Death of birth parent

[Awumminnscotland]

We've just been informed that our daughters birth parent has died.
We are waiting for more information on how it happened but our gut feeling is to tell her in an age appropriate, sensitive but matter of fact manner as we have with her life story so far. She's almost 8. She's never known her birth mother.
The SW didn't have much to say on the matter other than She's too young and doesn't need to know yet. I disagree. I feel keeping something like this to drop a potential bombshell in later years is just wrong.
I'd really appreciate any shared experience from adopters on this please and any specific advice and things to consider experienced adopters can share. I hate sharing this on a random site but actual sensible help in real life is hard to come by for this.

The SW didn't have much to say on the matter other than She's too young and doesn't need to know yet.

I don’t agree with this at all. Yes it might be easier in the short term but our kids need to know we’re honest with them and that we don’t hold information about them unnecessarily.

In terms of what to say, that’s going to depend on your daughter’s understanding of her birth family, what she knows about death already and how that’s been explained to her before now.

The death of someone important to her, that she doesn’t know is quite an abstract concept when developmentally her thinking will still be quite concrete. Do you have photos of her birth mum so she has a point of reference when thinking about her? Has she had any bereavements thus far. By that age we had lost a couple of aging relatives so my kids knew a bit about death but if it’s her first death you might need to explain the concept to her.

My advice would be to use quite concrete language, talk about her birth mum dying rather than using euphemisms like passed away or gone to sleep. She’ll need you to revisit it so try to keep an ongoing conversation. She might at some point want to do something to mark the loss. It can be a good way of explaining the rituals we go through to process a loss, maybe think of ways she could do that like making a memory box, planting a tree or shrub, writing a letter etc.

As a SW I’m disappointed that a fellow profession would be so short sighted, your DD has survived a lot to be adopted, she’s had to come to terms with very complex issues already, keeping it from her stores up more heartache when you do finally tell her and potentially erodes trust in you.

I hate sharing this on a random site but actual sensible help in real life is hard to come by for this.

I can totally understand that feeling, there are lots of very experienced adopters here though who very generously share their knowledge - their wisdom and understanding have been sanity saving at times so hopefully you’ll get some useful advice and support.

Thank you Jellycatspyjamas I was hoping you'd reply. I thought I remembered you were a social worker.
What you've said really echoes our own thinking. She does have experience and understanding of death and she has a simple, concrete understanding of her life story. She has photographs and life story book( such as it is) at hand and looks through them occasionally. Usually just wants to look at pics rather than hear the details.
Thanks again

Yes. There are some very experienced adopters on here with good advice. I used to be on the adoption uk forum but it went very quiet. The experience on there was gold.

It happened to us, I even have a thread on here about it. We were told by accident, they thought we already knew. We were told a few months before the end of the school year - the kids were 5 & 6. I have a belief that we should do everything we can to ensure that by the time our kids are older there are no big shocks or surprises if we can help it. We do our best to gradually introduce things as they grow age appropriately.

We waited until the summer holidays and then told them. Before school finished though I informed the school about the news so they were ready for anything when the new school year started.

My kids had experienced the deaths of pets, and we spent the few months before the holidays talking about invisible strings, going through life story books subtly and the like.

The children cried, they didn’t remember the parent, but they knew the news was significant. We told them we could plant a tree in our garden.

We were right to warn the school, my eldest started to get into trouble a bit at school, he was easily led and couldn’t regulate. But school swept in and literally through a safety net around him. They gave him a quiet area, provided ELSA support, and made sure all his teachers knew what was going on. It was only for a few months, but it did feel like if school hadn’t have supported him it would have continued and escalated. Keep it in mind though that all this came after Covid and lots of changes at school, so I don’t think the behaviour changes at school were all due to the death of the birth parent.

Then six months later they lost a beloved adoptive grand parent - that was pretty awful, but it was awful for us all. My eldest just threw up when he heard the news. But I think it actually helped them to see us upset too - we talked, we remembered, eventually we laughed about funny things their grand parent had done.

They are both doing really well now, we talk about things a lot. Death is a natural part if life, it’s hard, because we want to protect our kids that have already been through so much, but I think they do need to know. I’d just say pick your timing to the best of your ability, and get your support systems in place. We are not quite sure why our birth parent died…neither was the coroner really, so we told our children that we didn’t really know, only that we knew they weren’t very well mentally (sorry clumsy wording).

Be aware of news articles. A few appeared about our birth parent, there was police involvement and did put the death into some context. I’ve saved the articles. But could be a shock later down the line for enquiring minds if not explained properly.

Other things to consider include:

1. finding out where she will be cremated and/or buried.
2. will her death be reported in any local media - this includes whether or/not a death notice has been published, including online.
3. will there be an inquest and can you be informed of the outcome. updating her life story book once you have the information to include a reference to her death. You don't need to add more than the date she died and the reason, if that's appropriate.

My experience is slightly different as the person had died before my child came home. They've always known this person is dead and have included questions about how the person died, where they are buried and a request for more photos of the person in letterbox contact with birth parents. These questions were included in letters around the age of 5/6.

Interesting. Same thing happened to us. We weren't informed as much as it came out in a meeting and they thought we knew.
Thinking about the timing is a good thought.

This is helpful. Thank you

Some schools run the Seasons for Growth programme for children following bereavement so they may suggest this for your child. It’s a good course but not really set up for the complexities of your daughters situation so explore the materials and have a good chat with whoever runs the course before deciding if it might be helpful.

My DC did it after the loss of a much loved uncle, the teachers running it had a good understanding of their life story and was able to manage anything that came up. It was helpful for them but in less skilled hands may have done more harm than good.

Thanks. Haven't heard of this. Sounds good, but like you say, possibly not right for the situation .

They actually had in their notes that I’d informed them?! So they’d clearly got me mixed up with BM - which is worrying in itself. I was also told that I didn’t have to tell the kids for a few years as well. I just can’t imagine the fall out of my kids ever found out I’d kept something like that from them. All the best with it all.

Thank you. It's exhausting isn't it? Having to deal with outdated and unhelpful advice constantly from the people who are meant to be the experts.

We had similar but didn't actually find out until the birth parent had been dead several years.

My children had no memories of the birth parent but there were a couple of photos. It's nearly 10 years since this happened but my children have not been interested in looking at the photos.

They were however strangely significantly impacted by the news of the death. As above, I chose my timings carefully and didn't say anything for a couple of weeks at least from when I had heard the news. I think they found it hard to process because the birth parent was an abstract being to them - but it definitely triggered their many and complicated feelings of loss.

I definitely think it was the right thing to tell them though. In one way, it allowed them to feel a little safer because they knew the birth parent had been a dangerous person and as a family we were (and still are) very conscious about protecting our privacy.

I also had some complicated feelings about the death and I spent time reflecting and acknowledging those before I spoke to my children - so I could be attuned to their feelings and needs rather than worrying about my own. That's partly why I waited a few weeks I think. I wanted to be ready and able to support them and needed to get past my own shock and feelings.

I hope you are able to find a way to deliver the news that works as well as is possible for your family.

My daughter really struggled with the death of a birth parent. The book "Muddles, Puddles and Sunshine" was incredibly helpful. It is a bereavement activity book for young children. My daughter had no memories of her birth parent, so we wrote down the few things we knew and added lots of things she would have liked to do with her birth parent. A year or two later we visited the grave. I kept searching the internet for a photo of the parent (we had none) and came across one by a wild coincidence a few years later. All of this has really helped my daughter come to terms with this death.

I would definitely not keep this from your daughter until older. If you keep this from her, she will wonder what else you are keeping from her. I thought the general advice is to share all the information there is before puberty.

Our Dds BM died this year and we were informed by social services around two weeks after the fact.

We had a meeting with them to discuss when to tell DD and the general outcome was that she needed to be told in an age appropriate way now, as whilst it would be upsetting and may cause some regression for her short term - it was felt that it would have less impact overall than withholding the information until she was older and affecting her trust in us.

Our daughter dealt with it remarkably well and other than a two week period of upset seems to have taken it in her stride; but social services did indicate to us that if she was still struggling after six months that bereavement therapy and support was available via ASF.