A mom on the Adoption.com forums posted a question about this, and it is a difficult issue to deal with. We faced it about 18 months ago when Sammy was first admitted to his first residential placement.

How do you deal with a death in the birth family?

A large part of this will depend upon whether or not your child is still a foster child, or is legally adopted. If the adoption is not finalized, the case worker will probably be the determining factor in this.

If the adoption is finalized, you have some big decisions to make, and there are many factors that will go into this.

It is hard to put this into words without sounding crass or unfeeling, so please read this knowing that I mean no disrespect toward birth families.

• Was this person important in the life of your child? Did your child have extensive contact with this person, or is it a family member that was an occasional contact or played a more “minor” role in the child’s life?

• Does your child remember this person?

• Will talking about the death or going to the funeral cause additional trauma to your child?

• Is your child at an age to fully comprehend what death means, and even more so, what death of a birth family member means?

• Is the birth family appropriate and will they treat you and your child with respect?

In our case, Sammy’s birth grandfather passed away a few days after his placement into the treatment center. He had been sick for a while, but we were not aware of it. He was an important part of Sammy’s life, having lived with his birth grandparents on and off for almost three years. There was no question that we needed to tell him about this. The bigger question was attending a funeral. That decision was made for us because of his placement. If we had to make the decision, we probably still would have elected not to go. Sammy’s birth parents would have been there, and that was certainly not appropriate for him, and we have struggled with other members of his birth family not respecting our role in Sammy’s life.

There are other options for your child to deal with loss, without attending a funeral.

• If your child is in therapy, a therapy session may be a good place to have the conversation, and allow your child to process some of the emotions. Of course, it won’t be resolved in one session, but it may be “safer” coming in a neutral setting.

• You may choose to attend the wake or funeral and offer respects from your family, or send flowers on behalf of your family.

• Have your child write letters or draw pictures for the family member. They can be left at the grave site later, should you choose to visit. The writing or drawing itself may be as much as your child needs to do.

• Send letters or pictures up to “Heaven”. Put them in a balloon, or attach them to a balloon and let it go.

Children are amazingly vocal about feelings sometimes. You may be surprised at what your child tells you about the death, the feelings involved, and their desired involvement, or lack of, in any memorial plans.

Photo credit