Post adoption issues with biological brother

[boanon]

Jurisdiction

New Jersey

We adopted 10 and 12 year old girls in April through DCPP. We allowed contact with a bio brother and grandmother (neither of which had visitation prior to adoption) however the brother is combative and perpetually hostile towards me and oversteps boundaries regarding conversations on the doings of their bio parents (it is not in their best interest to do so). So I cut him off after a conversation with the girls.

He said he has a lawyer and she said he can sue to be a psychological parent. My position is, first of all, he is only 20 years old and lives in another state. He was excluded from custody during the fostering phase due to his age, anger management history, and domestic violence issue. He's rarely seen them for years and he only lived with them as children. During foster care, he was granted zero visitation and whatever contact or visits they had were facilitated by me. They love him but certainly not in a parental way. He also wants to sue for sibling rights but living out of state and considering the girls have literally thrived to the point even their lawyer said that she's never seen anything like it, it will be hard to show that not having contact will be harmful.

I'm not sure if his lawyer has all the facts anyway or that he really actually talked to one because he is speaking in terms of getting custody away from us and bringing them to Virginia. The girls do not want that and have expressed from before they were even adopted that they want to be with us over him.

 

[adjusterjack]

There is no threaten to sue, there is only sue or not sue. Until you are served with a summons and complaint I suggest you ignore him and not respond to his hot air.

My guess is that he doesn't even have a lawyer or his lawyer would be contacting you if he had one.

 

[leslie82]

We adopted 10 and 12 year old girls in April through DCPP. We allowed contact with a bio brother and grandmother (neither of which had visitation prior to adoption) however the brother is combative and perpetually hostile towards me and oversteps boundaries regarding conversations on the doings of their bio parents (it is not in their best interest to do so). So I cut him off after a conversation with the girls.

He said he has a lawyer and she said he can sue to be a psychological parent. My position is, first of all, he is only 20 years old and lives in another state. He was excluded from custody during the fostering phase due to his age, anger management history, and domestic violence issue. He's rarely seen them for years and he only lived with them as children. During foster care, he was granted zero visitation and whatever contact or visits they had were facilitated by me. They love him but certainly not in a parental way. He also wants to sue for sibling rights but living out of state and considering the girls have literally thrived to the point even their lawyer said that she's never seen anything like it, it will be hard to show that not having contact will be harmful.

I'm not sure if his lawyer has all the facts anyway or that he really actually talked to one because he is speaking in terms of getting custody away from us and bringing them to Virginia. The girls do not want that and have expressed from before they were even adopted that they want to be with us over him.

Stop letting your children near this legal stranger. You don't have to let anyone see your kids who you don't want to see them. The biological relatives have no rights to see those kids at all.

If he did hire a lawyer, that lawyer is just taking him for whatever he's worth. This is what I found for a definition on psychological parent: "Psychological Parent refers to a person whom a child considers to be his or her parent, even though that individual may not be biologically related to the child. It can also be a person who, provides for a child's emotional and physical needs on a continuing and regular basis. The psychological parent may be the biological parent, a foster parent, a guardian, a common-law parent, or some other person unrelated to the child. A person who fits in this capacity is sometimes called a "de facto" parent also." He doesn't fit that definition at all.

Block him on all forms of communication and move on with your lives. You're just allowing him to harass you and your kids.

 

[boanon]

Stop letting your children near this legal stranger. You don't have to let anyone see your kids who you don't want to see them. The biological relatives have no rights to see those kids at all.

If he did hire a lawyer, that lawyer is just taking him for whatever he's worth. This is what I found for a definition on psychological parent: "Psychological Parent refers to a person whom a child considers to be his or her parent, even though that individual may not be biologically related to the child. It can also be a person who, provides for a child's emotional and physical needs on a continuing and regular basis. The psychological parent may be the biological parent, a foster parent, a guardian, a common-law parent, or some other person unrelated to the child. A person who fits in this capacity is sometimes called a "de facto" parent also." He doesn't fit that definition at all.

Block him on all forms of communication and move on with your lives. You're just allowing him to harass you and your kids.

You are right and I effectively have. It was going to have to happen soon anyway as their bio mom is going to live with him once she is out of prison in DE and whatever NJ does with their charges against her. Her has this mental block where he can't accept that the girls are happy where they are, and they are, very happy and enjoying a normal childhood. After our conversation and before I was able to block him, he sent her a screen shot of our conversation to try and turn an 11-year old girl against me. It backfired and now I have the high ground to do it without negativity between me and the girls. I know he has zero legal ground. The psychological parent thing is fairy tale land and sibling rights presume the continuation of visitation already in place prior to adoption where ending those visits would be harmful to the adopted children. There was no visitation in place to continue.

 

[zddoodah]

I didn't see a question in your post. Do you have one?

 

[boanon]

I didn't see a question in your post. Do you have one?

Well basically if he has any legal leg to stand on, I don't believe he does living in another state, having not lived with them since he assaulted his mom as a juvenile, and seeing them for a couple of dinners here and there over the last few years with minimal contact outside of that.

 

[leslie82]

You are right and I effectively have. It was going to have to happen soon anyway as their bio mom is going to live with him once she is out of prison in DE and whatever NJ does with their charges against her. Her has this mental block where he can't accept that the girls are happy where they are, and they are, very happy and enjoying a normal childhood. After our conversation and before I was able to block him, he sent her a screen shot of our conversation to try and turn an 11-year old girl against me. It backfired and now I have the high ground to do it without negativity between me and the girls. I know he has zero legal ground. The psychological parent thing is fairy tale land and sibling rights presume the continuation of visitation already in place prior to adoption where ending those visits would be harmful to the adopted children. There was no visitation in place to continue.

Change your phone number if you have to or any numbers the kids have. Turn off their social media if you have to even. Or have them use nicknames and don't use their profile photos for accounts and lock those accounts down. He can't do anything legally so best to ignore him.

 

[boanon]

Change your phone number if you have to or any numbers the kids have. Turn off their social media if you have to even. Or have them use nicknames and don't use their profile photos for accounts and lock those accounts down. He can't do anything legally so best to ignore him.

Things have changed over the last hour. Now I want to know what I can do. He posted to his Facebook our text conversation. The issue is that conversation reveals our last name to the bio parents who all have an extensive criminal history. It also exposes the girls Instagram names. I can give them new names there which is fine. But exposure like that now endangers our entire family. This goes past being hostile to me and even past unsuccessfully trying to turn my own daughter against me. I can't let endangering my family go unanswered.

 

[Red Kayak]

File a police report. (So there is documentation that you were afraid of this lot.)

File for a restraining order.

 

[leslie82]

Things have changed over the last hour. Now I want to know what I can do. He posted to his Facebook our text conversation. The issue is that conversation reveals our last name to the bio parents who all have an extensive criminal history. It also exposes the girls Instagram names. I can give them new names there which is fine. But exposure like that now endangers our entire family. This goes past being hostile to me and even past unsuccessfully trying to turn my own daughter against me. I can't let endangering my family go unanswered.

Stop talking to him!!!!! Block him on every bit of social media, your phone, everything. Why have you been talking to him still? You are the one who endangered your children by continuing to talk to that person. You need to block him on everything. Does he live in the area? If so, go file for a restraining order. If not, all you have to do is block him. Don't talk to him anymore. At all.

 

[Red Kayak]

You are right and I effectively have. It was going to have to happen soon anyway as their bio mom is going to live with him once she is out of prison in DE and whatever NJ does with their charges against her. Her has this mental block where he can't accept that the girls are happy where they are, and they are, very happy and enjoying a normal childhood. After our conversation and before I was able to block him, he sent her a screen shot of our conversation to try and turn an 11-year old girl against me. It backfired and now I have the high ground to do it without negativity between me and the girls. I know he has zero legal ground. The psychological parent thing is fairy tale land and sibling rights presume the continuation of visitation already in place prior to adoption where ending those visits would be harmful to the adopted children. There was no visitation in place to continue.

Then bio mom would know your names from him anyhow.

Seriously, disengage from him completely.

 

[zddoodah]

You're going to need a NJ lawyer to give you an opinion about whether a lawsuit "to be a psychological parent" would have any chance of succeeding, but my guess (as a lawyer who is not admitted in NJ) is that it would have little or no chance. Pending that, I agree that disengagement is the best thing to do.

 

[boanon]

You're going to need a NJ lawyer to give you an opinion about whether a lawsuit "to be a psychological parent" would have any chance of succeeding, but my guess (as a lawyer who is not admitted in NJ) is that it would have little or no chance. Pending that, I agree that disengagement is the best thing to do.

I read the 4 prongs in NJ and I can't any of them fitting let alone all 4 plus I don't think this could be applied anyway in adoption or you'd have family coming out of the woodwork in every case trying it.

 

[leslie82]

I read the 4 prongs in NJ and I can't any of them fitting let alone all 4 plus I don't think this could be applied anyway in adoption or you'd have family coming out of the woodwork in every case trying it.

Block him and your problem goes away.