Experience of contact with older siblings?

As a kinship adopter I was expected to maintain direct contact with our daughters oldest non adopted siblings and letterbox with her adopted siblings. The direct contact has not been difficult to manage - at most twice a year to start with and now that our daughter is almost 13 contact includes text messaging and facebook. Her older brother lives with birth mum 2 streets away from us but we have never had a problem with this. Letterbox contact with the adoptees has caused more problems but they too are now in direct contact and we have had two get together's and hopefully will continue with this next year. Having met the adoptive parents (they adopted 3 siblings) they explained to me that they were following social services guidelines which did not take into account the strong sibling bond. Last year the adoptees took matters into their own hands and made facebook contact with the others. Their parents acknowledged their need to have direct contact and expect that their children (all late teens) will be managing their own contact in a couple of years.

Yes you do have to consider your own security but in my experience it has been less stressful to establish direct contact on our terms than to be constantly worrying about whether we'll get unplanned contact at anytime (youngsters can & will search online) It means the adoptee can maintain a relationship with the siblings, the siblings are content with knowing when they will see their brother/sister and the parents can relax knowing when it will happen. We know what town the adoptees live in but not their address. The children have swapped mobile phone numbers but not home phone numbers. I think what I'm trying to get across is that if you allow direct contact it will hopefully minimize the children's need to search for information that they don't need to know and which they will do in secret until one day it will come to a head when you're least expecting it. That's what happened here anyway.

Hi everyone. Thanks for your thoughts, advice and experience. We included art work by DS in our letterbox, and got some lovely bits of art work back.

We can empathise with the needs and feelings of the older sibs. I actually feel very sad for them and feel that if they'd been removed more quickly and if the courts had made decisions more quickly then more of the sibs would be adopted. We know that they are now settled in good foster placements (except for the oldest, who was too troubled to live in a family setting) so at least thats something. But we aren't their parents and the needs of our DS have to come first. He was very frightened by other children when he first moved in, because of the chaos of the BF home and poorly managed contact. He has a strong behaviour reaction to ant discussion if his life story or past, and so we feel we want him to be batter able to process and talk about his difficult emotions before we start direct contact. Our DS doesn't remember his sibs or have a good understanding yet about they fit in his life. He was under one when he last lived with them and under two when he last saw them. So we will need to do lots of life story work before a meeting is arranged.

As we are working towards direct contact, it's a matter of timing - when rather than if we share photos. However, our concerns remain about the oldest sib, and we will want to speak to her carers and think security issues through more, given that she has direct contact with BF. Also DS had final contact with her before moving in with us (because SWs were concerned about our security if direct contact with her was maintained. I don't really understand why they have changed track on this, it hasn't been explained). So it's all quite confusing.

Thanks Happyone. We will try! It will be easier when we've heard back from all of them (only from 2 so far), so that we have a better image of the kids. We are also planning one to one meetings with the carers. I think this will help a lot too.

We too will be having direct contact with Pinks older siblings. I have no concern about it.Pink is very fond of her siblings and I know, one in particular has really looked after her in the past.

We will be meeting them too, before AO is done.

Thanks. The bumped thread was very useful.

I think that if your LO is upset by any talk of his past, then he is not ready for contact and you are right to stick to your guns on this. Yes, the other children have needs, too, but any change in arrangements need to benefit ALL children not just the majority. I think you are being very sensible in taking advice and considering this carefully. Sending artwork is a good idea, with news. xx