request to keep contact w/b-mom

Talk with the social worker and the child's therapist and come up with a plan together. For some kids, taking a break from communication with bparents (particularly with an olderchild adoption) is helpful as you form a bond. On the other hand, you are right that she will likely go behind your back if you don't have a plan. Maybe involve a third party? Can she have phone contact on speaker phone with her therapist? Or a visit at a supervised visitation center? I think it is tricky for the adoptive parent who is trying to form a bond with the child to also be the person setting limits on bmom (at least at first). I would try to devise a plan that takes you out of the loop so you are not the person deciding if/when bmom is inappropriate. Good luck.

I agree c.a

Hi, Just wanted to thank you for sharing. We are having a similar issue and had no where to turn to know the right thing to do. We are adopting an 11 year old boy. He has been with us since August 2010. We are approaching our court date to finalize the adoption and were so excited. Everything was going so great and we felt we had made some great strides bonding with him. Then I felt like a bomb had dropped when I found out he had found his mom on facebook a couple of days ago. He befriended her and was exchanging messages with her. Their goodbye visit was in December 2009 and although she filed an appeal, it has been denied and that is why CPS proceeded with the adoption. However, she is still telling him she is just waiting for the court date and going to get him back no matter what. Suddenly everything got cloudy and we have seen a slight attitude change kind of like when he first came to live with us. I couldn't sleep after finding this all out on Saturday night and started searching for answers on the internet about how to handle. Your post and the answer was most helpful and gave me some talking points for when we talked to our caseworker and therapist this morning. Until I was able to talk to them your post comforted me somehow knowing that someone else had encountered something similar.

I think she would sneak if you said in one year. Would seem like a million years to her, and she would resent it. I think you'd be better off if you endorse some contact, supervised, and not by you, perhaps actually *more* often in the beginning. Then try to slow it down, as she comes to be accustomed to you, and feels a part of a shared life with you. (Visits in person or over phone.)Many of us have had younger children where court visits were mandated, and *yes*, the child has a hard time for at least one day after every visit. (That is, child gives fps a hard time!) Imagine 3 visits a week. Imagine. We've lived it. So you can survive, too. In some ways there's a benefit to conversations or visits, as she gets to see the contrast in quality of message from biomom, and from you two. You know? If biomom is consistently hyper and needy, she'll contrast that with who you are. She may also feel responsible to "parent" her mom, to continue to give her mother uplifting messages. If you can somehow be on her side of maintaining a relationship with her mom, that will mean a lot to her. You could think inside yourself something like "This is a relationship that she needs to process and deal with, as it has negative repercussions for her, and she needs a therapist's and our help to do that." But say to her, "We support you continuing to have contact with your mom, because we can see you feel a need to do that, that it's important to you." I don't know if this will make sense, but I was *adamant* I wanted to cut my fson off from his violent father. Then the first time I saw the man in court (in jail outfit chained to sheriff's deputy), I realized... I already had his dad in my living room, every day. That is, the parent was so much a part of the child, that he was there anyway. It was going to take a LONG time to move him out of my house (heal the child from his negative effects) -- more like moving the hands of a clock one minute at a time. I had to play for success in the long haul, not the short run.Also... imagine your parents telling you you couldn't do some particular thing for a year when you were her age. How would that have worked?