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What an odd story to link to. 8 years old, Daily Mail and inaccurate. There are better sources of information on adoption!

I was told, by Birmingham Children’s Trust, that children sometimes have contact with grandparents. Then, when I saw this article, it reminded me of our conversation.

better to have a realistic idea of the possibilities!

It sounds as if you’re at the very early stages of adoption but tbh I wouldn’t rely on on 8 year old Daily Fail articles to inform or educate. Must have taken some digging to find such a facile argument for and against. Seems the gist of the article was prejudice against birth names rather than anything else.

Anyway. Some children have contact. Some don’t. It’s not unusual for children to have ongoing indirect contact with birth family members but it’s done via social services so there aren’t any exchange of addresses. Either way.

Whether it’s disruptive, unfair etc will depend on the individual child and their circumstances. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do, other times it’s not.

Flexibility - as in all things adoption

I don't know any adoptive family who has direct contact to birth parents (though I know they exist). We have direct contact to birth siblings a few times a year. Annual letterbox is common and can be very helpful.

I am very glad we have direct contact to my kids' siblings. It is incredibly helpful for my children's sense of identity, for their understanding of their history and the reasons for their adoption. Direct contact might sound scary, but I have friends who wished they knew as much about their children's background as we do and had someone they could ask about what happened. For my children it has been very stabilising. The sibling relationships are very positive for all of them.

Contact with siblings/relatives sounds good. I was thinking it could also be contact with the birth mum as well, which would seem strange. Also, the fact that letters go through the council (so relatives couldn't turn up on my doorstep) is reassuring.

Thanks all x

we have direct contact with birth dad and a brother.

Letterbox is very often with the birth mother or father. But it is supposed to be between the adults anyway.

Why do you think it would be strange to have contact with birth mother?

Hi Maguire,

Thanks for getting in touch on our Forum. Contact can come in a number of different forms. If you decide to adopt, there will be a point in your journey where you will work with your social worker to find the best form of contact for your family and your child.

Letterbox contact is usually via a letterbox service - so you write and send a letter to the birth family member and they receive this letter from the service (not sharing your address details and likewise not sharing address details of the birth family with you).

Best wishes,

Charlotte

Contact via Letter box is fine. II thought it would be odd being in touch with the birth mum in person. Even by Letterbox, it would be weird if the birth mum was saying she is missing the child. I suppose it'd be natural though. Or maybe the letters aren't like that?

It would be great to hear from adopters on whether letter box contact this is something that has proven to be really beneficial for their child over the years.

We also welcome any examples of where it has caused problems, the impact of those problems and how that has been managed.

We joined this network because we love the honesty which which people share their stories and wanted to know more about the realities of adoption before taking that next step.

Thank you

As I’ve said, you’re very early in the process and focusing on what might or might not be the case with contact isn’t really helpful at this stage. Social workers will put the needs of the child first so contact can vary.

What research have you done on the wider aspects? The sorts of children in the care system. What sort of additional needs do you feel you can cope with? Have you thought about employment post placement? Finances. Presumably, as you’re looking for 0-2 you’ll be in a position to take at least 12 months adoption leave? What’s your support network like? If you’re planning on returning to work - part time, full time - how will you manage childcare, bearing in mind that not all children cope with child care. How flexible will your employers be? You’re about to move into a new property. Presumably you know the area, the facilities, etc?

Read. Research. Talk to other adopters. Understand the big picture about adoption, about adopted children. And bear in mind ... younger doesn’t necessarily mean easier! There’s a wide spectrum of issues, diagnoses that children present with!

Unfortunately there is no one answer to letter box. You will get people saying they read the letters to their children and the children find it helpful - or not. Other will say they don't read it to their children and for their children that is good. Other parents, in hindsight, might wish they had read the letter to their children - or be glad they didn't. Some adoptive parents will tell you they find letterbox very helpful, others will tell you they find it very hard. Some get letters back, some don't. Some get letters back for a few years and then not any more. Some get very helpful letters back, others get letters that make them angry or sad. This is all highly individual.

Letterbox is usually once a year. Most people write about 1-2 pages about how their children are doing. Birth parents' letters vary very much depending on the situation of the birth parent: Are they well enough to write at all? Do they struggle with writing in general? Do they have help writing the letter? How do they feel about the adoption? How long ago is the adoption? What is their current situation? etc. etc.

It is different for every family and in every year. Just keep in mind that it is a long term project. So your child might find those letters helpful when they are 10, 18, 25, 40, 60 or never.

We found it very helpful when the family still wrote back. That is no longer the case, which saddens my children, but they are old enough to understand some of the possible reasons.

We have yearly face to face contact with siblings and birth mother. Overall this has been positive for our little boy.

I write from the perspective of an experienced adopter (11 years in, so that’s got to count for something!) who has zero contact - be it direct or indirect - with the birth family of my eldest child, now 12, and regular direct, unsupervised contact with the birth mother of my second child, who is four. With the benefit of all my training, learning, reading and simply being in an adoptive family, I would proffer that my preference is for the relationship that I/we have with my younger child’s birth mother.

In my opinion, the positives far outweigh the negatives (so far). For example, I have direct access to my younger child’s family medical history because I can simply ask birth mum. You may think this is a non-issue but my elder daughter had to have major surgery at a very young age and no one could establish if there was a family history of difficulties with general anaesthesia. Ditto, she is now registered blind, having lost her sight very suddenly, and no one could tell me if there was a genetic link to her vision impairment.
With regards to my second adoptive daughter, I know that she is a super-speedy runner (seriously, she is FAST) because birth mum used to beat her classmates and year group at the PE bleep tests when she was at school). Equally, I know to avoid feeding her fish, because birth father has a life-threatening allergy.
And, you know what, I find birth mum really likeable and enjoy hanging out with her on the occasions that we do meet. Without wishing to go into the detail of my daughter’s case, birth mum was just as much a victim of horrible circumstances (and poverty, and generations of neglect and abuse). It’s a thorny subject, but the more time I inhabit Planet Adoption, the more I can appreciate that birth parents are not necessarily the bogeymen and women we fear them to be in the early days of building our families.