Speaking the Heart Language of Adopted and Foster Children

In this heartfelt episode, adoption author Sherrie Eldridge shares deeply personal insights and practical advice for adoptive and foster parents seeking to connect with their children truly. Drawing from her book 20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed, Sherrie explores how well-intentioned words can be misinterpreted by adopted children—and offers better ways to communicate that honor both the child and their birth family. From reframing statements like “You were chosen” to understanding the primal wound of adoption, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to build stronger, more empathetic relationships within adoptive families.

✅ Key Takeaways:

• Abandonment is primal: Adopted and foster children often carry deep feelings of abandonment, no matter how young they were at the time of placement.
• Well-intentioned words can hurt: Phrases like “You were chosen” or “Your birth mom loved you so much she gave you away” may be misunderstood and cause emotional pain.
• Honor both families: Speaking respectfully about birth parents helps build a child’s sense of identity and self-worth.
• Speak the heart language: Use empathetic, shame-reducing language that acknowledges both the joy and grief of adoption.
• Create safety through honesty: Children who feel emotionally safe are more likely to open up about complicated feelings.

🔗 Related Links:

• 20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed by Sherrie Eldridge
  View on Amazon
• Forever Fingerprints: An Amazing Discovery for Adopted Children
  View on Amazon
• Little Branch Gets Adopted
  View on Amazon
• Sherrie Eldridge’s Adoption Blog
   https://sherrieeldridgeadoption.blog
• https://familytofamilynetwork.org

All Rights Reserved. @sherrieeldridge

Transcript

Hey friends. I just have been talking with people on social media about the heart language of adopted and foster children. It's all based. What I wanna talk about is all based on my book called 20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed. It's published by Random House and has done very well, but I don't talk about it a lot, so I want to tell you about it and tell you at least one thing now, maybe four.

I don't know how many I'll go through, but this is how you can learn the heart language of an adopted child or foster child. Remember always that that abandonment, whether it was positive, whether it was at birth, whether it was before birth or whatever, that rejection is just implanted deep in the heart of the child.

I still struggle with it today. I mean, I'm doing great, but it's always there. It's so primal. It's the primal wound of adopted children like Nancy Ey talked about. I. So remember that, that your interpretation, and even though your words may sound wonderful, I wanna tell you how the child may feel. And this is just my opinion.

So I'm not speaking for every adoptee, but this is my opinion as an adopted person, how your child may hear you. So I'm gonna talk about four things. The first thing is you have a desire to connect, right? You wanna connect, you want your child to attach all the good things that can happen with adoption and foster care.

And so you think of a well-intentioned statement. You want the child to feel positive about his or her adoption, and that is possible. I mean, I'm not shedding a bad light on adoption. I will always be pro adoption. Always, always, always, but you will craft a well-intentioned statement. But the reaction of the child.

The third thing is that adoptee and foster children translate what you're saying to a different message. I'm gonna help you to see that, and then to learn the heart language of the adopted child. So let's talk about the first one, the first desire to connect. You have the desire that your child will not feel rejected.

You want to cast a good light on the first mother, and that's wonderful. Yes. Because if you cast a bad light on her, that child was gonna be wounded. When you honor the birth mother, you honor your child. You build them up. You help them know that hey, you came from really good roots. You have a good DNA.

Yes. All that is what you wanna communicate. And so that your well-intentioned statement might be your birth mother loved you so much that she gave you to us. Sounds good. Right? Well, the adoptee inside, way deep down inside may be thinking Love is what got rid of me. Why are you saying that? It's good. I was turned away.

I was abandoned. Why are you saying it's good? That message within us is linked to a reaction to that well-intentioned statement. What I would recommend that you would say for the heart language, for your child, that will really, really connect with them, that will make them feel that you're a safe person and he can, he or she can say anything they want to.

That freedom is what you want, right? And so you'll say your birth parents weren't able to parent any, and I emphasize that word, any child at the time that you were adopted. And it could be a child, a teenager, or an adult adoptee. Adults are getting adopted a lot today, which is wonderful, but frame it with the word that the parent was not able to parent any baby at that time.

It takes away adoptee shame. So try to word it that way, and I think that they will hear you. I think that you will connect with them. Just trust me. Okay. Just let's work on this together. Okay. Let's do the second one. The second one is your desire is to create a sense of being wanted. You don't want them to feel like they were rejected.

You want them to feel like they were welcome, they were wanted, that this was God's plan for the whole thing. Yes, you want all of that. I understand it and I'm with you. And so you may say to your child, well, you are a chosen child. You were chosen. Every other parent is stuck with your kids, but we picked you out.

You were chosen. Oh, don't say that. Okay? How might your child interpret this? Your child may say, I might have been chosen. First I was given away. See, it all goes back to that initial. And it may be multiple abandonments, multiple with foster children. Multiple, multiple layer upon layer upon layer so that they cannot hear you.

When you say that you were chosen, you were wanted. You are ours if they come to your home. One podcast I did a while ago, the adoptive mother said that the child very soon drew a picture of her and the family. Like, here's mom, here's dad, here's me. I. And the mother didn't realize that was not a good thing.

The mother thought it was wonderful, of course, but it was not underneath. The child was very, very upset and that led to further upset. It did not connect the two of them. What would you say to a child who has been abandoned? And I know you don't like the word abandoned, but that's how it feels. We are left behind, we're left on the side of the road.

We're put in the baby box at the firehouse. We're just not wanted. The child might say I might have been chosen, but first I was always given away. So the heart language of the child and how to connect with them would be, Hey honey, you have two sets of parents, one who gave you birth and another that gave you a home and love.

Both of them were meant to be. Now don't say that. The child will not understand that, but it really was meant to be. I mean, when you look at the sovereign plan of God, yes, this is how it was meant to be. And so, you know, there's some parents who think, oh my gosh, you know, we got the child when it was an infant.

Right? Maybe right in a delivery room. But that child still feels abandonment. We can sense it in our bodies. Like Bessel VanDerKolk says, the body keeps the score. We remember honor that birth family, even though they're one is in jail, one is on drugs, one has just fled the scene, you still must honor them in some way.

This was one sentence that may help you do that. Okay, so let's go on to the third example of your desire to connect. You want to instill an attitude of Thanksgiving because you know that Thanksgiving precedes healing, right? You want the child to be thankful. And so you just accentuate the positive. Like if, if they're asked to do a project at school, you help them make a poster and you just say how wonderful it is.

You want them to be thankful, but the girl might take the poster and share it and just feel absolutely awful. Sometimes adoptees need to learn that when it is safe to share or maybe share with a small circle first, instead of a whole big group of people, the adoptee has to feel safe. They have to feel safe and not under pressure.

And that takes a lot of hard work to be able to feel that way as an adoptee, but your child can. And so the well-intentioned statement is accentuate the positive. Count your blessings. Count at one by one. Oh my gosh, you guys, please don't say that. Don't be religious, but don't be a Pharisee religious person either.

Frame all of your words with mercy and grace that Jesus Christ gives to you. So that's how you can pass it on to your child. You can say the adoptee and foster child might translate, accentuate the positive statement, only say nice things about adoption or Mommy and daddy will get upset. They will, mostly they will.

I. And adoptive parents have gotta do their own work. You've gotta do your own work to get over yourself so you can be self-regulated. And you know, I'm writing my ninth book about how that can happen, especially when your child rejects you and rejects your love and pushes you away. So what can you say?

You can say the heart language, which might be something like this. Everything in life is happy and sad. There's happy and sad things all over the place. The same is true for adoption. We adoptees are afraid to tell you the hard stuff. We don't wanna do that. We don't wanna upset you. That's why I wrote my children's book.

Little Branch gets adopted. That book was drawn from a conversation that I had years ago with a MSW therapist in Canada, and the story that she tells to adoptive parents, but I made it into a book for adopted children. But it's good for you too. She told me was how she gets adoptive parents to listen to their children.

The book then, that's based on that conversation is a, a conversation that Little Branch has with his parent and he tells all the hard stuff. I was sad, I wanted to push you away. I didn't love you. All those hard things that we don't dare say because we don't wanna hurt you and we do love you by the way.

Way down deep. We do love you, but we're afraid to say the hard things, and this has to be done, my friends. This has to be done. So when you read, Little Branch Gets Adopted and it's available on Amazon, by the way. amazon.com. Go to my author page, just go to Sherry Eldridge. When you read this to your child and they learn about how Little Branch isn't afraid to tell his parent the really hard things, then their reaction was, I can tell my story now.

I don't have to hide. I don't have to be afraid. I can tell you, I just would encourage you to get that book. I didn't do a lot of advertising about it, but I'm telling you to have in your toolbox. Another book that I can recommend is my children's book called Forever Fingerprints. The the subtitle is an amazing Discovery for Adopted Children, and this is a story about Lucy, I think she's about eight years old, and she has a conversation with her dad saying that she was missing her birth mother.

And she just felt so bad she missed it. And you know, we do think about our birth mother almost every day. Yep. Almost every day. So she told her dad that she was missing her birth mother. You know, what was she doing? Was she all right? Does she think about me? Does she wonder how my life is turning out? Is she taking care of herself?

What does she look like? Do I look like her? All those things are going through their minds, and so the father tells the wonderful story of her ever fingerprints. He tells about how God created her fingerprints and how there's nobody in the world that has a fingerprint like hers. Even twins don't have the same fingerprint.

Nobody in the world has a fingerprint like hers. And so he tells her that the adoptee's life began. I believe an eternity passed when the father said, this is my beloved child. I'm gonna love her to the max, and I'm gonna give her a fingerprint like nobody else. So that she will remember that I created her, is the uncreated creator.

You guys is so wonderful for adoptees to learn that. Psalm 1 39. Oh, go look it up. It's wonderful. But anyway, the dad goes on and he says that fingerprint began in your mother's womb. When you were created in your mother's womb. God made that fingerprint. And so whenever you're missing your birth mom, you can look at that fingerprint and remember that God gave it to you and it was given to you in your mother's womb and that you have that every day of your life.

And so Lucy, she was so happy she began kissing her fingertips. And so that's how the father honored the birth family. The first family honored God. Taught about the sovereignty of God, and so this book was first used in hospitals all across the country. Rebecca Swan Valley invited me to use his material.

We made fingerprint sheets that could be taken, like if you have an infant adoption, it could be taken to. The hospital and the birth prints of the birth mother could be put on. So get her prints. Okay? So get the birth mother's prints, get the adoptive parents prints who are there. Oh, I still remember a picture that I got to go to one of these and see this happening.

And then the adoptive mother holds the child close to her breast and, and the dad hugs. I mean, just a beautiful, beautiful scene. So anyway, this was taught in hospitals all across the United States. Thank you, Rebecca, for all that you have done and are doing today in your organization now forever.

Fingerprints can then become just a treasure that you put on your shelf, your bookshelf and your child will know where it is, so your child can go to the bookshelf anytime. Pull out the book and you can remember the story again. So, you know, I hate to brag about my stuff, but it's really pretty cool. That book is really pretty cool for children to learn how precious they are and how precious the birth mother is and the adoptive parents.

So anyway, I'm going on and on here, but I just love you guys. I wanna help you connect with your children. And, um, if I can ever do anything to help you, please write to me or come and visit my site@sherryeldridgeadoption.blog. I do podcasts at least every month. Listen to some of the old ones. Tell your friends about it.

Yeah. 'cause I'm getting ready to launch out again. I'm doing this book, this ninth book at my age. Good for my brain. Right. So I hope you are well. I send my love and hugs to you and write to me, okay? If you have any questions, bye. Thank you for listening to the 20 Things Adoption podcast. If you can think of friends or family that would benefit from this information, feel free to share.

See you next time.