There are times when you take a child into your home as a pre-adoptive placement that you are going to have to have visits with birth family members, and possibly birth parents. This can be extremely difficult. I know it sure was for me.

Handing your child over to a parent that you know has abused or neglected a child that you love is one of the hardest things you will ever do. Some people can do it and feel sympathy for the birth parent. I can’t. Taking Kory and Mackenzie for visits was torture.

Why would you have visits? Up until the time of the termination of parental rights, parents are allowed and sometimes required to do visits. This is to show if they are capable of caring for the child and to see if reunification is possible. If it is a supervised visit, the person who is supervising may be watching for things like:

• How does the parent interact with the child?
• How does the child respond to the parent/
• Does the parent attend to the child’s needs?
• Does the parent have adequate supplies and skills to meet the child’s needs?
• Does the parent speak appropriately to or in front of the child?

Depending on the child, they may not want to attend the visit. You must still take the child for the visit, but document any feelings or reactions that your child has both before and after the visit and report them to the case worker.

Unless specified, you are not required to stay for the visit. We had supervised visits, and at first I stayed, but it got to a point where I couldn’t handle being there. I could not watch my kids being treated inappropriately. There was nothing obviously neglectful or abusive about the way they were treated, but there were other things that I knew would hurt my kids. Things like Kory being told that he was going to move back with his birth mom and that she was going to buy a five bedroom house with a pool and they he was going to live with his siblings again. This was mental abuse. There was no way it was ever going to happen, but little boys believe what their mothers tell them.

What should you do for visits?

• Take along photos of your child and share them with the birth parents.
• Be prepared with things your child may need. If your child is an infant or toddler, take appropriate food, diapers, a change of clothes, or anything else that may be needed in a typical day. For an older child take a snack, familiar toys, medical items if needed (such as an inhaler) or other items that you need on a daily basis that the birth parent may not have.
• Share with the birthparent what your child has done since your last visit. Bring copies of schoolwork, artwork, report cards, or other things that you would enjoy seeing if the roles were reversed.
• If you are not going to stay for the visit, be sure to provide a cell phone number or another way to reach you if the visit needs to end early, or if there is an emergency.

Above all, do not talk negatively about the birth parents. Stay as neutral as possible, but listen to your child’s feelings. The visits can be hard on both of you. Reward yourselves with a treat afterward.

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