Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption & Foster Care

Open Adoption: Handling Difficult Birth Parent Situations

August 09, 2019 Creating a Family Season 13 Episode 30
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption & Foster Care
Open Adoption: Handling Difficult Birth Parent Situations
Show Notes Transcript

Open adoption may be good for adopted children but it can present challenging situations and relationship dynamics that can be hard for kids to understand. Some difficult situations that adoptive parents may have to navigate are birth parents showing up high to meetings, not honoring their promises, differing levels of openness between multiple adopted children, or the birth parent parenting subsequent children. Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national adoption & foster care education and support nonprofit, interviews Susan Yobp, Mediation Coordinator for Consortium for Children’s Permanency Planning Mediation program. They assist families in developing post adoption contact plans for children being adopted through the foster care system.

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily

Transcript Note:

* Note that this is an automatic transcription, please forgive the errors.

Speaker 2:

welcome to creating a family talk about adoption and foster care. Do you have a friend that is an adopted or foster parent or or maybe even one who was ever considered either of those options? They do them and us a favor and please tell them about Doug creating a family podcast. Most people find out about podcast through friends, so

Speaker 3:

be a friend and tell him today we're going to be talking about something that it seems like most people don't want to talk about and that is handling difficult birth parent situations and open adoptions. We know that open adoption is good for kids and for families, but the reality of open adoption is sometimes messier than we make it out to be. We're going to be talking today with Susan Yob. She is the mediation coordinator for consortium for children's permanency planning mediation program and she's been doing this since 2010 they assist families in developing post adoption contact plans and she has helped adoptive and birth families work through some of these sticky situations that may come up and open adoption. Welcome Susan, and thank you so much for talking with us today about a open adoption in the parts of open adoption that we sometimes don't talk about. So welcome and thank you.

Speaker 4:

Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. It's great to be here.

Speaker 3:

You know, the first thing that comes to mind is, uh, and it's, uh, it's often the elephant in the room and that is, uh, working with birth parents who, uh, have dependency issues or addiction issues. So let's talk a little bit to begin with about Kinda the nature of addiction. Um, I think that a lot of times adoptive parents are hoping that the disease of addiction will not interfere with, uh, with their open, uh, contract or their open agreement that they've made with their, uh, their child's birth parents. But let's talk a little bit about just briefly the nature of addiction and then let's, we're going to talk about some of the specifics of how it might interfere with an open adoption.

Speaker 4:

Sure. Well, pro prefacing by saying I'm not an expert in addiction, but certainly I've worked with a lot of families where that's an issue. And I would, uh, you know, want to raise for anybody that we could find addiction in any background. Um, so it's not just our families that are coming through the foster care system, but certainly there are plenty of folks out there that never come to the attention of the system. So you may be even in your, um, private domestic adoption be running across this issue. Oh yeah. What we really see and, and addiction presents differently for different people, but the themes at least as far as, uh, the families that we're helping that come out is, is really that that addiction takes over. And that in the scheme of priorities for a birth parent, I'm grappling with that or anyone grappling with that is the addiction is the most important thing. And so their prioritization is quite different often than what you or I might prioritize. So it's important to understand that they're just not looking at the world the way we are. The other thing is that addiction can make people unpredictable and unreliable. And that's really significant when you're thinking about how a child is going to experience that person. And so those are kind of the main themes, um, in the realm of addiction that we look at. The other piece I think is important to recognize is that people do work through that and people do find way to live their lives without their drug of choice or without alcohol. And so I think it's important for us to always, you know, leave room for that possibility in our thinking as well. So what's going on now may not be what's going on in 10 years and we need to deal with what's going on now while we're making our decisions. But let's also, you know, we've maybe not the door open, but let's leave the window open to the possibility that, um, that things may look quite different down the road. And, and we want to be open to that.

Speaker 3:

I'm so glad you pointed that out. People do heal from addiction and, and, and so you said it beautifully. Want to leave open the possibility that, that, that is going to happen. So probably the, the s the, the question we get the most often from, uh, adoptive parents, uh, in the, in the realm of, of open adoption difficult situations is how to handle situations when birth parents show up for a meeting with the child, high or stoned parents don't really know how to handle it. Should they immediately in the meeting, are they hurting their child? If their child is around someone who is stoned, are they, they on some subconscious level sending a message of, of condoning this to their child. So let's talk about the situation over there has been an agreed upon meeting and the birth parents or the adoptive parents believe have reason to believe that the birth parents are stone.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's a, that's a situation that none of us want to happen, but unfortunately it does happen. And so there, there's two things, um, that I think are important in that, that, that we try to address in our work is number one is having the conversation ahead of time with, you know, that other person is what's going to happen if someone shows up under the influence. So that, um, we give that other person the opportunity to understand that it's expected that they won't and that if they do, it's expected that there will be some sort of consequence to that, you know, for lack of a better way to put it. So that's one piece of it. When you're talking with someone that you plan to meet with, you know, just agree and you know, we all agree that we're going to be sober meeting. So hopefully that happens. If it doesn't happen in that person shows up under the influence, I think there's a lot of variables. How old is your child? What is the person under the influence of like, are you just seeing glassy eyes or is this person stumbling over their speech, dropping things appearing very disorganized or, or just unsettled in a way that your child is likely to notice? Um, if, if someone's, you know, really out of sorts, I think a reasonable thing and hopefully there's two parents there. So one of you can maybe take the child to the bathroom or take the child to see something else while the other parent says, Gosh, mom, you, you seem like you're not doing too good today. And I'm concerned about how our child is gonna, um, respond to this and kind of see where you get with that. And someone may admit, you know, yeah, I, I was really stressed and scared about this or I was feeling really sad about this and I just kind of blew it. And maybe you can talk with them about how we together are gonna resolve this situation. Um, or you're going to find that that person, um, is, you know, not acknowledging it and doesn't still doesn't seem that they can, um, potentially have this visit and be present with the child, in which case, I think it is reasonable to say, gosh, you really appear to be under the influence. And we had an agreement that, you know, everyone would be clean and sober for these visits. So we're actually going to, um, go home now and we'll, you know, talk to you in the next day or two about, you know, how we might set this up again.

Speaker 3:

All right, so you stopped the meeting at that time. If, and I liked the fact that you gave, it's not a cut and dry necessarily answer a lot depends as you said, the age of the child, the degree of impact that you perceive the, if the child is going to notice if it's going to impact the visit, uh, horribly. Um, are, can, can you continue and just cut it short or do you need to actually stop it? All things that you can consider. How do you set healthy boundaries in advance with birth parents who are addicted, particularly because you're having an open adoption relationship. So how do you set the birth parent up for success? For our to, for a successful open adoption? I mean, you can't, you don't have the power to get them into treatment. You can certainly be encouraging of that, but that's not something that you may have the power do. You probably won't.

Speaker 4:

So what do healthy boundaries look like? That's a good question. I think a couple things influenced that and I, I probably should have said this with the other question as well. I think it's a very important, uh, for adoptive parents or foster parents who are working with birth parents who have drug issues or alcohol issues, is to be aware of our own triggers and our own, you know, how we hold addiction ourselves and what we might be responding to and be very sort of clear with ourselves about what our issues are around that so that we're going in, you know, as clear as we can be about, you know, what role we might have in any interaction. But I think in terms of setting the boundaries with, and, and that's part of sending the boundaries with birth parents. But I think it's so important to talk about things ahead of time. And, and I sort of find to say this way, but I'm sort of fortunate in the sense that our work, um, is exclusively with people who are in the foster care system or in the court dependency system. So it's pretty easy to bring up addiction issues in that context because it's a known thing. So it's not a surprise when I or one of our mediators say to a birth parent, you know, I understand that you've been having a hard time with this and I think it's important for us to talk about how this will impact your contact, uh, with the children. I think it's a little bit more challenging when you're in, um, a private adoption situation and you may not know that, but you may suspect that, um, there's a lot of great resources out there. Um, Alan owns one of the most traditional ones, but there's other things that you could find on the internet or in talking with a adoption informed therapist, um, to think about how you can raise these issues in a, in a kind, compassionate way. But that still directly goes to why it's important that we all are present and sober and consistent when we're, um, having these contacts with the child. Uh, we focus a lot on how do you, when we're talking with birth parents, how do you want your child to experience their contacts with you? And we help the person walk through what it is they want their child to experience. And that's a nice way of bringing in the things that might interfere with that and showing up high being one of them. So I mean, and also for the birth parent, I mean I have to imagine that if you show up intoxicated or under the influence of some substance, you're not going to have a lot of memory or a lot of clear memory anyway of that with your child. Um, so, you know, there's also kind of appealing to what do you want to get out of these contexts with your child as well and are you going to be able to have that experience if you're under the influence when you're visiting with your child? Um, if it's interesting, but you know, honestly, we, when we're having these conversations, particularly because our conversations are confidential with people, they're pretty forthcoming about their experiences and you know, what is like to be high versus what it's like to be sober. So you can, you know, tap into that, you know, what's your best case scenario? How do you want these, you know, these to go and use that as a stepping off point for deciding, um, you know, well, maybe the parents more likely to be sober in the morning. So we'll be doing our visits in the morning. If you have someone who's got a really rough history, um, the adoptive parent may want to have a phone call with the person before you, uh, go to the visit site so that, you know, you hear their voice and you, you know, once you've talked with someone a few times, you can usually tell, uh, which side of the sobriety they're coming down on. So you might build in some sort of checkpoints. Um, I do have a couple of families that have us a structure where both of the adoptive parents go, uh, to the visits. And so to, you know, be present. And one of them, we'll go ahead and sit down and chat with the birth parent and they use that time to sort of catch up on the adult things, you know, so the, the birth parent can hear a little bit about how the child's been doing and kind of get a sense of where that child is at. So when they see the child, they're sort of in a sense caught up and they can kind of engage with the child without having to ask for a lot of, you know, uh, his, what's been going on since the last time they saw them. And then it also obviously gives that adopted parent, uh, a moment to just kind of check in and see where the birth parents at and how they seem to be doing. And then if everybody's feeling like, yes, this is a go, then there's a quick text, you know, bring, bring the child along and we'll, you know, we'll be able to have this visit or in the unfortunate event that, you know, a parent is not in a good place for it, you know, they can then just take the child somewhere else. I mean, depending on the age of the child, they may or may not realize that they're going for a birth parent visit. Also, people handle that differently depending on their child's particular needs and in that situation.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Let's talk a little about that. Um, another aspect of addiction is that often birth parents do not, and this can be things other than as well, but, um, it's certainly not showing up for meetings. Um, well let's, we'll circle around to that in a minute. Let's, let's go back to the, the, the, the specific scenario that you just mentioned and that is the, uh, PR birth parents have had a history of addiction and a history of showing up to meetings, uh, impaired. So should you, uh, prepare the child for that possibility? Should you even tell the child that you're going for a visit or just wait until you get the, uh, the go ahead from the other parent or after you've had the phone call, whatever it is that the mechanism you've built in for you to determine how, uh, how impaired or if they are impaired. Um, should you even mention to the child, uh, beforehand because you've got the disappointment issue from the child's standpoint as well.

Speaker 4:

Exactly. And I think most of the families that I work with use the latter scenario. They, they wait until that sort of checkout, uh, has happened and, and know that the visitor's going forward before they advise the kids. Um, and some, some families are in a real routine. I mean, again, it's so, uh, situations specific cause uh, some families are in such a routine. The other thing is some families do visits where there's extended family. So it's maybe not just mom or dad, but it might be the grandparents from the birth family or, or you know, aunts and uncles, cousins, other people. In those scenarios, it's a little easier because you have a lot of people who are super excited, uh, to see that child. And so you can maybe, uh, have some time to work with that birth parent to, I don't know, extract them from the situation if it's, if it seems that they're inappropriate.

Speaker 3:

Well, you could also, you could also use extended family as an ally. Um, if, if this doesn't always work, it doesn't always work out this way, but you can use extended family as your ally by having a discussion with them that you don't think it's in the child's best interest. It's not in the birth parents best interest and invite them. Will you come to the meetings and help us determined, uh, in case in, in a situation where either a phone call or bringing both parents, if you're in a two parent family, uh, to determine ahead of time a grandparent or a sister, a birth grandparent or a birth sister, birth aunt or uncle may be able to come along and give you a heads up. Uh, and then the visit doesn't necessarily have to be canceled if the child can interact primarily with the, uh, extended family. Okay. Right,

Speaker 4:

right. Exactly. That's a really good point. And we, we do have a lot of families that, that utilize that structure and the extended family are their ally. You know, they, they do understand that, you know, this is really for the wellbeing of the child and, and hopefully for everybody involved. But you know, no one wants visits to go south. That's not good for anybody. So, so that is a good alternative as well.

Speaker 3:

Okay. So we've got a couple of different um, scenarios, a couple of different suggestions that you can use. One, let it be known in advance that your expectations are that they, a birth parent will show up a unimpaired, um, and then uh, either do a phone call, uh, with the birth or another idea phone call or have, if you're in a two parent family or you have a friend who can help, you can go to, uh, have one of the adults go and meet with the birth parent and make a decision on whether it's going to be a go, are you going to abort the meeting? So that's an idea. Another thought is that there are, uh, in most communities places that usually they, although they often work only within the or there they're primarily known as working within the foster care system where meetings can take place. And the expectation is that you go to the family place or whatever it's called the children's center or something for the meeting. But that can also be utilized with domestic infant adoption meetings and the staff there may be able to help give you a heads up that the birth parents have arrived there on time and a and the A and they seem to be okay. So that's another, another thing. And the last thing that you have suggested that would be to a co op for lack of better word, extended family members to uh, come with birth parents on these meetings, these uh, open adoption meetings. Uh, and, and hopefully they can help give you a heads up that the birth parent is doing well today or, or is not a question that we get from parents is the, the, the whole idea of are we, are we being an enabler if we continue to have open adoption meetings with birth parents who are impaired? And that's if, if you make the decision to go on with the meeting because the child is either young, are the birth parent is not interacting in such an obvious way that you think it would impact the child. But yet on some level, are you not enabling their behavior by not, it's setting up a consequence. It says if you show up stone, we're going to, we're not doing that right.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, and it, and my mind goes in five different places with that. I mean, I think fundamentally if there's not a consequence for behavior that is unacceptable, then in a sense you are enabling that. That being said, there are a lot of folks who really, um, whether or not they get to see their child, if they're deep enough in their addiction, that's not gonna Change, uh, how they behave. So the greater question I think, and you are speaking to this also is what's the child's experience of this going to be and is it more important for the child to have the experience of, you know, seeing this person or spending time with this person if it's not obviously dangerous or unsettling to them. Um, cause you can always go back to that parent afterward. Especially if you've got a young child where they're not necessarily gonna pick up on this and the, the parents not, you know, blatantly fallen all over the place. Um, but you know, just, you know, sort of more on the how to say this mildly high side, I guess where they're just, you know, well they're different degrees. Yeah. So we're all going with that is, you know, there's always a feedback loop opportunity to, and you know, to follow up with that parent and say, Hey, you know, it really seemed like you are under the influence at our last meeting. Uh, we didn't want to disappoint the child and we didn't want to disappoint you, so we went ahead with it because it seemed like a safe situation. But we are concerned as you know, our child gets older, um, that this could be something that could interfere with visits and we feel like we need to talk with you about that. So you may not in that moment decide to stop the visit if it, again, if it seems like a safe visit and that, you know, nobody's going to be harmed here. Um, but then circle back around and talk about that and why you're concerned about that for future meetings. Um, the other thing that we haven't really touched on, but I see a lot in the work that we do is there are lots of other ways to maintain a connection, um, with a birth parent or with birth family members, um, either aside from or in addition to visits. And a lot of the, um, contact plans that I see for folks that have, um, substance abuse issues include those other ideas. So for example, people might do a Skype visit or a facetime visit, um, which, you know, there's a lot of benefits in the sense that it's a lot less, you know, you're not driving somewhere to meet. There are a lot easier to schedule because you know, by nature they're generally shorter, but they're opportunities for your child, you know, to see that extended family, you know, that birth family member to have like, you know, a virtual interaction with them and to sort of maintain that this is a person in my life experience, you know, without some of these other things that we're talking about. And I think it's a good way, um, for people where it is tenuous, you know, if, if it seems like, you know, the visits not going well, it's a little easier to extract yourself, um, from that also, or to set up the boundary, we're going to do, you know, hey, let's do a 10 minute facetime, um, and see how that goes. And if, you know, that goes well, we can do more of those. Um, so you're kind of offering other opportunities. You can kind of do the phone the same way, but I don't think it has the same effect. But I think it's important for people to remember that, you know, having pictures around of important, extended family members is something we all generally do. Why not have pictures of birth family members available for your kids? You know, that kind of keeps their presence and the life. Um, but people still correspond as old fashioned people still write letters instead of birthday cards. So that's still exciting. I can tell you my girlfriend's five-year-old is still very excited when she gets a postcard in the mailbox. And so not virtually, but a real one, she can hold her hands. So, you know, I think those are other important things for people to think about incorporating, um, you know, into their effort to maintain this connection, um, for their child.

Speaker 3:

And you may have to be creative because a birth parent may not have a, are may not be consistently checking a, a snail mail mailbox. Um, but another idea is, is a closed Facebook where you're posting pictures, and again, they may not have a consistent access, but they might. Uh, but that's, you know, there is no ideal scenario, but you can maintain the spirit of openness even if you're not able to maintain openness itself. Uh, it can be, it's ultimately what you want is to be able to tell your child that you tried that, you know, given the, given the constraints that their birth mom or birth dad were working under. You did your best to try to honor and incorporate, incorporate them into, into the child's life and honor in commitment you made towards openness. Um, regardless of whether you adopt domestic infant, you know, through a birth parent relinquishment or whether you adopt foster. Exactly.

Speaker 4:

It's such a good point because we've, I mean, as you and I had talked about a little earlier, we hope that the child will know that through their experience, but that isn't always how it works out. And so we do want to, you know, do whatever we can to make this work. And the other thing is, you know, it will ebb and flow kind of like we were talking about earlier. You know, someone who's not in a good place now or for the next couple of years is not in a good place for contact. You know, whatever that contact looks like. May, you know, in eight years be in a better place for contact and that in eight years may also be more when your child needs that. Um, we many, many, many of our um, agreements that we help people develop, they start as adult to adult contact through an email address or some other non identifying, uh, intermediary, um, with an eye toward down the road when this, you know, lovely little baby or toddler has grown up into, um, certainly an equally lovely young person who has a lot of questions about where they came from. And that's, that's when those connections may really, um, really, really be important for your child. And so it, it, it's a long game, a strategy here for everybody to be thinking about. Even if something's not working well now how do we maintain a little bit of a connection so that towns a road, maybe it can blossom either because the child wants more or the birth parent has overcome their addiction or you know any number of things that will change between now and that, that future time.

Speaker 1:

[inaudible]

Speaker 2:

let me break for a moment and remind you that this show is underwritten by the jockey being family foundation. They have a national backpack program which provides newly adopted children with a backpack personalized with the child's initials and it contains a cute little bear and the really soft blanket. It also contains for the parents a tote bag of resources to help the parents navigate the parenting adoptive parenting journey. You need to ask your agency if they are a part of the backpack program and if not, ask them to join. It's super easy. They just go to the jockey being family.com a website and then click on the backpack program and they can sign up and it's totally free to the agency and to the family

Speaker 1:

like[inaudible].

Speaker 3:

You know, one of the things that, that addiction also presents, uh, I was going to say opportunity, but it's really not an opportunity is explaining drug addiction of the birth parents to the child at some point. Is that important or is that somehow a denigrating the, the birth parents in the child's eyes? Is it important to explain to the child that their parent, their birth parent, uh, is suffering from addiction? You

Speaker 4:

know, I th I think at some point in the child's life that's, that's going to be important for them to understand. Um, either because as a young child they're seeing that mommy or daddy, you know, seems different or acts different or does funny things. So you want to maybe, or they don't show up. Um, like we were talking about before and sometimes that's when you say to a child, you know, daddy has an illness that affects him very strongly and somehow, sometimes he's not able to do the things that, um, that he would like to do or that, you know, we would hope he could do. Or, you know, however you're going to phrase that to your child, but you're gonna do it in an age appropriate way. And I think one of the risks we run as adults is that, um, we, you know, we think a lot about why things are happening and what's happening and et Cetera, et cetera. And, and kids don't really operate in the world like that. And so it's important to, to gauge if your child's asking you what they're asking and answer their question but not necessarily go into a 20 minute explanation of, you know, the addiction cycle or, um, you know, as your child gets older. The other thing that's important is we know that, um, you know, if our parents have issues with addiction, that we are also, um, at risk for having issues with addiction. Yeah. When you're getting into the teenage years where experimentation and expo and all kinds of things happen, I think we're doing our kids a disservice if they don't understand that they may have a predisposition, um, for that type of problem. But to speak to your point about disparaging, you know, is that disparaging toward the birth parent? I think some of it is how you present it and the attitude with which you presented. Um, and also, you know, I think it's important to acknowledge that that could be any, anyone, anywhere at any time in some respects. I mean it's, it's a very prevalent problem in our society, um, certainly with what's going on with the opioids and people becoming addicted after surgeries or you know, after service in the military or any, any number of things where, um, perhaps if they hadn't had that experience, they would not have become addicted. So I think we need to be mindful that, um, that could come up anywhere and just, you know, see it as not a character flaw, but as something that this person is struggling with. Just like some people struggle with mental health issues and you know, some people struggle with anxiety. There's lots of things, um, that different people struggle with. And this just happens to be the struggle that your birth parent has. And we just want to, you know, be compassionate about the fact that they, they have that struggle.

Speaker 3:

Let's talk a little about a situation that can happen with or without addiction and that is birth parents either being late to a scheduled meeting or not showing up to the meeting. Absolutely devastating to children. Uh, you know, you can say, well, we just don't tell them in advance and that works up to a point. But as children age, it's the child, the child itself will feel like you're being deceptive to them by not, but not letting them know. So what do, what should parents do if a birth parent does it? It doesn't have to be a meeting. It could be for a, for a phone call or face time or Skype,

Speaker 4:

something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yes, exactly. Yes. Missing birthdays or, or you know, not sending a, a present at Christmas type of thing.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Well I think a lot of it sort of depends on your child and I think it's, it's important not to assume how they feel about it, but to check in with them about how they feel about it. And obviously in an age appropriate way. Um, you know, it's a really hard, hard question and I don't have a good answer because part of me feels like, well, you know, if people are missing visits then maybe future visits shouldn't be scheduled. And I see a lot of families go in that direction cause they don't want to disappoint their child. But that sort of then leads into this then they never see them and then that parent isn't available, um, for that child and the child potentially feels even more abandoned. So I think, you know, the harder road, but I think maybe the one that is more likely to get you the results that you're looking for if you're trying to keep this connection available for your child is, you know, to double down and reach out to that person and say, hey gosh, you know, Johnny was really disappointed when, when he wasn't able to see you the other day. And I'm hoping we can talk about what is preventing you from being able to come to the visits or being able to follow up with the phone calls so that we can make sure that Johnny, um, has these experiences and that you do. Too many people are willing to do things for their kids that they are unwilling to do for themselves. And in our work we definitely find that our best contact plans evolve when we keep the child at the center of the, you know, why we are doing this. And so, um, like I said, reaching out like that. Um, the other thing in there is, and we talked about this just a little bit before, is do you have a connection with extended birth family and is that someone that you might be able to draw hand so that if you know, birth mom or birth father is not able to be consistent, is there somebody else in the birth family that can be consistent for that child? Um, it's not a substitute for that birth parent contact, but it is some, another adult who loves and cares for that child who can show up on a consistent basis and, and hopefully help the child feel that connection, uh, to their family of origin, particularly, you know, as they get older and that, you know, has maybe a deeper meaning for them.

Speaker 3:

They have the to be able to go

Speaker 4:

back through the extended family and get either some of their answers, uh, their questions answered. But also it's a, a, it keeps, it's a gateway to be able to talk with birth parents if they are available years later. Cause we, we do have a lot of births and at least in our work and in foster care folks that fall off the radar for periods of time. So yeah.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible] yeah, that and that happens in domestic infant as well for any number of reasons. And sometimes it is addiction issues, but honestly, sometimes it's because the reality of open adoption is awfully painful for a mom or a dad who has relinquished a child and for their own mental health, they just back away for a while. And you're fortunate if you have a, a, a grandparent that you can maintain that contact with so that your child has that, uh, has that door that they can open later. Hopefully

Speaker 4:

you hit on an important point too. And it's something that we talk a lot, um, with our families about is the grief aspect to what's going on. Um, and in fact that grief of losing a child can fuel, uh, addiction tendencies. And so one of the things, you know what I'm talking about being compassionate with, you know, with this person who maybe is not living up to, you know, your expectations or what you hope they would be able to do is to say, Gosh, I putting myself in your situation. I think I would be in a lot of pain. How are you doing? Where are you getting support? You know, is there a place you could, you know, talk to a counselor about, you know, how sad and difficult this is. Um, because if people can get a handle on their grief, um, and find ways to, to, you know, to deal with that and work with that over the long haul, they're probably more likely to be able to follow through. Um, in terms of the contact with the child

Speaker 3:

and when before we get off of this, another situation that does come up is birth parents making promises that they don't then keep and they can be any number of things. It could be, you know, I'll make sure I'll, you know, I'll, I'll bring you a stuffed animal or I'll, I'll get you a happy meal, uh, for the next thing and then, then not honoring it. What about letting your, as your child gets older, um, well not remind when your children are younger, not reminding them and hopefully they don't remember the promise. But when your child gets older, uh, reducing their expectations by saying that a, it's not a reflection of love, but your, uh, your mom often doesn't follow through on the thing she promises so that they are lowering the expectations for the child or is that again, is that denigrating the birth parents?

Speaker 4:

I suspect the children will meet other people in their lives that do the same thing because you know, any, any one of us on any given day could very much intend to do that in the moment. And then in the days that follow, get caught up in, you know, all of the other things that are going on that, um, and then that sort of falls by the wayside. You know, I, I think it is really important to be conscious that we're not denigrating, you know, this other person who is, you know, central to how this child came to be on the planet in the first place, but in our family. Um, but the other thing is, you know, as, as parents, part of the job is to teach, you know, teach your children how do you deal with people who disappoint you? Like how do you deal with folks who maybe aren't that well, uh, put together. Um, and so you are demonstrating to your child how we deal in the world with people who aren't living up to what we would hope that they would do. So I think if you're, you're sharing with your child in a, in a loving way and in a respectful way, you know, sometimes, you know, maybe generalize it, even sometimes people intend to do things. And then for lots of reasons that don't have anything to do with us, they're not able to follow through. That's a good life lesson and it applies across, you know, not just birth parents but all kinds of folks that they're likely to run across. So, um, particularly with older, well with any child, they're going to know when you're not being truthful with them because there are little lots of things that kids pick up on that we as adults seem to have lost. And so I think it's really important to be honest with your kids, but honest in a gentle way, you just so that they don't, so they're, hopefully we're not exacerbating any negative feelings that they're already having about the situation.

Speaker 3:

Another thing you can do is help the birth parent, you know, if the birth parent has made a promise and said, look, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to stop and get you a happy meal before I meet you next time. Assuming that's okay with the adopted parents that, that the child isn't happy meal. Um, lots of, let's change it to a stuffed animal with Charlotte's going to be, I'm going to bring you a stuffed animal. You can help the birth parent by letting them know, don't forget, you promise Susie that you were going to bring a stuffed animal. Don't forget to stop at the, uh, at Walgreens. Uh, you know, they're, they've got, gotten pretty inexpensive there, so why don't you pick up something there. And if you can't find a stuffed animal, just pick up, uh, you know, go to the dollar store and pick up the toy. Um, and remind them ahead of time and then don't protect them. If, if, uh, Susie remembers and says to them, where's that, where's the tour? You were going to bring me, you know, let that consequent, let that be the con.

Speaker 4:

So that, that, so that they had a chance to make it happen. But if it doesn't happen, it's also, you know, part of, part of who, you know, your parent is. I think one of the things that is a benefit of having openness and, and having maintained these connections for kids over the course of time is they get to know who their birth parent is and what, you know, what their strengths are and also what their challenges are. Just like any whole person. There's a little bit of all of that in all of us. So I think that it is important for kids to have a realistic perspective because I think that, at least in the population of folks that I'm working with, the most kids wonder how they wound up in foster care. Well, if they have that experience of inconsistency or even failure to follow through at all, they start to understand why it is that social services got involved and why it is they weren't able to be raised in their family of origin. And then that's not something that you as their adoptive parent have to explain to them. It's something that they understand through their own experience, you know, and granted we want to protect kids and we don't want, you know, many of those harsh realities to, you know, to be part of their awareness. Um, but things like inconsistency and not following through on stuff, those are impactful for kids also. And it, and it gives a, gives them an insight into maybe why those folks aren't in a position to parent them.[inaudible]

Speaker 2:

and the same could be said with domestic infant children are going to be in a situation where they're, they will wonder why their parents chose not to parent them. Why they were on unable.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Yeah. And often, you know, and sometimes that was, you know, not just their maturity but their, their economic, uh, situation or their own extended family or social situation. And, and those things will now become clear over time.

Speaker 2:

Let me remind people that this show would not and could not happen without the generous support of our partners who believe in our mission of providing unbiased, accurate information to uh, adoptive and foster families. Two of our great partners, our Vista del Mar, they are a licensed nonprofit adoption agency with over 65 years of experience helping to create families. They offer home study only services as well as full service, infant adoption, international adoption and foster to adopt programs. You can get more information about them at their website, Vista del mar.org and we also have Spence Jason, they're an adoption agency in New York City and they are recruiting adoptive adults age 21 and older to serve as volunteer mentors for their adoption mentorship program. It is a phenomenal program and the mentors serve as a role model to encourage the mentees to, you know, ask questions, feel comfortable, um,

Speaker 3:

with their identities. And, and ultimately develop healthy self esteem. And not only do the mentors find it rewarding to engage with adopted youth. The truth is most mentors also grow in their own adoption or journey. The program only meets once a month during the school years. We need mentors that live in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. That really would be ideal. You can go to the Spence shapen a.org website to get more information about the mentorship program. It is, is really a terrific programs. So, so some of you, uh, older adoptees a sign up, we need you and this next generation of adoptees need you another situation that's not necessarily, it's not messing necessarily, but it's complicated for families is if they have more than one adopted child with different degrees of openness. Um, that's a hard one because if you've got a good rule, if your, uh, if one child has a good open adoption relationship with their birth parents and another child either has a really not a healthy one or a nonexistent relationship, how, how are adoptive parents?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that is an excellent question. And it's certainly something that comes up in our world quite often because folks of course are adopting their kids at different times. And all of those things that you just talked about, I think the bottom line is to, you know, to have the honest conversation with your child. It's in, you may want to do this in conjunction with that child in counseling with an adoption competent therapist, which is to just talk about, you know, how some folks just can't do some things. Um, it's a little bit like what we were just talking about, you know, with, um, you know, difficult behavior, um, you know, and understanding that a birth parent for whatever reason may not be a reliable person and may not be able to follow up. I mean, this is an extension of that, right? They're not able to be there for the child and, and we're all, we are all sad about that because we think that it would be valuable and great for the child, but like, sometimes it just doesn't work that way. And I think, you know, it's again one of those things that as a parent you're always, you don't want to have to do, but one of your responsibilities is, is helping your child learn to deal with disappointment or learn to deal with things not being the way that they would like it to be or that they see it. For other people there was, and I'm trying to remember what, where this study was, um, done, but they did talk with teenagers, um, and see situations like you described there. And one of the takeaways from that was that sometimes all of your kids in some of the activities with their siblings, birth parent can actually have a beneficial effect for those kids as well. Just having another adult, not obviously that's hopefully is a situation where that the birth parent of one of your child children is open to, you know, having more of a family style visit. Um, and you know, being a role model, being somebody that's connected to their child's sibling as well. It obviously works for some folks and might not work for others, but you can only do so much. There are things that, that as an adoptive parent, you're not going to be able to change. And I think it's just important to be, again, honest and compassionate, to seek some professional guidance. If you're in situations where you feel like you're not quite sure what's the right thing for your particular child in the situation so that you can get some help. Um, and addressing that.

Speaker 3:

What should parents do? Another, another situation that comes up is, and this could come up and a domestic infant adoption or it could come up and foster adoption and that is that the birth parent has another child that they are, that their, that they, that they either choose to parent or that does not removed. Uh, so there is a child that is being parented by the birth parents explaining that to your child.

Speaker 4:

That is very challenging. And, and some folks delay that conversation for a while depending on their kid's age, just because the reasons that that happens are generally a complex adult reasons don't have anything to do with the child. Right. And so sometimes delaying that conversation, um, until your child is more able to understand how things can be different for grownups.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. But that's not always an issue. But if, if the birth mom is pregnant and getting ready to have a baby and she for adoption, it's no, there's not any denying that. Okay.

Speaker 4:

And in those instances, and I'm not suggesting for everyone that delay in the conversation is the right answer either. Um, you may, again, just being, needing to have your child have some understanding of why it was that, um, birth mom was not able to care for them at the time. Um, you know, whether she was young, she had no support, however that's explained to a child and in terms they can understand, um, then you are letting your child know that, you know, mommy circumstances have changed. Then maybe you get the question, well, will I ever go back and live with mommy? And then of course the answer is no. You're always, you know, you're our child and you're always going to be with us. I think that, you know, I think that you sort of have to take your child's lead a little bit though on how that conversation goes. And again, I'm going to say I think getting some professional help, you know, that someone that can understand your child, you know, in their uniqueness and those family circumstances as they are, um, to get some guidance on that is always a good idea. There's not a, I don't think that there's a formula for that one. I think that it's really challenging,

Speaker 3:

especially if you see your child struggling and you are asking a lot of questions. That's because for some kids, they don't, they simply accepted, um, or there's an obvious reason she's married now or she's older or she has a house or she has an apartment or whatever and they just accept that she wasn't ready, uh, at eight. So it's not an, it's not a earth shattering thing for them. Uh, and they view the new child as, as a sibling. And so, you know, it's, it's simply not an issue. But for other kids it feels like a different form of rejection. And so being attuned to it I suppose is the, and if your child views it as a, a sense of rejection or abandonment, getting them help to let them work at work through, it was somebody who was in adoption company

Speaker 4:

visits at the birth mom I think engaging her and you know, how are we going to talk to Johnny about this in a way that's going to be supportive and is gonna minimize his, you know, disappointment or whatever confusion, whatever the, you know, the anticipated um, emotion is going to be, that could be helpful too because you know, you, I would hope that you as an adoptive parent and the, and the birth parent have the same goal of emotional wellbeing for your share child. And so that means that working together and being consistent in the messages that you're giving that child is important as well.

Speaker 3:

And as the, as the adoptive parents maybe up to you to bring that up to the parent and say, have you thought about how we're going to explain this to Johnny? Because it may be confusing to him in a brainstorm between the two of you. How best to, uh, how best to broach the subject in his hands.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. The, the last minute fumbling for words is not generally the best parents best parenting mode.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, no it isn't. Although that I find myself in that position more often than not. Well, let's talk about the, the probably the ultimate in the sticky situations that can happen in adoption. This one obviously more often happens and adoptions from foster care and that is, should you remain in contact of any form

Speaker 4:

with a birth parent who has abused a child had that. That is definitely a case by case. Um, scenario and I, I obviously am dealing a lot with, uh, situations where a child has come to harm either through the neglect by their birth parent or actually harmed by their birth parent or somebody. Their birth parent was, um, either living with her head, their child around. And I think that there are lots, well, I shouldn't say there are lots, there are ways to stay in touch with someone who's not safe to be around your child. Um, again, I go back to that adult to adult communication through a blind email, which we do a lot of agreements that have only that type of contact plan for because that's situation as much as any of them may leave the child with questions when they get older and they have a better understanding of sort of what led to them being in foster care. We have, uh, lots of kids who I'm thinking of, you know, kids who are old enough to remember what happened and then are removed before serious harm is done. They're in a foster family or an adoptive family. They're sometimes really not seeing their parent, but they still wonder if their parent thinks about them. Um, and I know many, many people who were, uh, abused by their parents as children, but who still love their parents and who still felt rejected when they weren't able to live with their parents even when that decision was made by somebody else. Um, so I do think in general it's important to at least make an effort to maintain that connection. But I think again, that would be a situation where you're having adults who adult communications in a way that protects confidentiality. And again, really with an eye toward down the road, what if your child needs answers and hopefully that birth parent might be in a different place down the road or maybe maybe they won't be. Um, but at least you would have an opportunity to, to maybe get some of those questions answered. And I'm not even necessarily thinking that the child would, at least during their childhood or adolescents have direct contact with that person necessarily, but just that that person might be available to answer questions through the adoptive parent or through a therapist. I've definitely had a couple situations where people maintained some contact and when a child was in therapy, um, with the permission of the adoptive parent, obviously, uh, the therapist got information from that birth parent in order to help facilitate some healing for the child. So you can go a lot of different directions, but some people do feel, and I would support them in this if they feel strongly that that person harmed this child that I love, that I'm going to adopt and I'm going to be parenting and I don't see value in maintaining that relationship. You know, I respect that. Um, as a parent you have to make, you know, the decisions that or are true to who you are and how you want to parent your child. Um, and that's sometimes that is one of those choices and it's a hard one, but I think it's one that you could also explain to your child down the road. Cause as you and I were talking about, ultimately it is in the end, it's your child that you're going to have to explain your choices too. And I think, you know, if you feel comfortable and confident in the decision that you're making as a parent that you know, you're with your 15 year old comes to you and says, why didn't you keep in touch with my dad? He's been in Folsom prison for the last 15 years. I just googled him or whatever. Um, you could say a lot of harm was done to you and we didn't feel he was a safe person and we didn't imagine that there was going to be anything that he could contribute to your wellbeing. Now we're in the future. And so we made that choice, you know, and then you go forward from there. Maybe the child says, okay, I see what you were doing and I understand that. And I didn't realize it was, you know, I don't remember. I was little so I didn't realize it was also bad. Or they say, well, can we maybe get some information or you know, find out if I have other siblings out there or find out if I still have a grandma or grandpa alive. So he'll just take it from there as a parent. Hmm.

Speaker 3:

You know, as we're, as we're talking about these messy and difficult, the open adoption can be, even, it can be, can be difficult. It often is difficult. Um, so why do we do it? I mean, if it's, if we're talking about all these difficult things that we have to deal with, why are we even doing it?

Speaker 4:

Becoming parents? Because being a parent is a messy and difficult job and it's certainly inconvenient and requires us to do things that we, you know, maybe don't even really want to do, but we do them because we love our kids. Right? I mean, that's, so even being a parent is a hard one. Um, but to speak to that, I think there's, you know, there's been an increasing body of research and um, and also just anecdotal information. If you talk with adults who were adopted in the fifties or sixties or I guess probably, you know, even into the 70s and you talk with young adults that were adopted old model of secrecy and not, maybe not even telling a child that they're adopted until they turn 18 or until quote unquote understand what that means. I mean, those, those ideas did not have good outcomes for a lot of people. And a lot of people struggled and suffered because of the secrecy. And they knew that there was something, but they didn't know what it was. And then they, you know, learned when they were 12 or 15 or 18 that they've been adopted and that shatters, you know, their sense of who they thought they were in the world and their family at a time when they're struggling with who they are in the world and then, you know, with their family. So I, I feel like the changes that we've seen over the last, you know, 30, 40 years have been important. And then some of the things that, um, uh, particularly I'm thinking of the, the Minnesota Texas research, that one juvenile study, yeah. That they, that they found is that really it has helped[inaudible] kids to know their history in, you know, in age appropriate ways. So I think as parents, the real question is, you know, what, what do you envision for your child? What do you believe will know, support their emotional wellbeing and their sense of wholeness and their sense of peace, you know, with their, with their story. If you believe that you know that that's important, you know, just like you would for any other challenge in parenting, you find a way to step up. You find people who will support your parenting decisions and you know, who will help you through the rough times and celebrate, um, the joyful times and the successes. And honestly, I really feel like parenting, it's always a crap shoot. You know, you, you choose one path and you've just closed the door on three other paths and you, you just have to trust, you know, trust your gut and trust your instinct and, and inform yourself. You know,

Speaker 3:

it helps. I think ultimately the research is indicated and in the Minnesota, Texas, uh, that goes by the m tarp and it's a longitudinal one, adopted people, adopted children for helping them develop a sense of who they are as a whole and to provide them with answers to just normal questions that children and people, adults have. That's why we try to maintain relationships with, even when it gets messy and sticky. We maintain relationships with our children's first families because it's in our kids' best interest. And our children may or may not, that many children do have questions. And as opposed to going through the, the trauma of a search and meeting people that you have no contact with and have never know nothing about growing up, knowing about your birth parents, take some of the mystery away and takes an allowance if you have a question that allows you simply to ask, go to the source and ask you, where did I get my curly hair from? And then you have straight hair. Well, you got it from your grandfather, you know, and uh, or you know, um, in any of the other things that, that children just naturally wonder. So it's, I mean, it's, it's, uh, so yes, it can be messy, but ultimately we do it because it's in the best interest of our children.

Speaker 4:

And I think, you know, dovetailing on that is the idea that for some kids that that connection may come later in their childhood. Perhaps you as the adoptive parent are maintaining that connection with extended family, with birth parents. And you know, whatever you're doing, you're sending updates and photos and you know, kind of exchanging information and your child grows up knowing that you, you know, you as the parent, you know, you got this, that you're, you're having these, uh, connections and they have pictures, they have pictures of people who look like them. So they feel kind of that integration between their families. But the other thing is that at the point, you know, if you're not doing visits early on at the point that that child may meet their birth family members who they're gonna meet, I believe, and I've had this experience who they're gonna meet are people who feel positively about the adoption and how that all, you know, transpired and has, how the child was raised in that, there was that connection. So they feel positively about, you know, having been included in that child's growing up. And so it's not like child, you know, meeting extended family member at 12 or 13 years old is hearing, but we never knew what happened to you. You know, we always wonder what happened to you. They hear, what they hear is, Gosh, you know, it's so great to see you in person. We've been watching you grow up through pictures and your mom and dad have always made sure we knew how you were doing and, and that's been so wonderful. We never worried about you. We always knew, you know, that things were going well for you and you had everything you needed. I mean it's, you know, for, for a child getting, having that experience with, you know, as they're getting introduced to their extended family. That's, that could be quite different than how it is in some other circumstances. So. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. Well, thank you so much Susan Yob with the consortium for children's permanency planning mediation program for being with us today to talk about the stickiness of open options. I truly appreciate it. The views expressed in this show are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of creating a family. Our partners, our underwriters, and keep in mind and the information given in this interview is general advice to understand how it applies to your specific situation. You need to work with your adoption professional and for people want more information on the consortium for children and on their permanency planning mediation. You can go to their website, consort for kids.org that is consort for kids.org

Speaker 5:

thanks for joining us today and I will see you next week.