it to him. But when I did, I kept it short and open. Afterwards, he just nodded and went to play. A week later, he asked if she liked dinosaurs too. That was the moment I realised he’d absorbed it on his own timeline.”

You are not expected to say the perfect thing. You are simply asked to speak honestly, gently, and often.

Understand that big behaviours often mean big feelings

If you are caring for a young adopted child who becomes unsettled around the time of contact, whether it is a visit, a letter, or even just the build-up to it, you are not imagining things. These shifts in mood, energy, or behaviour are common, and they are not always dramatic. Sometimes it is obvious with tears, tantrums, shouting. Other times it is subtle: a child who goes quiet, who starts hovering more than usual, who refuses their favourite food or suddenly struggles with transitions they usually manage.

What we are seeing in these moments is dysregulation, the nervous system responding to a feeling or memory that the child cannot yet name, let alone explain. And for children adopted at a young age, this dysregulation may not always link to a specific memory of the birth family. It may be tied to implicit sensory memories, a smell, a tone of voice, or even the emotional intensity of the adult conversations around them.

Young children don’t often explain their feelings by saying, “I’m feeling overwhelmed because I’m confused about how I should feel about my birth mother.” Instead, they knock over their juice and cry for 30 minutes. Or they scream at their sibling for touching something they normally do not care about. Or they tell you they hate you for giving them pasta when they asked for pasta.

None of this means they are being “difficult.” And it does not always mean trauma has been triggered in a direct, conscious way. What it does mean is that something inside them is stirred, perhaps a feeling of loss, or loyalty, or anxiety, and their brain is doing its best to stay afloat with the limited emotional resources it has.

Children between the ages of three and ten live largely in their limbic systems. Emotional regulation is still developing, and when those circuits are overloaded, especially in children with histories of early separation or disruption, they respond by seeking safety, not by expressing insight.

You might see:

• Sudden, disproportionate frustration over something minor

• Clinginess that seems to come out of nowhere

• Difficulty sleeping or being alone

• Resistance to familiar routines

• Seeming “fine” but later expressing something big through drawing or play

One parent described it like this:

“After we got a letter from his birth dad, our son didn’t say anything for two days. Then he smashed the Lego house we’d built together and cried harder than I’ve ever seen. It was about the letter and all the things he couldn’t say.”

The key thing to remember is that you’re not meant to fix the feelings. You are meant to help contain them. That means staying steady, not stepping away. It might look like pausing the demands of the evening routine to sit quietly beside your child as they play. It might mean calmly narrating what you are seeing:

“It seems like things feel really big inside right now. You don’t have to explain it. I’m just going to stay with you.”

Consistency and predictability help. Routines that are usually calming, a bath, their bedtime story, even putting on the same pyjamas, act as signals of safety to a brain that may feel momentarily unsafe or uncertain. If those routines are rejected, it is not a failure. It just means you may need to stay nearby without pushing. Offer co-regulation, not correction.

In these moments, it is common for adoptive parents to feel helpless, frustrated, or even rejected. Especially if the child seems to take it out on you, the person who shows up every day. But this, too, is a sign of trust. You are the safe one to fall apart with. You are the person who can hold what they cannot yet hold for themselves.

You do not need to be emotionally bulletproof to do this well. But you do need to trust that staying close, quietly, consistently, and without the need to explain everything away, is what helps your child begin to build the emotional scaffolding they’ll need later.

And if you are already doing this, noticing the behaviours, staying curious, offering comfort instead of consequences, then you are doing the work. You are holding space for something very complex in a very small person. That is not small parenting. That is extraordinary care.

When your teenager wants contact: Navigating a new stage of the adoption journey

Teenagers do not tend to knock politely on your door and ask to discuss their life story. The questions often come out sideways. They might casually say, “I found my birth sister on Instagram,” while scrolling on the sofa. Or they might shout something in the middle of an argument,“You are not even my real mum!”, that cuts deeper than you expected.

These moments can feel like an earthquake. Not because they are shocking, but because they shift something foundational: the emotional terrain of the adoption. Suddenly, contact is not a controlled arrangement decided on paper years ago, it is alive, personal, and often fuelled by a teenager’s urgency to know more, even when they do not yet understand what they are asking.

As a parent, you may feel pushed out, afraid, or unsure how to respond without either losing control or damaging trust. This is not a failure. It is a turning point. And how you respond, not with permission or denial alone, but with emotional steadiness and curiosity, matters far more than whether you say yes or no right away.

This section is for those moments. The ones where your teenager wants contact, or already has it, and you are trying to work out what helps, what harms, and how to stay in relationship with them while they open a door you may have spent years gently keeping closed.

1. Start with the why, not the what

Before making a decision about contact, or reacting to a request, pause and ask what is underneath it. Teenagers often talk in outcomes: “I want to meet her,” or “I’m going to message him.” But underneath that is often something more vulnerable: “I need to know why I was adopted.” Or “I want to understand myself better.”

Instead of responding with immediate concern or logistics (“That’s not safe,” “Let me talk to your social worker”), reflect back the need: “It sounds like this is something you’ve been thinking about for a while. What would it mean to you to have contact?”

This does not mean you agree. It means you are making room for the conversation, not shutting it down. When teenagers feel dismissed, they are more likely to act impulsively or seek contact in unsafe ways.

2. Accept that you may feel threatened, and that’s okay

It is normal to feel a surge of fear, jealousy, or sadness when your child expresses interest in contact with their birth family. These feelings often stem from the myth that love must be exclusive, or the understandable grief over what your child has lost, and what you cannot fully restore.

But your feelings, while valid, cannot be the driving force in your teenager’s decision-making. If they sense that they must protect you from their curiosity, they may retreat from honesty and seek answers elsewhere, often online, alone, and without support.

Find someone other than your child to talk to about your emotions (a therapist, a post-adoption support worker, a peer support group). Avoid language that centres your own fear: “I’m just afraid you’ll leave us,” or “I don’t want to lose you.” Focus on staying connected: “Whatever happens, I want to be part of how you make sense of this.”

3. Prepare for digital realities, even if contact is not yet agreed

Teenagers today rarely need permission to initiate contact. If a name appears in a letterbox letter, they can search it. If a half-sibling follows them on social media, they might accept without telling you. That is not a failure of parenting. It is the world they live in.

Your role is to prepare them, not just prevent them. Have the conversation before it happens: “If you ever wanted to look someone up, or if someone reached out to you, I would really want to know. Not to stop you, just to support you.”

Then, talk openly about what they might encounter:

• Unanswered messages

• Photos or details that are hard to process

• Relatives who are surprised, confused, or angry

• Responses that are overly intense or emotionally manipulative

Many teens expect contact to feel like closure. It rarely does. Your steady involvement, as a guide, not a gatekeeper, helps them stay grounded when the reality of contact is more complicated than they imagined.

4. Support identity work alongside contact

One of the main drivers of contact in adolescence is identity development. Teenagers want to know who they are, where they come from, and how to place their history alongside their present. You can support this without pushing contact. Ask:

• “What are you hoping to understand?”

• “Are there things about yourself you want to explore?”

• “Would it help to write your story out, even just for yourself?”

Some teenagers benefit from mapping out timelines, writing unsent letters to birth relatives, or exploring aspects of heritage or culture related to their birth family. These acts can be powerful with or without direct contact. Supporting this kind of identity work tells your teenager: You do not have to choose between your past and your present. I can help you make sense of both.

5. Safety is not just physical, it is emotional and relational

If contact becomes a real possibility, or has already started, you will need to think beyond whether it is physically safe. Ask whether your teen is emotionally ready to:

• Handle disappointment if a relative doesn’t respond

• Set boundaries around personal questions

• Recognise manipulation or guilt from adults in their birth family

• Speak openly with you about what they’re experiencing

Safety also includes you. Are you able to stay in close emotional proximity to your teenager if they are navigating confusing feelings about another parent figure? If the answer to any of these is no, then contact may need to be delayed, reshaped, or supported through therapy. You are not saying no forever. You are saying: We need more structure before we open this door fully.

6. Give them as much control as they can handle, but no more

Teenagers often need to feel that the decision about contact is theirs. But they also need you to help hold the boundaries.

Find a balance. Ask them:

• “What would you want to say if you could write a letter?”

• “What would you need from me to feel okay doing that?”

• “How would we plan what happens next, together?”

Then clearly name your role: “I will not block this unless I believe it’s unsafe. But I will stay involved, because this is still part of our family story too.” This may be the most difficult part of parenting an adolescent adoptee: staying close enough to help, while allowing enough space for them to grow.

7. When it does happen: debrief, reflect, and recover together

If contact occurs, through a visit, call, or online, make sure your teen has time to process it afterwards. Don’t pepper them with questions or force emotional check-ins. But do stay emotionally available. Let them know it is okay if it was exciting, disappointing, confusing, or all three.

Final thoughts

Supporting a teenager through contact is not a sign that something is going wrong. It is a sign that development is happening, and that they trust you enough to include you in it. Even when it is hard. Even when it is messy. You will not get every word right. You do not have to. Your steadiness, your ability to stay close without controlling the outcome, is what makes the difference.

Speak soon,

The Walk Together Team