Should I continue with letterbox

[Muminabun]

I wrote a settling in letter to both BP and then did the yearly letter. No response. I have not told LO as I don’t want her to feel rejected. She is angry and negative about BP. I don’t encourage this, I try to be balanced but I completely understand her feelings of hurt and rejection by them. It has occurred to me that continuing with letterbox when there is no reply is giving them an opportunity to reject her every year and that this is not best for my child and her self esteem. Me and DH have talked about giving them three chances and in the third letter outlining as kindly as possible our reasons for not writing unless there is contact. Can I have your thoughts on this please. I don’t understand as my gut feeling is that they did love her and if they did would they not grab at any opportunity to have even the smallest scrap of indirect contact? She has been through enough and I want to protect her.

We've been in your shoes. We wrote a couple of letters with no response and were advised by SW to give up. A few years down the line and we're trying to re-establish contact because a now older DD1 is keen for it to happen.

I don't think it's straightforward. I get your feelings and wanting to protect your DD from more rejection, but in the shoes of a birth parent, it may just be too painful. I would be asking SW what support the birth parents are being given to respond and trying to get that built up before you consider stopping the letters.

Are you sure the BP has got the letter. I understand you want to protect your AC but often BPs either don't get the letter or not offered support to write anything.

Letterbox is between APs and BPs, not the child - it is an important principle because it protects the child from rejection, torn loyalties etc.

Personally I would do a fairly bland letter once a year, because that's what you agreed to. No need to involve LO. Obviously, if they ask when they are older then that's a different conversation.

Whether BP write back or not, you have done your best to maintain a channel of communication. And that's all you can do. Don't expect an answer. If there is anything I have learnt over the past 10 years of adoption, it is to detach myself from other people's decisions and actions.

i would continue the letter box contact on behalf of your little one. She doesn’t need to know if you feel the rejection too difficult. She may ask you one day why there is no contact and it would be better for her to know that you tried but birth parents weren’t able to write back for whatever reason. You don’t want to be thy e reason why it has stopped. One day they may respond. Plus it may mean the world to them.

Thank you so much for your replies. The birth parents have both been offered help to write back by the letterbox coordinator. I have met the coordinator and she is nice and I think she would genuinely try to help them write back. The birth mum did confirm to the sw that she received the letter and was apparently positive to have the news. Allington I appreciate it is between the bp and ap but the information is about the child, if that makes sense. It is my daughters information that I am sharing and I know some children have resented this when older that they did not have a say in the information about them going back to the bp. I don’t want to pass information to the bp about my daughter without her knowing and also continue to do so with no response. I am not sure how my daughter could not feel aRejection there. I have no issue with breaking the agreement if it is best for my daughter. I suppose I am trying to see any good in letterbox if there is no response. I really I would like a really nice letter from both of them once a year to enable my daughter to know she was loved and wanted and still in their thoughts. After all she has been through I would love it if they could find it in their hearts to do that for her but perhaps I am being naive.

Many thanks Sarah, I am thinking of doing it for three years and then stopping if no response and explaining the reasons why and if they want to pick it up again in the future and engage with letterbox then I will continue and write back if DD agrees. That way my daughter can see that we did everything possible for her to have some kind of contact for her.

I agree with sending a very bland letter for the next few years, disclosing as little as possible about your DD. By then she may be old enough that you can act upon her wishes and stop. She is entitled to confidentiality.

Don’t discuss any of this with DD unless she asks.

I believe our annual letter to BM is part of our court agreement, done it for 10 years, will do it for 4 more until DD is 16. We had 2 replies in early days but nothing for years. Now we do not tell DD we are writing a letter or mention no response. However we will know that we did our best to maintain the contact and kept to our part of it.

The birth parent isn't ignoring letters because she 'didn't love' the child that you adopted. She did something incredibly difficult (or had something incredibly difficult thrust upon her because of her own addiction or mental health issues, possibly) and her complicated feelings and reasons for responding or not responding do not mean that she is cold or uncaring. It's unhealthy for your child and incredibly unkind and thoughtless towards your child's birth parent(s) to view it in that way. I worked with birth parents in a mental health setting for a long time and I can remember so vividly one woman who had to ask for letterbox contact to be stopped because it sent her into a spiral of shame and unhappiness and (usually) a relapse of her addiction to see pictures and hear updates of the child she lost. She craved the updates but they destroyed her. I'm imagining this woman, or someone like her, on the other end of your situation and my heart breaks for her. Try to have some level of compassion for the person whose loss was your gain, and try to instill that in your child, as well.

Thanks Jizelle. As I said above I don’t know the birth parents or how they feel as I have never had contact with them. My gut instinct is that they did love her but I don’t know that and with respect neither do you. Some birth parents do not love the children they abused and neglected. I don’t know if the birth parents are cold and uncaring, perhaps they are. It would not be honest to view them only in a positive light when this is not the reality. The women you speak of ultimately put herself first again when she cut off contact. She put her own needs above the child again. For whatever reason. Adopters and adopted children are not responsible for the birth parents, we don’t owe them anything. So many adopters and adopted children struggle day in day out with behaviours based on the appalling and unfair treatment that these precious children have had to endure, some things like FASD will never go away. Developmental trauma can also be lifelong and enduring. Try to have some level of compassion for adoptive parents who have come to a process through their own loss and are doing their best to parent a child who has never been put first and who lives with an extremely difficult legacy of neglect and abuse that they are completely innocent of.

@muminabun I am an adoptee, as is my much younger brother who has FASD and a host of other disorders and mental health issues and is at 28 living in a care home and will be for the rest of his life. Don't you dare speak to me about compassion for adopted children.

You think that your child is more important than anyone else in the world - including her birth parents - and that their lives and choices must centre around your child even when they've shown that they don't want that or that it isn't possible. Birth parents are human too. You are doing your child NO favours whatsoever with your attitude towards her birth parent. You think you are, but you aren't. You need to teach her that other people make decisions and have motivations that aren't centred around her and sometimes make choices she doesn't understand for reasons that she can't understand now, or may never understand. I have a lot of other things I want to say but as it would be in anger, I'm going to leave this here (and I won't be responding to you again) and hope that you understand what I'm saying in the future, even if you can't or don't want to understand now.

@jizelle I am so sorry for your loss Jizelle but this thread is not about you. I was asking for advice regarding what is best for my daughter and you did not have to engage if you did not want to. Don’t project your birth parents here if it is easier for you to believe they were good some adopted children did not have good parents and no contact is appropriate. Just because you were adopted it does not mean you know anything about what other adopted children need or feel and I am sorry but some birth parents are dangerous and cruel and should not be anywhere near children let alone getting letters every year. I don’t have a negative attitude towards my daughters birth parents. I disagree that children are not as important as birth parents. Vulnerable and traumatised children must come first and deserve to come first. Adopted children are entitled to feel let down and angry with their birth parents.

Sorry you are getting a hard time muminabun.

I too struggled with a lack of response to my letters although my child was far too young to have any view (fta at birth) I decided to keep going as I felt that I wanted to keep the door open for my child to have a relationship with their bp's if this was what they chose in later life.

I changed the way that I wrote my letters and while I addressed them to their bp's, in my mind I wrote them to my child as a celebration of who they are and as such they have become a really lovely record of their life that I treasure and hope they will in the future (I've kept copies of them all).

After 4 years, I suddenly got a brief but pleasant letter back which has happened fairly consistently since and I am so glad that I didn't give up.

OP I think that the best advice for the benefit of your dc is to keep to your side of the agreement re letterbox and follow advice you got in training about what to include in letters, whether you get replies or not.

In terms of your dc's needs and wants, it will likely vary over the years, it is impossible to know at the moment. Adopted children have different needs at different ages in relation to understanding the situation with birth parents.

All children need help and guidance about human relationships, and it is not possible for adopted children take the lead in terms of contact with bio parents. I think you need to manage her expectations, and it sounds as though you need to know far more about the birth family than you do, to help you do that. Can you talk to the coordinator about getting more information?

If the coordinator has offered to help the birth parent write it sounds as though literacy may be an issue. There may be all sorts of other things which are causing the problem. It would be better that you had a clearer idea about this and you were able to explain to your dc - even if is to say her birth parent couldn't care for her and couldn't write letters but that you know the birth parent is reading the letters and so cares, for example.

Things may change for the birth parent over the years too.

I think that the very best thing for an adopted child is to have, by adulthood, a balanced view of their birth parents - and for most birth parents this will include good and bad. Not all, obviously, but most.

Ultimately it is down to you to find out what the situation is here.

Developmental trauma can also be lifelong and enduring it isn't if you seek the right help.

@jizelle I think it helps everyone to hear other points of view so keep posting if you want to.

@Snazzygoldfish Thank you so much for your post that is really nice to hear that you did finally get a Positive response. I know a few adopters who get nothing and some who get inappropriate letters.
@sassygromit you can know a child’s needs and wants if you ask the and know them and make a decisions as a parent. I know a lot of history re the birth parents but have not met them what I don’t know is why they have not replied to letterbox. With radio silence from birth parents it is impossible to know if they care or not. Literacy is not an issue for them. Developmental trauma absolutely can be lifelong and enduring, there is no cure for some of the brain damage that can occur in abused and neglected children sadly they just have to learn to live with it and thrive in spite of it but thank you for your view.

I think it might help you to discuss this thread with a suitable professional in real life but it is up to you obviously.

In relation to developmental trauma, the first video talks about how healing can place and how scans can show the healing brain- it is the last quarter of the video - in the second it explains how the right therapy is needed at the right time in relation to healing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYyEEMlMMb0

I hope that these help. Best of luck with everything.

Thanks sassy yes some people can heal some can’t and need to spend their life in Secure units due to the abuse they have suffered. Life is not fair unfortunately.

This issue has come up before and for me I will continue to do annual letterbox contact until my LO becomes an adult unless there is a massive change in our circumstances. We willingly agreed to do this as part of the adoption and copies of all the letters sent via letterbox contact are put in my child's file which she has a legal right to access at 18. Should she choose to do this I want her to see that I kept my word.

The content and amount of detail in the letters might change over time based both on response or lack of from birth family and my child's wishes but at they very least each one will confirm she is alive and well.

I have read accounts of letterbox contact helping adoptive families raise various health/illness/genetic issues that suddenly arise at a letter date. I have also read the feelings of several birth parents in here about how much they rely on those letters to see them through life.

No one knows what the future holds but I am glad that you've decided to write a farewell letter should you end contact.

It's a hard one! Your feelings and your childs are valid and I can see why it may seem the right thing to do. It is also a good point about the child's information being shared without them knowing.
I think i agree that it is helpful (for many reasons including those touched on in the thread) to try and keep channels open. If you feel you dont want to share information you could simply say we hope you are well....DC is doing well ... it would be nice to hear from you.

As adoptive parents we are expected to be able to 'claim' our child as ours through think and thin, but then also share them and accept that there is a part of their lives that doesn't involve us.

To be compassionate towards the people who have caused our child(ren) hurt and damage, some of which may be life long.

Feeling angry is understandable and valid. How you deal with it is the issue.

The reality is your LO will probably feel a whole mix of emotions towards their birth parents - anger, hurt, love, protectiveness - in different strengths at different times. All of which are valid. Which is why they are kept out of it until they are mature enough to understand their feelings and the longer-term consequences of their decisions re: contact.

Protecting your child's privacy is also important, and again, is not an either/or. You can choose what you share, and to what extent. Their favourite colour? That they are short sighted and have just got glasses? Or, as callthemidwife says, simply that they are well.

through thick or thin...

I completely agree with Allington's first post, pretty much my views word for word! And the second post too, and many views here.

But just to be really clear (as adoptive mum to a child with letterbox, where there has been some good response but of late)...

It's between you and the birth parents. If you are worried about confidentiality then don't share anything you would not share with an aged relative you rarely see IMHO. e.g. Doing well at school. Some good friendships. Likes trampolining. Went to the scuence museum etc. This kind of thing does not break confidences IMHO.

I do feel the fact you see the birth parents failure to reply as a a rejection or a further rejection is possibly harmful. It is not, IMHO, a rejection or a further rejection.

I think it would help your dd to see the failure to reply in a neutral light. You don't need to paint a glowing picture of the birth parents. Do you know if they loved her? You say you think they did. Our son's birth parents definitely loved him, we can base this on the little we do know. The reality is because of a whole host of reasons they could not care for him. So we don't want to paint this rosy picture but we do want to give the best realistic picture. This will benefit your dd in the long run IMHO.

Good luck.

Snazzygoldfish "I changed the way that I wrote my letters and while I addressed them to their bp's, in my mind I wrote them to my child as a celebration of who they are and as such they have become a really lovely record of their life that I treasure and hope they will in the future (I've kept copies of them all)."

This is really lovely. I know how you feel. We sent photos and letters and keep and keep copies of every thing. This is for our son, so when he asks about his birth parents (at 9 he already does ask) we know we have kept the channels open.

When he is older he will be a or to see all we say and to know we did our best. We certainly won't share anything embarrassing or unpleasant so hopefully the letters for him will be a nice trip down memory lane. Bit either way the fact we did agree to do this make a it less 'personal' in a way.

he will be able to see

We stopped writing a couple of years ago- unlike you we did get a response, but it was very much along the lines of ‘we are having a lovely time without you, we have some animals that we love now, etc etc’. We felt this was totally not helpful for our boys- I do understand people saying you need to be compassionate to birth parents, but my children and now mine and if I didn’t feel angry about the way they treated my children I don’t think I would be doing my job as a mother properly. The bottom line is that their birth parents were giving a tremendous amount of help and they still couldn’t be bothered to change a nappy or feed their children. In my opinion, they didn’t love them enough- they didn’t put the children’s needs first in any way.
So in regards to letterbox I didn’t think it was in my children’s best interests and in fact, they asked us not to tell their birth parents anything about them. Their needs are, in my opinion, far more important than birth parents needs or opinions, or mine.
Sorry you’ve had a hard time- of course as a parent we should always be putting our children first.