You have a lot to think about as you navigate the adoption process. Incorporating the child into your established family can be more difficult than anticipated, and there are additional financial concerns that you may have to consider. Many adoptive parents also find themselves thinking about to what extent they should help the child maintain their connection to their biological family. This is an important question, the answer to which can affect how your adopted child is raised.
Is a post-adoption contact agreement right for you and your child?
One way to help your child understand where they’ve come from and maintain their connection to their biological family is to enter into a post-adoption contact agreement with one or both of the child’s biological parents. This agreement, which operates like a contract, lays out the base level of contact that the biological parent is to have with the child moving forward. There are sometimes sunset provisions in these agreements, whereby the entire agreement is nullified if the biological parent fails to uphold their end of the bargain. This can provide you and the child a certain amount of protection when uncertainty starts to jeopardize the child’s emotional and psychological stability.
Of course, deciding whether a post-adoption contact agreement is right for your child can be hard. You’ll want to consider how important it is that the child has a connection to their biological family, the amount of support they can receive from those family members and the safety of allowing such contact. If they’re older, you should also talk to the child about it to get their take on it before making a decision. Remember, you want to make a decision that is in the child’s best interests.
Are you ready to negotiate a post-adoption contact agreement?
If so, or if you simply want to learn more about what the process entails, then you should continue to read up on what these agreements look like and what you can do to put guardrails in place to protect your child’s best interests. We hope you find our blog informative in that regard, but if you need continued guidance, please seek out any additional support that you may need.