We have a Mother’s Group meeting at our church once a month. We are mothers of all ages, all backgrounds and our kids are just as varied.

Today we talked about a children’s book that I had never read before. It’s called “The Twelve Gifts of Birth” by Charlene Costanzo. It is a beautiful book and would apply to every child whether they are biological, internationally adopted, adopted as an infant, or adopted as an older child. So many books that talk about birth are very limiting. They apply to biological children, or if you’re likely to an infant adoption. If you have a child that was adopted as an older child, you might as well forget it. This book in an exception.

The basis of the book is that EVERY child is born with twelve gifts. They are:

Strength
Beauty
Courage
Compassion
Hope
Joy
Talent
Imagination
Reverence
Wisdom
Love
Faith

It goes on to explain each gift.

It’s a short book that you can read as a bedtime story. Kids that come from foster care, or other backgrounds of abuse and neglect, often don’t have any self esteem or confidence and certainly don’t see their birth as a gift. This is a great way to show them that they are worth something, and that they can choose how to use these gifts that were given to them.

Even as adults, this is something that we can use reminders of. Believe me, there are plenty of days when I sure don’t feel that I am a gift to anyone.

I read reviews of this book on Amazon.com and several of the reviews mentioned that it’s a great book for adoption and that it’s great for older kids.

Our pastor said that a friend of hers read this to at-risk teens every day, and they slowly began to turn their behavior around and believe in themselves. I can not guarantee that this will happen with your child, but reading it certainly won't hurt.

The author did mean for it to be Christian based, and it has a bible quote in the front.

"Royal dignity was yours from the day you were born" Psalms 110:3

However, that is the only reference to Christianity or religion in the book (that I can remember anyway).

I highly recommend this for children of any age.

The author has also written two other books:

The Twelve Gifts of Marriage
The Twelve Gifts of Healing