Most adoption agencies advise or even require a written pledge that the adopting mother tell the child at the earliest possible age, and repeatedly thereafter,

that he has been adopted. In the light of psychoanalytic experience and theory, Peller strongly criticizes this practice. Information about adoption is highly charged material affecting the child's sexual and sadistic fantasies. Hence, indiscriminate communication of such material may evoke either massive denial by the child or it may be grossly distorted by the child's fantasies. Forcing such information on the child may severely interfere with his working through Oedipal fantasies. Much more observation and information concerning the task of confronting the child with the fact of his adoption is needed. Just as the analyst attempts to form and time his interpretations according to what is meaningful and can be assimilated, the foster parent would be well advised to tell the child of adoption at a time and in ways which the child can tolerate, comprehend, and integrate into the whole of his understanding.