If your child is very young and expresses a need for their birth family, how to handle the situation is more complicated. However, to summarily ignore their desires even at a young age is showing them that their feelings are wrong and do not matter.

When extremely young children talk about wanting to meet birth family, you may not necessarily need to search or attempt a reunion. (Opening a closed adoption is a distinct possibility and a blog post about that subject is coming up in my first parent blog.)However, before proceeding, you need to try to figure out what is going on with the child.

A young child may not need a reunion at an early age, they might just need to talk about their birth parents and/or adoption. They may need some of the mysteries percolating in their tiny heads resolved. For some, a search may or may not be justified or necessary.

However, at the very least, you need to allow your child their feelings. Help them find ways to grieve their loss if that appears to be what is needed at that point. They might be troubled and need to be heard and understood. There are plenty of possiblities. Do not rule out a search though even if the child is quite young.