My last blogs talked about children’s experience of open adoption and possible advantages of a meeting between the child and birth family members.
Counselors and social workers familiar with adoption issues can provide invaluable help in preparing for and dealing with such a reunion.
Adoption workers may help birth and adoptive parents share and manage expectations, and help them process their own adoption issues so that they can be focused on the needs of the child. For one birthfather, these sessions covered the circumstances of his daughter’s birth and adoption, his feelings for her then and now, his relationship with the birth mother, the coping mechanisms he had used during the years of no contact.
Often, the way is paved by correspondence first—between the adoptive parents and birth family, and later from the birthparent to the adoptee. Adoptive parents also may meet with birth parents and begin to develop a relationship before deciding whether and at what time a meeting would benefit their child.
Adoption workers Kathleen Silber and Patricia Martinez Dorner write in their book, Children of Open Adoption and their Families :
“It is important that adoptive parents facilitate meetings which include the child only when they feel comfortable. This too is a component of entitlement. However, our consistent message is to tell the truth about the identity of the birthparent whenever a meeting takes place.”
A therapist experienced in adoption may also do a play therapy session (for a young child) or a counseling session to help determine the child’s readiness for a direct meeting with birth family.
Many counselors suggest that the adoptive family and child use the birthparent’s first name. I can see where this would be less confusing than “Mommy Jane”, which I’ve heard of some adopted children calling their birth mothers. However, the relationship should be explained, not hidden. Children should be told that this is the birth mother who carried them in her tummy.
The day of the meeting, time should be spent with both adoptive family and the birth family separately to discuss their expectations, fantasies and hopes for the relationship, concerns about the relationship. It should be clearly explained to younger children that they will go home with their adoptive parents after the meeting.
Counselors help ease fears and provide comfort for the parties before the meeting and at the beginning of the meeting. When the meeting involves a school-age adoptee meeting a birthparent for the first time, often an adoption professional will stay throughout the meeting, to provide support for the child, to assess the child’s comfort level and to intervene if necessary. (Adoptive parents also are nearly always present when the child meets the birth family.)
Parents should not assume that a preverbal child is unaware of what is being talked about. They should continue to explain the child’s relationship to birth parents and permanency in adoptive family.
There should not be a lot of physical contact between the child and the birth family unless the child initiates it.
Birth relatives must realize that they have given up their parenting role and should not interfere in discipline anymore than they would interfere with relatives’ or friends’ children.
After the meeting, some processing of the information and feelings expressed during the meeting is very helpful. This is done with the birth family and adoptive family separately.
Something recommended after birth country visits seems to me to apply here too: adoptive parents should plan a family tradition soon after the meeting with birth family, to affirm the child’s presence in the adoptive family. This could be an extended family reunion or a special meal or ritual within the immediate household that family members share as a special time.
This blog is intended to give birth parents, and especially adoptive parents, information about the services adoption professionals can offer regarding a reunion, and to pass on tips that professionals have found useful. Some tips are from Children of Open Adoption, some from other books and conferences I’ve experienced over the years.
Of course I realize that each family situation is unique. The above model is intended to be a starting point for a reunion plan, not a prescription. I’m also interested in hearing reader’s own stories—if you have a comment to share with us, please do.
Please also see these related blogs:
Love You Forever–Reassuring Your Adopted Child
The Relationship with a Child’s Birth Family