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Well, our boys are 4 and 6 - we are in an open adoption. We never "sat down" and told them , but we have found many ways to incorporate it into our everyday conversations.
Our boys were never ones to do the whole "was I in your belly" thing, so we didn't have that opening, even when they saw our friends/teachers that were pregnant.
We started when they were babies talking about different ways families were made - not so much for them, but more for us so by the time they were old enough to understand, it would be second nature.
We'd look at pics of their first families and I'd say "Hey - you know, "C" is more than a friend of ours- she is a very special and important part of our family. You see, she was your mommy first, before I was - She loved you more than anything, but she was not able to take care of you the way SHE wanted to. She asked us to be your mommy and daddy and to love you as much as she does..." Then it gradually moved on to more complex things as our oldest son's first mom had another baby, but we take it step by step, and they seem to be really open to our explanations.
The other day, my youngest said, "Mom, I have brown eyes like you and AJ has blue eyes like Dad" and I said you are right - both of our eyes are brown, but you got your beautiful brown eyes from "C" just like I got mine from Gamma - and AJ got his from "D" just like daddy got his from Grandpa W.
I think it's the little explanations that make a difference for our boys - the ones they can actually relate to - like when we were at the park with my oldest son's first mom and her son - the two boys look NOTHING alike, but her little guy had the exact same feet as AJ when he was that age, so we made it a point to compare that.
Whatever way you do this, just do it with confidence - they will follow your cue - if you are comfortable, they will be as well.
Good Luck!
I think it depends on the age of your child. We are in an open adoption and have put together a lifebook with his story. We also see his bmom on a regular basis so he recognizes her . He is only 15 months, but the lifebook is something I can show him with pictures and practice reading to him. We have everything in there from our profile, letters that we sent his bmom, and his story from the hospital, to what is adoption, and who his bmom is. Of course it is written in little kids terms right now, but as he gets older I will include more details. Hope that helps!
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My daughters are now 6 years old and we've never had "the conversation" about it...they've just always known that they were adopted. It's just another factoid about their lives. From the time they were teeny babies, we've been talking about their adoption, their birthmom, etc., making a regular part of our conversations so it would never be a surprise. Occasionally, they'll ask questions but, for the most part, they're not displaying much interest at this point.
My son, adopted from infancy, was around three when he asked where babies come from. That was a good chance for me to tell him the basics of how babies grow. I was careful to use "in a special place in ladies' tummy" (rather than use "mother's"). After I told him the basics I then went on to explain, "Most of the time, when a lady has a baby she brings the baby home with her and is his mother. Sometimes, though, some ladies are not able to know how to be the best kind of mother for a baby. When that happens she will ask another lady, who knows how to be the right kind of mother, and who very much wants a baby, to be the baby's mother."At three years old, little kids aren't all that interested in a whole lot of details; so I just told him that when he was born another lady had him and asked me to be his mother because she wasn't able to be the right kind of mother to a baby. A he got a little older (not a lot) I talked about how "ladies need to learn how to be good mothers, and they learn that when they, themselves, have had learned from their own mother".My son had been removed from the birth mother after serious injury in early infancy, and I needed to lay the foundation for any information I would share later.The message I wanted him to get was that it's unfortunate when a woman can't be "the right kind of mother that a baby needs", and it isn't because she didn't want him or didn't love him. Also, though, I wanted him to have that "foundation" of information that would prepare him for the carefully edited details I'd reveal a little a time as he got older.Once, when he was four or five, he did ask me if I knew the "lady who had him". I told him I didn't, but that she knew a lady I knew (a social worker), and that was the person who knew I'd make a good mother.When you've adopted a child who was involuntarily placed for adoption there's that extra element of thinking about how to tell THAT story.He's grown now. It was mostly a matter of telling him the "skeleton/foundation" story when he was three; answering a couple of simple questions when he was four; and then not talking much about it until he was eleven or twelve and had some more questions.Then, we had a few years of not talking much about it again. As an older teen he had some more questions, which I answered. Some "ugly details" I still didn't tell him. When he was 21 he met the birth mother and all her relatives. He already knew the woman was someone with "issues", so he knew he hadn't come from royalty or some innocent little teenage girl. It wasn't such a shock for him to discover some of the uglier details by then.