Every one of us knows the pain of separation from someone we love. Children experience maternal separation with particular pain. From the moment of parting through to the long-anticipated reunion, their emotions spin. You Weren’t with Me by Chandra Ghosh Ippen Is a lovely, tender book that addresses the tumultuous, intense and complex feelings that children confront when they are separated from their mother.
Whether caused by divorce, illness, deployment, incarceration, or adoption, the child is puzzled, heartbroken, afraid, and angry when separated from his mother. That stew of emotions is difficult for children to parse, to define, and to express. The delicate illustrations of a rabbit mother and bunny by Eric Ippen Jr. brilliantly capture this complexity in an almost magical way.
Regardless of the length of the separation, it feels like forever for the child. The child feels unmoored, unsafe, and alone. Even after a reunion occurs, their emotions do not quickly return to quiet stasis. Often, they hold back and remain angry and distant. Throughout the story, the mother gently listens with an almost-sacred patience. She resists the inclination to dismiss or invalidate her little one’s feelings. And responds with, “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you. We are together now… You probably felt so alone.”
Because the mother listens without trying to diminish the bunny’s feelings, he feels safe enough to continue to share: “I worry that you will go away again… I don’t trust you.”
Mother validates Bunny’s experience throughout the book. Because the story never specifies why Mother was gone nor does it mention how long they were separated, readers can personalize this aspect for a particular child’s experience. The text does a superb job of addressing a spectrum of emotions and concerns and models a very empathetic “serve and return” interaction between child and parent. I highly recommend this book.
AQ Lens: Because I work with adoptive families I have a particular interest in finding books that open conversations about adoption-generated thoughts, feelings, and experiences WITHOUT actually being overtly about adoption. This book would be a superb read for an adoptive family. Children who were adopted beyond infancy will be able to identify with the bunny’s wishing that his parents had been there with him from the beginning to allay his fears and to provide security. This book can serve as a great way to spark important conversations.
Listen to GIFT Family Services newest podcast, ADOPTION MATTERS: Real People. Real Life. Real Talk. This podcast looks at the adoption experience through the eyes of three of our adoption coaches: Sharon Butler Obazee, an adoptee; Kim Noeth, a birth mother, and Sally Ankerfelt, an adoptive parent.
You can still listen to our original podcast, Essentials of Adoption Attuned Parenting.
Lately adversity hammered the world in many directions: natural disasters of biblical scale, political confrontations that resulted in death and, most recently a madman mowed down more than five hundred innocent people. At some level, it feels like our world verges on the brink of collapse. Children hear and observe what occurs around them. They watch TV and absorb the horrific reports. As adults we bear a huge responsibility to help them frame and understand the facts. We must share age-appropriate information and provide them tools to process and live with the challenging realities all around us. More importantly, we must help them regain a feeling of security and peace.
Adoption-attuned* Lens This story can offer another pathways to exploring the role of “othering” and how it shapes relationships. People can separate themselves along many criteria, for example, nationality, religion, and politics. For children, family tends to be the main focus of their “world.” Thus distinctions about family can divide them into separate groups: divorced or intact, bio or adopted, step- or full, one parent or two, etc. Open conversations that can help kids see that these distinctions need not be used to isolate or create a sense of hierarchy in which one type of family is seen as “better” than the other.
In her seminal book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson raised awareness that contributed to the environmental movement which continues through to today. 
Mama Miti: Wangari Maatai and the Trees of Kenya
In 
Hello, My Name Is Octicorn
by Marguerite W. Davo introduces us to a multi-racial family; Mom is black and dad is white. Told through a young girl’s words, the reader learns various ways she is a blend of the differences between her parents: race, personality, size, music preferences, etc. For example, Dad’s got a taste for rap. Mom prefers ballet. Mom bustles. Dad strolls. Mom enjoys African art while dad likes Modern Art.
Some essential life lessons we must teach kids:
