Open Adoption: How Open is Open?
What is an open adoption and how can adoptive parents navigate forming a relationship with their child’s first family. Micky Duxbury, adoptive mother and author of Making Room in Our Hearts: Keeping Family Ties Through Open Adoption, and Patricia Dischler, a birth mom and author of Because I Loved You: A Birthmother’s View of Open Adoption, talk about creating healthy open adoption.
Hit the Highlights
- What does the birth mother feel during an initial meeting with the adoptive parents?
- What to do when the birth mother/birth family is not a good influence on the child?
- What to do when the birth mother wants to meet with the child and the adoptive parents aren’t ready?
- How do open adoptions work in international adoptions?
- What to do when the birth mother asks for money?
- How to establish boundaries between adoptive families and birth families?
- What to do when the birth mother disrupts the bond with the adoptive parents?
- When is the best time to have an open relationship?
- How does openness work with birth siblings?
- How can parents deal with different degrees of openness within an adoptive family?
- Where can people get help to navigate the birth family/adoptive family relationship?