Why My Life Book?

My Life Book is a wonderful tool for helping children develop a sense of identity. Creating a Life Book can be productive and fun for anyone. Looking back over your own life story will offer tremendous insights into your life.

For children separated from their birth families, whose history can be fragmented and confusing, the process can be especially valuable. Coming to understand one's past is a very helpful way to prepare for the future.

But the pages are all blank...

The pages are blank because each individual is unique. A structured format would be limiting.

So how do we start?

The most important aspect of life story work is to enable children to express their feelings.

It's easiest to start at the beginning.Start with the child's birth. Information from the birth mother can be extremely helpful. Simple things like a piece of string showing how tall the child was at birth can be used to personalize My Life Book.

Or an even earlier beginning. Start with parents or grandparents.
Or start with an important event such as the child's first placement. Another possibility is to divide My Life Book by categories such as:

• Important People in My Life
• Places I Have Lived
• Schools I Have Attended
• My Favorite Things
• Things I Really Dislike

As you work together in exploring a child's past, the child will feel more comfortable in talking about the important things that have happened and their effect on the present.

No need to worry about putting things in any particular order. The pages of My Life Book can be easily moved about.

Helpful hints

• Set a regular time to work on the life story
• Gather documents which help establish the child's history (birth certificate, baptismal certificate, school records, medical records, photographs)
• Make the process therapeutic
• As you help the children put together the pieces of their lives, really listen and help them express feelings about what has happened to them
• Let children discuss fears, hopes, dreams - ideas for what might make things better

Who was My Life Book designed for?

My Life Book is for everyone. It was originally designed for social workers to give to children in care so that together they could do life story work. That's why the first page is a message addressed from the worker to the child. If the introductory page does not suit you, we can substitute an additional blank page at no charge.

My Life Book is $15.95 plus one dollar per book postage & handling.
On orders of five or more, postage & handling is free!
Ten or more - $14.95 each.
Fifty or more - $13.95 each

Most orders shipped within 24 hours