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I have an adopted daughter age 6 that was adopted from foster care almost a year ago. We already have moth lay visits with maternal grandparents and skype visits with the father. The mother is in prison and I am ready to send her a letter/pics and approach openness with her as well. We don't have any type of OA agreement and as we add more family members I think we need to establish clear boundaries. For those of you who have OAs (especially with more than one bio family since we are looking at another potential adoption within the next year)
1. Do you have one set of "ground rules" that applies to each family/individual? I'd like to set up a bare minimum/worst case scenario situation and we can always allow more if things remain good. (Like they are now)
2. What do your kids call their biological parents?
3. How do you handle older siblings that are are older teens? (16 and 19)
My main goal is to have something in writing that we can use to communicate where our heart is regarding openness with bio family. I also want bio family to have a reference for what we see as non-negotiable and to know that I am willing to make a commitment to their family.
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We do not have anything in writing. Basically we laid out the boundaries and continue to stress that contact will continue as long as it's the best interest of the child(ren). With one birth family we have contact with an adult sibling, and the grandparents. We've also had occasional email contact with the birth parents. WIth the other birth family, we regularly see some healthy extended family, and a teenaged sibling. We were very clear when we initiated contact with birth parents that while they were indeed "mom" and "dad", we were too. And we were the ones making the parenting decisions. Our children were both adopted as older children so had some very positive memories of their birth family.With the older siblings, and the healthy extended families, we've taken it slowly. For the first year to two years our child didn't see them without us present. We made it clear that it wasn't that we didn't trust them, but rather that they needed to see us as the parental figures. With our son (after 4 years), we're now able to let his older adult brother take him to supper or a movie and we know that it'll be both appropriate, and not confuse his attachment.
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We do not have anything in writing. Basically we laid out the boundaries and continue to stress that contact will continue as long as it's the best interest of the child(ren). With one birth family we have contact with an adult sibling, and the grandparents. We've also had occasional email contact with the birth parents. WIth the other birth family, we regularly see some healthy extended family, and a teenaged sibling.
We were very clear when we initiated contact with birth parents that while they were indeed "mom" and "dad", we were too. And we were the ones making the parenting decisions. Our children were both adopted as older children so had some very positive memories of their birth family.
With the older siblings, and the healthy extended families, we've taken it slowly. For the first year to two years our child didn't see them without us present. We made it clear that it wasn't that we didn't trust them, but rather that they needed to see us as the parental figures. With our son (after 4 years), we're now able to let his older adult brother take him to supper or a movie and we know that it'll be both appropriate, and not confuse his attachment.