One of the most important things in an open adoption is communication between adoptive and birth/first parents. As in any relationship there are sometimes hurdles to communication between the parties in open adoption and those in reunion. What are some of these hurdles?

Distance – Sometimes in open adoption the distance between families can be difficult to overcome when the only communication is by phone or letters. It is easy to put off calling or writing a letter.

Jobs – Sometimes our jobs get in the way of everything, including communication in an open adoption. It can be difficult to reprioritize time so that our job does not get in the way of communication with the other family.

Other family members – Things happen with other family members that slow down communication between adoptive and birth/first parents. It can be something like getting a child ready to go to college or a sick child at home. There are all kinds of things that can come up with other family members.

Personalities – Maybe a birth/first parent or adoptive parent is very shy or perhaps one party or the other is very private and letting other people into their life is difficult.

Age – When birth/first parents are much younger than adoptive parents finding things in common can be a difficult hurdle to overcome.

Addiction – Addiction makes any relationship difficult and the relationship between birth/first and adoptive parents is no different.

Emotional distress – Communication can be very difficult in times of emotional distress for either family. This can be in the beginning of the adoption when the birth/first parents are grieving, perhaps it could be at the time of a death in the family or maybe even the loss of a job.

New Relationship – If a birth/first parent gets into a new relationship, that new relationship may take up the time they used to spend connecting with the adoptive family.

There are many barriers to communication; these are just a few. So how do we overcome these barriers? There are many ways to do that, some so simple that we don’t even think about it. I’ll talk about overcoming these hurdles in my next post.