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I feel like I am :grr: all the time. We have had our daughter for a year now, she is just over 5 now. When she came to live with us she had spent most of her life from around birth to almost 3 with her bio (dad's parents) grandparents.
So really our daughter sees them as her first parents and she loves them so much and the same for them. They decided that they were getting to old and wanted her to have a family so they choose not to adopt her.
Even thought she spent most of her time with them she also had very abusive parents she spent way to much time with and sadly ever time our daughter sees her grandparents it brings ups all these sad memories of her parents and the abuse they cased her.
We have made it clear to her grandparents what kind of a relationship we wanted. We are open to some visits but they need to be at our house as they house makes her sad. They are very hard to trust. They are the kinda people that would be nice to your face and talk bad about you behind your backs. I DONT TRUST THEM! Weirdly to me they have NEVER asks us anything about ourselves, what kinda parents we want to be, what is our religion, or anything. All they ever do is talk about how they hate OCS (office of child services)
They are making me so mad because I will say to them, we dont want our daughter at your house as it makes her sad and why put her thought that. Then they will look at her and tell her she can come over when ever she wants. They want nothing to do with my husband and I and will call and tell me they are going to pick up our daughter and take her to brunch and I tell them no and they get mad. I will explain why I dont want them alone with her, because I am worried that to much one on one time with be traumatic to her as soon as I get done talking they are like ok I understand so we would like to come get her!! When we do visits over an hour her mood changes for the worst for at least 2 or 3 weeks at a time.
I really feel bad because they have spent so much time being her parents they still try to play that roll and I understand their frustration but it is so hard, they will not honor our wishes. It breaks my heart because our daughter misses her grandparents so much and we would like to be able to let her see them.
They wont listen to us and they are very untrustworthy and I dont know what to do to get it thought to them. They EVEN brought our daughters bio DAD to my DH and I's work where our daughter is at ALL THE TIME and was like ooops we didnt think it would be a big deal. What makes me so mad about bringing him there was that 2 days before we had a visit with them and had told them that we were so excited because our daughter has gone a week with our bawling about how much she missed her bio Dad and wanted to see him, he is a abusive drunk so that isnt something I am going to allow her to be around.
I could really use some advise what to do. I want to allow my daughter to see them more I know she loves them I just cant get them to respect or listen to our wishes and I refuse to allow my daughter to be hurt more because they are sneaking visits with bio dad or something.
Please help.:hissy: I am so FRUSTRATED!!
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I feel for you and I am sorry you are going thru this. Do you know for a fact that grandparents did not want to adopt her because of their age? There could be more to that story. The way I look at it the grandparents gave her up. You adopted her, she is now your daughter. I am all for open adoption but if it is affecting your daughter and your family maybe it's best to stop all visits and communication. If you signed an agreement you can take it to a judge and get it nulled. You might have to see her doctor or therapist to get a letter stating that it is in her best interest. You need to put the best interest of your daughter and family first. The grandparents are not your problem. They chose not to adopt her and they also show no concern for the mental health of your daughter.
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Do you have local mediation services? Some agencies offer post-adoption mediation. I would invite them to mediation if at all possible. Of find a good family therapist and ask him/her ot help mediate.
I am a big fan of open adoption. It sounds as though you have been very open with them. That is commendable. They need to respect your boundaries, If they can't, then I would recommend that you move to a more structured arrangement. (i.e. limited, scheduled contact in a neutral location - meet at a park for a picnic for two hours every three months)
Open adoption is hard in ideal circumstances. Open adoption after foster care is even more challenging. You are doing a good job. Keep it up.
Good luck.
Well they are both not in the best health and they are still parenting their 20 year old down syndrome daughter. The reason why they dont want raise her is because they are older and they dont think they can give her the quality of life that she needs and they are worried that if they died when she is still at home she will go back into foster care and they don't want that for her. I know that they love her they did a very unselfish thing and that is comenable that is why I feel bad. They want her apart of their life but only on their terms and dont want us around. Our daughter has been with us for over a year and they no NOTHING about us and half the time they can't remember my husband name. We don't have to do visits with them at all. The problem is that we live in a fairly small town and live maybe 5 miles apart and we shop at all the same stores. I dont want an enemy I have to always be on the look out for. Also as much and I dislike them my daughter loves them so much and I wish that they would get it though there heads that yes she is their grand daughter but she has left their family and joined ours. They are welcome to join in on our family activites but they dont want us around. They are always trying to take our daughter and go socialize with people she use to know. But they are not understanding how sad it makes her feel when she gets to spend an hour with some old family member and then not see them again. They are very selfish in the sense that when ever it is convient for them they want to visit with her and dont seem to care at all how sad it makes when they leave. Her first 4 years are life were menatally and physically tramatic and she has only had the last year to heal and on top of healing emotionally wounds she has lost everything famialiar to her and learned to love a new family. They think that just because she is happy and bubbly to see them that she is healed and that it not reality and they are completly blind to that. I have explained and explained myself and what she is going though and it is like they dont listen or just dont care. I am so tired of trying to justify our beliefs for what is right for our daughter. If we didnt live so close to each other this would be much easier.
c.a
Do you have local mediation services? Some agencies offer post-adoption mediation. I would invite them to mediation if at all possible. Of find a good family therapist and ask him/her ot help mediate.
I am a big fan of open adoption. It sounds as though you have been very open with them. That is commendable. They need to respect your boundaries, If they can't, then I would recommend that you move to a more structured arrangement. (i.e. limited, scheduled contact in a neutral location - meet at a park for a picnic for two hours every three months)
Open adoption is hard in ideal circumstances. Open adoption after foster care is even more challenging. You are doing a good job. Keep it up.
Good luck.
My daughter's story is similar to yours. She had a bio grandparent mostly raise her, with abuse from bmom. She did spend years in foster care before she came to us. She loves her grandpa and wanted visits. We opened the adoption to him but we met with him first. WHen she was in care he stalked her foster home and we told him ONE TIME of anything like that and he would never talk to her again. It was our rules only. We told him that he had to face how the abuse/neglect affected her and he would go by our rules. We laid out what to talk about/not talk about ect. We met at parks, McDonalds. My daughter has since closed this herself because the memories are too painful. These people may find themselves on the same path. They need a very blunt directive with written instructions. If therapy is required, so be it. They will go or not see her. I believe it is best to keep family ties if at all possible. You are right in that regard. I also believe they have to realize the damage that has been done to the child. This was the turning point for my daughter's grandfather to admit that CPS was not the bad guy.
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Thank TxMom65. I have talked sternly in emails but never face to face. I see that that may be the last step we have to take to help them realize. They know that when she came to us she was mentally warn out and didnt look happy. But they also dont think that anything is wrong with her emotionally anymore or mentally. Even though she was been diognosed with FASD, ADHD, and RAD. I feel like they are indenial about everything. I have always tried to be polite when speaking to them face to face but I feel like at this point I am just want to yell at them and tell them they are ruining their relationship with their granddaughter. It is hard to be mean or stern I am a nice person and have a hard time being blunt. Thanks I know now that it appears that what I have to do.
To me, it was important that he (bio grandfather) realize that abuse/neglect had taken place. I told him that I had files and witnesses and mostly, the child. Some of the things had had no idea about but one thing he went back and asked and found that he had been lied to. He now sees the damage. I felt it was important that he admit and see what had been done so that he would take seriously our position. Our job is to protect these kids. I hated to drill it home but he actually once told me that he thought she had a good childhood. Really? After EVERYTHING? I do value open adoption but kids who have been traumatized don't need to live it over and over. Good luck in this. I hope you can all come to a good place in this.
Since I have a hard time expressing myself with out getting mad when talking to people. I decided to write a letter, it ended up being 3 pages long and I think I did a great job expressing our feeling with out ever point the finger at anybody or placing blame on them. I made it very clear that they have to respect out wishes, and since they chose adoption for their granddaughter they have to join our family not the other way around. I made it clear that their grand daughter loves them endlessly and it isnt far for her to be part of their family only part time it is to upsetting. I hope that they understand it and accept it other wise they will lose a lot of contact with theit grand daughter.
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I understand your position in trying to keep the connection with the Gparents, but if those visits are causing her problems, then they need to stop. Maybe not entirely, but at some level, you need to regain control of what is happening to your DD. Her needs must come before others. You can dictate how visits will take place and what type of conversation is allowed and what isn't. Some people just can't understand that even a visit can send a child into an emotional rollercoaster. We're the adults. We have ways of handling stress and emotions, but little kids don't have the same ability and this is why you end up with kids that have things like RAD. It is inexcusable that they would bring the bioDad to a place without your permission. This means they do not believe that he abused her. Who in their right mind would bring an abuser around a child that the person had abused? I hope your letter works out. Sometimes people really need to see it written down so they understand.
{{{Craziest2009}}I have been in very much the same boat with our DD's bioGrandma. We adopted DD at 6yrs old - she is now 11. We started with way too much openness with her bioGma. We thought that we were being very open with frequent visits, phone calls weekly, parcels & presents etc. But Gma just couldn't get enough and couldn't let us have time to bond as a family. If I gave an inch she would cry and stomp and fuss and demand a mile. She would send me 3&4 page emails telling me how I was harming Dd by not giving in to Gma's demands. It became so emotionally draining and exhausting dealing with Gma's drama and trying to explain my every decision to her and having her undermine our bonding and attachment that finally we have had to pull back completely. I just didn't have the emotional energy to keep dealing with her drama when I was needing to focus on parenting my traumatized child and put my energy into my family.It has been really hard as we really wanted DD to continue having a fully open relationship with her. She still cannot respect our boundaries and continues to push them/forget about them every chance she gets. She really doesn't get it that she would have much more contact if she could respect us as a family. It is in DD's best interest to have a strong bond and attachment to her immediate family and then the relationship with extended family.We are lucky though because we have been able to maintain a wonderful relationship with the former foster family and now we are building a good healthy relationship with BGrampa {divorced from the Gma} and now also with the BDad, who has manged to turn his life around beautifully in the past 5 yrs.Take YOUR time as a family and stand FIRM with what is best for your family. Older child adoption can be tricky, navigating all the relationships and trying to determine which ones are healthy and beneficial to your daughter and supporting your family as a whole should be the top of the priority list.Is there other extended family that is important to DD that you can keep a connection with? I hope that your letter was well received and that it actually makes a difference:}SM
Well I sent out the letter in Mid February and at this point we have had no contact with our DD Grandparents. I am done with trying to please them and make time for them if they don't have the respect to respond to our letter that just shows us we are better off with out them. I know at some point we will run into them at a grociery store or some place simular and I am confident they will just pretend they never received this letter and try and invite our DD back to there house again. But now I feel very confident in my position that it is NO and they can respect that or go away, the ball is in there court now it is up to them what they want to do with it. They are our DD only bio family we have contact with I wish they weren't doing this to her or themselves.
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Strong boundaries are the key to successful contact with former families. I think it is especially hard for grandparents to understand those boundaries. Our girls were raised primarily by their grandparents, also. But they also had the girls for nearly 10 months, and the state took them away from them. They tend to focus on how biomom lost the girls, but the truth is they did too. I'm sure they blame CPS and not themselves. They don't, and probably won't ever, recognize their dysfuntion and what it does to the girls. They also were used to a relationship with biomom where they had quite a bit of control over contact with their grandaughters. They don't get that power with me. I am not their daughter and they do not call the shots. I have been very firm with our boundaries, and any disrespect mean immediate end of contact. How long is up to me. It's very similiar to the time outs I have to do with my daughter. I have empathy - I understand that the grandparents are grieving - however my duty is to my daughters and what is best for them.