303: Helping Your Child Put Together Their Identity Puzzle

It’s normal -- celebrated even -- to wonder about and ask ourselves "Who am I?" After all, genealogy is cited as one of the top hobbies people have. There are TV shows with names like Finding Your Roots, Long Lost Family, and Who Do You Think You Are? helping people answer that fundamental question, all while millions of others tune in to watch those discoveries be made. For families formed through adoption, we must adopt (pun intended) a more expansive view of “family,” and we must extend permission for that expansive view to our children. Chances are high that they, too, will naturally wonder "who am I?" Why wouldn’t they?

This is not an episode about genealogy, but it IS an episode that centers on that basic question humans work out about themselves over their lifetimes, and the things parents do that can either help or hinder the adoptee’s quest to form and integrate their identity. Our guest Damon L. Davis, an adoptee and adoptive father, joins us from his own podcast, Who Am I Really?

Show Notes:

Damon’s podcast: Who Am I Really?

Damon’s book: Who Am I Really: An Adoptee Memoir

Damon on Instagram: @damonldavis

April Dinwoodie’s podcast: Born in June, Raised in April (mentioned)

Transcript

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About this Podcast

Lori Holden (The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole) brings to you an array of articulate and thought-provoking guests with lived experience in adoption, each with valuable insights to share about the all-encompassing journey of parenting an adopted person from babyhood to toddlerhood to school age to teenage -- and ultimately to adulthood. Join us as we explore Adoption: The Long View.

Named a Top 25 Adoption Podcast