A young child's archaic fantasies may lead to gross distortion of emotionally charged information. This is discussed as being of central relevance to the issue of what and when to tell a child of his adoption. Out of her clinical experience with agencies, adopted children, and parents, Peller recommends latency, when the child has enlarged his social orbit to include other children and their parents, as the time to discuss adoption. She is against prescribing specific words to convey the information and also opposes forced raising of the adoption issue, irrespective of the child's wishes. She suggests that it may be helpful if, in addition to his parents, the child has the opportunity to discuss the matter with a psychoanalytically trained person such as a judge, social worker, teacher, or minister. Peller underlines the need for more study of the impact of adoption as it affects the child, the mother who gave him birth, and the adoptive parents.