What You Need to Know About Open Adoption

Are you confused about having an open adoption? Do you worry about what this means for your family? Join us for this discussion with Sara Easterly, an adoptee, Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, a birth parent, and Lori Holden, an adoptive parent. In addition to co-authoring the book Adoption Unfiltered, they host a podcast of the same name.

In this episode on open adoption, we cover:

What is meant by the term “open adoption”?
Contact vs. openness
What open adoption is not:
- Co-parenting
- A courtesy to birth parents
- Confusing to the kids
- About/for the parents
What are some of the challenges of open adoption from the birth parents’ perspective?
- Lack of understanding of what it means when they place their child.
- Renewed pain after each contact
- Two vs. one
- Lack of power
- Fear
What are some of the challenges from the adoptive parents’ perspective?
What are some of the challenges from the adoptee’s standpoint?
What are some of the benefits of open adoption from the adoptee’s perspective?
What are some benefits from the birth parent’s perspective?
What are some of the benefits for adoptive parents?
How to establish healthy boundaries with an open adoption, including both ways.
- Examples of healthy boundaries from the adoptive parents’ perspective.
- Examples of healthy boundaries from the birth parents’ perspective.
- Examples of healthy boundaries from the adoptee standpoint.
- Keys to establishing healthy boundaries.
How do you handle “openness” when birth parents are unreliable?
How to maintain an attitude of openness or the spirit of openness without contact.
Importance of birth siblings. How the existence of children that the birth parents are parenting affects adopted children.
Allow space for change and growth on all sides of the adoption constellation: birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees.