Contact with bio family

[LastingLight]

I would really appreciate if other adoptive parents could look at my thread here and comment from the pov of contact with bio family. Thanks.

OMG - this is excessive contact - surely. The grandparents chose to move away - how can you be expected to keep this up? What would be your preference?

I think the ball should be firmly in bio grandparents courts - and they should be mindful of you.

This sort of thing always scared me off having direct contact with birth family. Have you rung your LA's adoption team for their view/support?

And what does your 11 year old dd want to do? Is the agreement for contact governed by a European law or another law? I mean - do you live in Europe or somewhere else in the world?

If your DD is indifferent/doesn't want as much contact - could you use this as your bargaining chip?

Good lord - you are amazing to agree to all this contact. In the UK, if there was direct contact with family - it would be once or twice a year for a few hours each time...

Really feel for you.

It's madness! If it isn't in your child's best interests how can they enforce it?

Is the plane ride across a border or within sa?

The problem is that "the child's best interest" is a nebulous concept. It's also hard to prove the things we have issues with as DD might not tell a stranger about the things that granny has done.

The plane ride is internal. We wouldn't let her cross borders on her own, but she handled flying by herself great. That is the least of our worries.

It sounds like a lot, but I guess from their side it's not nearly enough. Was the BM their only child / only daughter? Do they have any other grandchildren?