Letterbox with older siblings

[Rainallnight]

Our DC have several older birth siblings and two have asked for letterbox contact, which we’ve signed up to. One is mid teens (in foster care) one is an older teen (a care leaver).

I wondered if anyone had any general advice/experience about what I should put in the letters, beyond the usual?

Both siblings are reasonably supportive of the adoption, though the younger one was very upset at the severance of real life contact, and both are under no illusions about what BM was like. They are very happy that our D.C. are together.

Two things in particular worry me.

We are extremely late in starting letterbox. I’m not proud of that but want to start now. I know the older one is pissed off. Should I address this upfront and apologise?

Second, a number of difficult things have happened to the DC over the past couple of years, and I don’t know whether to include them. They’ve lost two grandparents and one had a bad accident at school (now recovered). I don’t want to gloss over real life but I wonder if an angry teen might think, ‘fuck’s sake, you were supposed to take care of these kids’.

Really grateful for wise thoughts!

My thoughts are that saying sorry (if true) is always helpful in terms of building a positive relationship.

For a first letterbox, perhaps don't mention the negative stuff, until there's more relationship there?

Thank you for replying.

Yes, it is true, I am genuinely sorry and regretful.

Very good point about building the relationship first. I guess I was thinking of it as a first letter, let’s catch you up on absolutely everything that’s happened but of course it doesn’t have to be that way.

Genuine question - why would sibling direct contact need to stop if sibling is in Foster care? It just seems incredibly cruel to all the children involved.

I think it's a good idea to say that, then. That you're sorry contact has lapsed, but hopefully it will be better going forwards. Yes, see it as a brief chat and introduction letter, rather than a full and comprehensive report. The important thing is to start something, I expect.

Direct contact can be tricky with sibs in foster care, for both the adopted child, and the sibs, and the siblings may have a lot of contact with birth family, adding to the trickiness. It's not cruel, I'm sure it was considered, and the adopted children deserve stability.

Thank you @percypetulant, that’s very helpful.

@Wannakisstheteacher, the reasons are very much as percy describes. It wasn’t in our DCs’ best interest. That’s not to say they can’t make contact when they’re older and we’ll support them if that’s what they want to do.

What do you know about the siblings? I link my letters to things I know for definite with regards to the birth family to help them to relate to each other. I also write individualised letters tailored to the various people I write to whilst also making sure that each letter contains exactly the same information. I do this because siblings still have contact with both birth parents and could discuss the letters. I'd hate for someone to find something out that they didn't already know from such discussions.

One final thing to consider is that a copy of your final letter will be place on file for your child and therefore it's important to think about they might feel reading the letter as an adult.

I know very little about the siblings, other than the broad outline of their living circumstances and that the older one is a mum herself now. And what I do know, I’ve been told unofficially by social workers, foster carers etc (DD’s foster carer had fostered other siblings so knew the family pretty well). I think I’d struggle a bit to personalise it much. But perhaps they might tell me a bit more about themselves when they write. If they write.