[marigold]

I have a question for you guys. I live in Illinois, and am currently in a very long process of adoption my two older sons. DUe to the fact that they are both special needs adoptions, the paper work is taking a while. They have been with me for two and a half years and parental rights have been terminated/surrendered for over four months. Their case was one of significant abuse and neglect. My oldest one has a very toxic relationship with anything of his past, so he has decided to change his whole name. They encouraged us to start this process mnths ago, so we did. He and I picked a new name that he is very proud of. However, then they told us he can't use it at all not even at home, he can only learn to spell it!?! He hates this!! It is going very rough right now because he wants to use his name at school but can't and he gets angry when adults use his name. I beged his agency to let us use the new name like a nickname, not offically, and even though every one was on his side (caseworker, CASA, family therapist, other therapist...) the supervisor said no. When I finally got through to her in person, she told me that it was a state rule that no one was allowed to use another name for a foster child untill the adoption is official. I am just so confused on this. She is a private agency supervisor. I adopted my other son from DCFS and my adoption worker encouraged me to change his name on everything months prior to adoption. So how is it a law? I understand not alowing it while parents have rights or if the parent is not a viable adoptive resourse, but I am not in either of these cases. I have never wavered on my feelings of total commitment and love of these boys and bio mom even did a direct surrender to me. I guess if it was just somthing I wanted to do I could see why we could wait but with a boy with PTSD and RAD whose very name is a trigger why wait. So after my very very long rant!! My question is, does any one have something I can show this supervisor to disprove her belief that this is a law, or does anyone have a good idea who I can write or call to get an official answer to this? I don't like going over peoples heads but I think she just sees this as a name, where he sees it as a definition of who he was. Thanks for reading. I get a little chatty! I'm sorry. Also sorry for any spelling mistakes, I am tired and frustrated!

[birdiebabee]

That's weird to me. Our kiddos' caseworker recommended MONTHS ago that if we adopt them to change their names. Their case is of severe neglect, abuse, fatality of a sibling in the past, and near fatality of a sibling when removed and she feels a new name will give them a great new start. She asked us a few weeks ago if we came up with names and asked what they were. Completely off the record she was just curious. She said as SOON as TPR is granted we can start introducing their names to them and can call them what we want at that point. I can't wait to find out about TPR because I'm curious to see how the kids will feel about new names. I know the oldest will be ok with it because she HATES her name. We already have names picked up but obciously will let them (older ones anyways) have a say so in it. Actually maybe just the oldest. If we left it up to them the 5 year old will be "Bumblebee" (transformers) and the 3 year old will be "Spiderman" and the 2 year old will be "Ming Ming" (wonder pets). LoL. Off topic but I found it very hard to find names. My husband and I are still not 100% sure on one of the boys and one of the girls. I think when you're pregnant you can pick whatever and the baby will become that name. When the kiddos are already here it's hard to find a name that fits them. Does that make sense? Kind of like "Well he doesn't look like a Charlie" Things like that! I also rant alot and am exhausted. I hope you find some answers. It's sad really that you can't use the new name ESPECIALLY if your son wants it. How old is he? Our 9 year old requested we say her name differently. Everyone refers to her as the way they say it in spanish and when moved in with us she asked us to say it like you would in English. I asked the CW and she said to call her whatever we want. I don't understand if it's what HE wants why can't you? Also like you said....it can be a nickname. We call our kiddos 'tink tink' (long story) another 'Maymer' (another long story), 'germ' (not what it sounds like :-) 'bubby', and our little girl 'Miss marimonster'. What's the difference between these nicknames and using his new name as a nickname??? No one has told us we can't use nicknames for them. It's so silly something as a name can cause so much drama! I know greenrobin had a similar issue with the teacher refusing to use the new name until adoption. It's so ridiculous what people with power do. This is SUPPOSED to be what's best for the kids!

[Chancey]

In Texas we had to have an attorney during our adoption process and if this had happened with me, I would have gone straight to the attorney and have her handle it.

Our son decided he wanted to change his whole name -- first middle and last and it was not a problem. Although we could not legally change his name on the school records until adoption, I spoke to his counselor at school about it and from day one he instructed all his teacher's to call him by his new name -- even though his paperwork was completely different.

[BZmom7]

We're in Central IL and soon after our foster children were TPR'd we found an atty. that did fostercare adoptions. Because we thought they would be adopted within a yr (which took much longer)...our atty. went in front of a judge to get an order saying that our "soon to be adopted" son could use what would be his NEW NAME to reg. at school and learn how to spell his new name. The court order only covered school (which I took with me to reg. him)....so with doctors appts. and such....they still used his birth name, which did become confusing to him a little, but he was fine. By the following year when his little sister started school, they were adopted, so we didn't have to get another order for her.

Good Luck.

[marigold]

Thanks for the responses, I didn't think of calling my lawyer yet, but maybe I will try. I have a nice one from when I adopted my first son, but he is going to be pulling his hair out on this one because he likes for everything to be detailed, and when you have two special needs boy that is a lot of detailing!