Advertisements
We are adopting Princess (9 year old) from foster care. She is struggling now with "leaving her mom" even though TPR has occurred.
It has been difficult for her the whole time that she has been in foster care. She still wants to be with her mom and doesn't understand why she can't be there. Because of the impact that this has had on Princess thus far, and the in general need of all of us to know our families, I believe that she will want to try to find her again when she's older.
At this time, she cannot see her mom or live with her, but in the future after Princess is 18, I do believe that she will want to find a way to reach out to Mom. Our adoption will not be open in any way due to the TPR but I don't want to hold Princess back from finding that closure when the time is right.
Because information is easier to get now than it might be later, I was wondering what information would be most helpful for me to get now and hold onto until Princess is an adult. Any advice?
(Note: I will not provide any information to Princess unless/until our agency approves this and lets me know it is legal and okay.)
Like
Share
Your agency does NOT need to "okay" your decisions regarding the openness in your adoption. She's your child, its your choice.Our daughter has regular visits with her bmom, despite TPR and other issues, we believe this is "safe" for our daughter. She knows her, has pictures with her, letters, her address, etc.Our son's situation is much different, his bparents are at fault for our son having traumatic brain injury and other disabilities, they are not "safe" people imo. So, we do updates with them through a third party. Our plan is to do this once a year until he turns 18. So he will have a letter from them and pictures of his parents and sibs from each year of his life, without having "true" openness. Works for us.
Advertisements
athikers
Our son's situation .... So, we do updates with them through a third party. Our plan is to do this once a year until he turns 18. So he will have a letter from them and pictures of his parents and sibs from each year of his life, without having "true" openness. Works for us.
We do it through his agency... we send the letter with no identifying info... they pass it on... then bios send a response with no identifying info and agency passes it on.I have a bit more time now... and I'll elaborate a little about our son's situation. We don't know if our son will ever even be able to understand adoption. But, what it came down to for our family is that we had the option to have a safe way to keep him in contact on a very minimal level, have him know his bparents/sibs love him, etc without putting him in harms way.I think this would be AWESOME for your daughter, since she's older, knows her bmom, longs for her bmom, etc.If you think she could not handle the contact now... just save the letters until she's old enough, kwim?For us its the ideal solution to a hard situation.
We have a similar situation in that our fs whom we will be adopting soon has not had any contact with bmom for over 9 months and has never met his bdad. He spent the first few years of his life living with a family he was "given" to but they never actually adopted him. Then he was returned to bmom, then he ended up in the foster care system and has been with 3 foster fams before us. His young life has been full of moves from familiy to family and numerous states. I can totally relate to what you are saying. Our sons CASA has been the best resource for us. He had provided us with the full names and last known address of every person who he has been able to locate who has had a significant role in our sons life. This is information we will hold onto and give to him when he is older and when he asks. We would love to be able to have a copy of his casefile just in case he wants more information when he is older. My thought is exactly as yours. Right now we can get our hands on info for him but years from now who knows.
Advertisements
You read my mind. I've been wondering how I would get this information for my hopefully soon-to-be child. I am going to insist on going through her file. I would like to ind her bmom. Her bmom signed away her rights after the kids ended up in care the second time. I believe my girl is probably worried about her mom since there was extended family violence before. And I suspect bmom is worried about her children. I think if I can let her keep some contact, I will raise an emotionally healthier child. I just couldn't figure out how I was going to do it.
We put together a list of names and addresses of bio parents and grandparents, although our son never lived with any of them, we thought it would be easier for him to find them if he wanted to with more places to start looking.
Also, since no photos of parents came with him, we obtained photos of both parents from other sources, so he could see the people he looks like and at least not wonder about every person he passes on the street "could that be my mother/father" etc.
I'm guessing by the time he's old enough to go looking for them, all of that will be moot because he'll probably just find them on Facebook.
As another person said, get a copy of the original birth certificate which will show mom's full name and place of birth. Depending on how you feel about mom, maybe maintain a letter relationship but let it be known that all correspondence will be reviewed before turning over to daughter to make sure all is appropriate and doesn't disclose anything that you don't want known at this time. Maybe give her a journal that she can write memories of her mom so she doesn't have to worry about "forgetting her". With my kids, I would send pictures and letters 2-3 times a year and told her that as long as she doesn't try to contact the kids personally, I would keep her up to date as how they are doing. (she knew my name, phone and address even before adoption happened) If you are able to or if you have a picture of mom, make a copy of it so she can have it displayed in her bedroom as she was a part of her life even if you are now MOM.
Advertisements
My 11 year old had a similar relationship with his mom, but since she was so unpredictable it became difficult for us to have on-going contact with her. It just caused him too much anxiety so we had to discontinue contact with her. But we do maintain contact via letters, pictures, and emails with his bio grandparents and his bio uncle. None were able to provide him with a permanent home, but they are a link to his past. I also believe that on-going contact with them allows him the possibility of finding her when he is older if he wishes to.
I would also say look through the file closely. Although they are suppose to redact a lot of identifying information about the bio families, case managers rarely have time to do this, so a lot of time there is info. When I reviewed the file, I was able to find names and most current addresses of many bio relatives. I wrote it all down because although I don't intend to contact them now, it will be a starting point for my son sometime in the future.