Dilemma
As some of you know, I've been working on a life book for K.
Life books are not scrapbooks--they are a record of a foster/adoptee's life, made to honor that child and fill in some of the "blanks". The pages of a life book are usually in chronological order beginning with the birth of the child. A simple narrative includes information about birth parents and reason for leaving them, as well as the cool part of when the child first joined her "forever family".
My hope is that the book will help her to make some sense of some of the things that happened to her in the first few years of her life. K. loves to hear the story of how our social worker thought of me and of Mark as a good fit for K. She also voices questions about the day that she and two siblings were removed from her birth mother's apartment. I've read the files, and I've been able to give her simple but honest answers about that day.
But there are a lot of things we DON'T have. In particular, I have no baby pictures of K. and no pictures of her bio-mother or bio-father. But I've heard from one of K.'s former foster moms that one of K.' s aunts has loads of baby pictures.
Most of K.'s birth family is local. During a particularly tough stretch with K. we unexpectedly met Aunt D., older sister to K.'s bio-mom. K. was pretty fragile around this time, and the therapist advised that we should be very careful in deciding when/if it would be healthy for K. to visit with this aunt. We are considering a visit in a neutral, public place, where we could have some control over the whole thing. I believe that the aunt could be appropriate with K., but I also worry that a visit might torpedo some of the good progress K. has made. According to the SRS file notes Aunt D. has made some very inappropriate comments to K. and also sabotaged at least two of her foster placements.
K.'s biological family is a fact of life, and we don't want to ignore them. But our daughter rarely, if ever mentions this part of her family. She does mention her sister from time to time, and I believe we have honored that bond with visits and phone calls. The social workers tell me that this is our decision--if we want to have birth family contact, fine. If not, that's OK. Recently Aunt D. saw our social worker at function for one of K.'s siblings, and she grilled the social worker about arranging a visit with K.
The social worker suggested a quid-pro-quo...we allow a visit but in return get some of K.'s baby pictures. I could even SCAN and re-print them if the aunt is reluctant to part with them for any reason. I'm hoping that this aunt can be reasonable and put K.'s needs before her own.
Life books are not scrapbooks--they are a record of a foster/adoptee's life, made to honor that child and fill in some of the "blanks". The pages of a life book are usually in chronological order beginning with the birth of the child. A simple narrative includes information about birth parents and reason for leaving them, as well as the cool part of when the child first joined her "forever family".
My hope is that the book will help her to make some sense of some of the things that happened to her in the first few years of her life. K. loves to hear the story of how our social worker thought of me and of Mark as a good fit for K. She also voices questions about the day that she and two siblings were removed from her birth mother's apartment. I've read the files, and I've been able to give her simple but honest answers about that day.
But there are a lot of things we DON'T have. In particular, I have no baby pictures of K. and no pictures of her bio-mother or bio-father. But I've heard from one of K.'s former foster moms that one of K.' s aunts has loads of baby pictures.
Most of K.'s birth family is local. During a particularly tough stretch with K. we unexpectedly met Aunt D., older sister to K.'s bio-mom. K. was pretty fragile around this time, and the therapist advised that we should be very careful in deciding when/if it would be healthy for K. to visit with this aunt. We are considering a visit in a neutral, public place, where we could have some control over the whole thing. I believe that the aunt could be appropriate with K., but I also worry that a visit might torpedo some of the good progress K. has made. According to the SRS file notes Aunt D. has made some very inappropriate comments to K. and also sabotaged at least two of her foster placements.
K.'s biological family is a fact of life, and we don't want to ignore them. But our daughter rarely, if ever mentions this part of her family. She does mention her sister from time to time, and I believe we have honored that bond with visits and phone calls. The social workers tell me that this is our decision--if we want to have birth family contact, fine. If not, that's OK. Recently Aunt D. saw our social worker at function for one of K.'s siblings, and she grilled the social worker about arranging a visit with K.
The social worker suggested a quid-pro-quo...we allow a visit but in return get some of K.'s baby pictures. I could even SCAN and re-print them if the aunt is reluctant to part with them for any reason. I'm hoping that this aunt can be reasonable and put K.'s needs before her own.
posted by vern at
12:51 PM
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