[mommamia0405]

We recently adopted 2 of 3 in a sibling group ages 4,5,6. The oldest is now with his bio dad. All of the kids have different fathers but have always been together through all of their moving from home to home. We knew going into this that there was a possibility that we may or may not be adopting the oldest child but we spent time getting to know him too. What we are faced with now is we live in the same town as some of their bio family ( uncles, aunts, grandparents) Our 2 kids now 4 & 5 have been in and out of family and foster homes that did not want then for 4 years. Their moving stopped with us. We have had them in our home for 1 year and they are ours as of a few months ago. When they moved in with us they had so much emotional baggage to work through and they have come very far in their short time with us but my husband and I are faced with the decision of how to handle when we run into their bio family (who did not want them and are high drama) in public. In the past year neither of the kids have given the impression they remember any past family. In addition the older sib and his dad are living with some of the bio family. The bio family live a life style very different from us and have a lot of drama that we want to keep the kids away from. Our oldest goes to school with his brother and we for the first time we ran into a bio family member. My kids seemed to treat her like a stranger though she wanted to hug them. Since this accidental meeting my son has had some hard set backs. The nightmares are back, he's defiant, having screaming behaviors. I really feel for the oldest sib that we were not able to adopt and I would like for our kids to have more contact with him but not at the expence of their emotional health. We are so confused at what is the right thing to do. I have come to realize that being a parent means that you never know if you have the right answer. Any support or comments are welcome

[sunshinemomma]

I would really try to have some very limited contact/vists with the bio brother. Even if it is once or twice a year. Take pictures and let your kids know that he didn't just go away.

We disrupted with my daughter's older {14months older} brother. We adopted them both as older children 6 & 7. We have had to fight our way through nightmare SW, a foster Mom that made visits horrendous and now that he is in a preadoptive home we are finally having wonderful visits.

We only did visits at a local school playground for the first almost 2 yrs. We met there, brought a snack, let the kids play {I even brought newspapers for the foster mom and I so we didn't have to speak} for an hour or so and then went home. We didn't engage with them otherwise.
It was very difficult but it is so worth it for my daughter. she knows that I will do everything in my power including taking on the gov't to make it possible for her to maintain contact. I will also do everything in my power to show/teach her how to put up boundaries with unhealthy people {they are her bio family forever whether I like them or not} and what valuable time to help her learn to navigate the relationships. Sometimes that means not seeing people for lengthy periods of time but there are still there.

having said all of that, I wouldn't keep them in the same school. We had that situation for a few months and it was not healthy in our situation.