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Originally Posted by Dickons
ask to have the birth family meet at Sears and get the pictures taken, wish them a merry christmas, enjoy the holidays ....
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You absolutely can't do this. You cannot schedule an unauthorized visit, it is breaking some kind of law and could get the children removed from your care and you charged with a crime, perhaps endangerment, in addition to violating court orders.
Here's my thought: Do you shop regularly at Walmart? Easy enough to get a cheap cheap promo package there. You go in for the special and stop at the special, no extras. They're often pretty good...when DD1 was little, I tried joined of the kids' photo places and tried both Sears and Walmart, and y'know what? Maybe it was my lucky day, but the WM pix were the best. Going to a private photographer you know by name and work can be worth the price, I think (I'd pay it if I had it for a couple of photographers I know), but Sears, Olan Mills, kids' photo places, etc., you don't know who they've hired or whether the pix will be any good. It's all a gamble, you might as well go for the cheaper easier one, I think.
Holiday time they may be scheduling, IDK, or it may be walk in as it usually is...anyway, I'm thinking it is probably far too late to schedule a portrait at a place like Sears anyway. I'm curious, though, did the mother offer to pay for the portraits? Did she choose a package and try to give you a check?
FD is grade-school age, so we send school pix to her first parents and her first mother's family (we are the first father's family). Maternal grandma isn't always happy with the school pix, but it is what we can afford. I don't have pro shots of my kids since DD1 was little (she's 17 now). So, oh well.
IDK if I'm allowed to go here on this thread, but since it seems intertwined--Where do you draw the line? The safety--broadly interpreted--of the child is paramount. Personally, if social services wants or for some legal reason has to do something that I think endangers the child, I put it to them to do that, I won't. So, you draw the line at requests/demands that harm the child. Next, you draw the line at breaking the law and trashing a court-ordered case plan. Accommodating requests/demands that harm the child, supercede our authority, contravene a case plan, etc.--even if the harm is the stress of being yanked hither and yon like an object and having your household and personal routine in an uproar--is not, in my opinion, supporting RU--it is undermining it by enabling the same kind of dysfunctional approach to life that led to the removal.
It's got nothing to do with judging the parents or having compassion for them. Compassion doesn't equal enabling, setting boundaries doesn't equal calling someone "bad." Everyone is worthy of compassion, some effort at understanding, and constructive help. And sometimes the kindest, most useful, most respectful thing to say is "no."
What I've gotten from your posts is the feeling that it doesn't feel like parenting that is being asserted, it feels more like codependent controlling of an object called "my child." And you feel sucked into a struggle not really of your making or desire--one that enables the mother to avoid dealing with what she really needs to do to make RU safe. It's jangling your spirit and throwing you off focus--that is how manipulation works...in the midst of it, you feel as if you are the odd one out, not understanding or sometimes feeling led to go along, and then, when you get some time and space, you think, "hey, now wait just a minute...." That is why it is best for things to go through the cw. Family RU is her business, her agenda and her caseplan--and if she has any time on the job, her radar picks this stuff up with a healthy sense of caring detachment. We, on the other hand, I think best support RU by being the best foster
parent we can be.