by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Jae Ran Kim, originally published at Harlow’s Monkey
Okay, I’m going to start off being blunt. When a person adopts a child and then disrupts or dissolves that adoption, they are re-traumatizing the child and they should accept full responsibility for that.
Now, I’m not saying that I always blame the parent for deciding to disrupt or dissolve an adoption.
Sometimes, overall, it is to the child’s best interest that the adoption is dissolved or disrupted. There certainly are instances when the child is a danger to himself or to others in the family and need to be removed from the home. And agencies sometimes lie or misrepresent children to prospective families and should be sanctioned for such unethical practice. But again, the child is the one who has no power and no choice in this whole matter and to be uprooted from a life and to have to adjust to a new home and new parents – much less new country and language in the case of international adoptions – only to be kicked out of said home and end up in foster care?
I was told that around 10-15% of children adopted internationally to my state dissolve and the child ends up in foster care. I’ve heard the stories and all I can say is, when one births a child biologically who ends up having major problems the child may end up in some out of home care (sometimes it’s foster homes or residential treatment centers or group homes) but it’s rare that a parent voluntarily terminates their parental rights to a biologically born child. Most of the youth I see in foster care are there because the courts have ordered a termination of parental rights.
Do I think a parent has the right to decide not to adopt a child who was misrepresented to them and has needs greater than what the parents think they can handle? Yes. Do it before the child is finalized. I absolutely think the parents have a right to accurate information. And I agree that it’s not in the child’s best interest to be placed in a home where the parents do not have the desire or ability to care for those needs. And that’s what I detest about this whole exchange.
Because we want to place children in good safe homes, we allow for disruptions. We have to. And that creates a practice that caters more to the needs of the secondary client (parents) over the needs of the primary client (the child).
Let me give you another example. Many prospective adoptive parents want to adopt infants. There is a high demand for *healthy infants.*
Agencies often make it known that there is no guarantee that any infant won’t develop medical, cognitive or developmental delays in the future, but who wants to hear that? Sure, we hear it and tuck that information in to the back of the mental file. At our agency, we tell parents that adopting an infant means that you know less about the child’s future. With older children, you tend to have more information. At least you likely have some history and some sense of potential risks for behaviors that the child may exhibit later on. With an infant, what you don’t know can be risky.
But as many other adoptees have said before, we’re not a tabula rasa and even as an infant with little or no information, there are risks. There are risks for children birthed biologically to parents too.
There is a high correlation between children in my state who end up using county or state mental health services and adoption status (note, correlation not causation). I’ve been told by several workers that “over half” of the cases involves children who have had at least one adoption disruption or dissolution and that includes children adopted internationally. It’s interesting to me, that many in the mental health field have negative feelings about adoption partly as a result of that.
I think a lot of adoptive parents “talk the talk” about how they love and treat their adopted children “the same as” a biological child. In terms of adoption disruptions and dissolutions, I would like to see more in terms of “walking the walk.” Once a parent adopts a child and it is legally finalized, they are the considered the same as a biological child in the eyes of the law. Adoptive parents who abandon their adopted child should be treated the same as any other parent who abandons their child.
Jae Ran Kim, MSW is a social worker, teacher and writer. She was born in Taegu, South Korea and was adopted to Minnesota in 1971. She has written numerous articles and essays and is most recently published in the anthology “Outsiders Within: Writings on Transracial Adoption” from South End Press. Jae Ran’s blog, Harlow’s Monkey, is at http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/
It’s awfully hard to generalize in the way you do, I fear. You must, for example, also be aware that sometimes parents have to TPR themselves in order to get long-term care for adoptive children with serious problems who are a danger to themselves and others.
I agree with everything you have said.
I question that, SB. I know it happens, but my point is, would those same parents voluntarily TPR themselves for a biologically born child who is a danger to themselves and others?
Also, I just wanted to direct you again to my second and third paragraph where I state “I’m not saying that I always blame the parent for deciding to disrupt or dissolve an adoption.
Sometimes, overall, it is to the child’s best interest that the adoption is dissolved or disrupted. There certainly are instances when the child is a danger to himself or to others in the family and need to be removed from the home.”
I have a follow up question to ask:
Is it possible for an adoptive parent to be able to disrupt/dissolve and still be committed to that child? Or is the only way to deal with an adopted child with severe emotional and behavioral issues to completely sever all ties? And again, would a parent do this with a child born to them? I guess I’m trying to figure out whether this is a pattern that happens with adopted children versus biological children.
At work, there are TRP’s that happen all the time. The majority of the ones that are involuntary involved the abuse and neglect of kids. It is rare that a parent voluntarily TPR’s their biologically born child because of behavior or mental health.
Sometimes parents will voluntarily TPR children who are “medically frail” or to consent to adopt to a family member or friend – in essence a kind of “adoption plan” – but the only voluntary TRP’s I come across in practice that are not medically fragile cases or consent to adopts are by adoptive parents who are “returning” kids they adopted from the system back to the system.
Adoptive parents have the same choices as any other parent when their child is unable to function in the home – so why is it more likely that they’ll voluntarily terminate an adopted child versus a biological child?
I am serious about being open to some insights and would be happy to have some evidence that disputes my theory that this is something particularly concerning the adoption community.
Sorry to fill up the comment box. I wanted to let everyone know I did have a follow up post to this one at http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/harlows_monkey/2007/09/the-post-on-dis.html.
I’ve been a special ed teacher and I’ve heard more than one parent say when they have an adopted child who manifests a disability it’s like they have to mourn all over again that they couldn’t have biological children – granted these are the parents who have kept their children, but my heart always went out to them because it’s such a rough road.
But what if the adoption agency basically lies to the adopting parents about problems that are so serious as to require institutionalization or the kind of services parents cannot provide given their other responsibilities, location, or family situation, and they did this knowing that the family had indicated that they were in such a situation? I don’t think it’s remotely fair to say that the family is responsible.
In some cases of international adoption, the adoptions are considered “blind”. With older child adoption in some countries the amount of information you receive on the child before travel is small, and the two weeks spent in-country before finalization and travel home is minimal. So this makes it hard to do a thorough evaluation of the child and situation before the adoption is complete. I do think most parents enter into adoption with the best possible intentions and are devasted when it comes to the point of dissolution. A disruption and replacement into a home that can better nurture the child and is a better fit, even though it can be another trauma, can sometimes be a better alternative than the child continuing in a situation that is not healthy for anyone involved. I do think if someone has reached a point where, as a last resort, disruption is necessary, a private agency is best and least traumatic.
(Do I think a parent has the right to decide not to adopt a child who was misrepresented to them and has needs greater than what the parents think they can handle? Yes. Do it before the child is finalized)
Two factors…
1) The hazy line between fostering and adopting accepted and promoted by child welfare systems. There is supposed to be an absolute difference between the two, especially legally, but in real practice there is not. Setting up a stark biological vs. adoptive dichotomy in attitudes towards “severing” from a child is wrong because there is also a third term in there in terms of kinds of relationships that can exist between adults and children.
2. Huge amounts of fear experienced by parents adopting from the foster care system. This includes fear of the children. By the training is done we have heard a ton of horror stories. Forward movement in the adoption process has to be done in the face of that fear and numerous stressful circumstances that can make the fear rise up like a tsunami. If private international adoption agencies stress the sweetness and light of adoption, it seems just the opposite from my point of view in foster care pre-adoption. Post-adoption support can range from good to nonexistent. From the stories I have heard of disruption in the foster care system, they have seemed like a failure of courage in the face of fear. Counties and agencies do little to address fear.
I think much of the blame needs to be on agencies that do a poor job of preparing potential adoptive parents for the realities of adopting, as well as the resources in their area that can help both the parents and their child acclimate. I know that here in Ohio, I’ve met way too many parents who have no idea that there’s an international adoption clinic in our community that will help them understand the needs of children being adopted from institutions and what to expect in terms of attachment challenges. Too often agencies portray adoption — especially of toddlers and older children — as “instant family” instead of preparing parents for the very real challenges adoptive parenting can bring.
Amen, sister! (All I have to say.)
“the only voluntary TRP’s I come across in practice that are not medically fragile cases or consent to adopts are by adoptive parents who are “returning” kids they adopted from the system back to the system.”
This may be very true, but there is often a lot more than meets the eye. First, older children who come from the system are nearly always very fragile, damaged children. Quite often they come with poor documentation or information is even concealed from prospective adoptive families. In an effort to find the children homes, some workers downplay the real needs of the child. In other cases the children are quite honestly “lost” in the system. The right hand does not know what the left is doing, and a child is moved repeatedly without fully exploring why or what kind of damage it is doing to them.
In our case, one child in a sib group was far more disturbed than the others. They were not only endangering themselves and others in the house, but they were severely impeding their emotionally fragile sibs from moving toward health and happiness. We were very vocal about our concerns, but met with very little more than sympathetic noises from the placing agency. That is, until another sib reported to a doctor the harm this one child was persistently doing behind closed doors. Suddenly, the situation was of crisis proportions. Since we had not finalized yet, the child was removed from our care, and placed into treatment, back in the placing state. We were not consulted much about how we felt as a family, about disrupting a child we had been parenting for a year. Needless to say, it has been heartbreaking for everyone involved.
“Is it possible for an adoptive parent to be able to disrupt/dissolve and still be committed to that child? Or is the only way to deal with an adopted child with severe emotional and behavioral issues to completely sever all ties?”
Absolutely it is possible to maintain contact, and many adoptive families do. But much of that is up to the parties that take over the child’s care, and even the child themselves. If all the parties involved can work in tandem with one another, it is best for the child. More family is definitely better than less, and in our case, even if this child never returns to live with us, they will remain a part of our family. Their sibs are here being raised by us, and we will encourage and foster that relationship through emails, phone calls, letters and packages. Since the placing state is far away, we will try and visit when we can, but this will not be frequent. It is our hope that all of the children will become emotionally healthy and be able to pursue relationships with one another based on a firm foundation.
Oh yes, and I of course I forgot the most important thing we can do. We can pray for this child every day, and teach her sibling to pray together with us.
I agree generally with your post and the points you are making in it. I view a parent’s obligation to an adopted child is, (as it is for biiological children), as a sacred responsibility. I do seriously question however the statistic that someone told you that around 10-15% of children adopted internationally to your state dissolve and the child ends up in foster care. I can not believe the numbers are that high and if they were, I think it would be a national scandal. IT just doesn’t sound accurate……good post overall though.
we were foster parents for over 10 yrs- (were because we can’t stand the system that creates some of these kids)
anyway fostered a little girl from 6yrs old on for 3 yrs, then finally got to asopt her- ( she was very difficult to say the least) we also have 3 bio kids- (all the same in my book since the day she came as a foster, then adoptive placement)
lets fast forward 1.5 yrs past the finalization- :0( within 1 month she began killing our animals- (can’t get rid of them we have a farm)
she urinates and defacates on anything and everything, she plots the deaths of the other 3 kids in the home, and the parents,
they have tried every psych drug in the world to help her- none work, she self mutilates, sexually acts out and gets everyone to feel sorry for her at the rest of the families expense- we have been told that we are “not very Christian -like” by the school- all because we wanted her placed in an SBH class (for safety and liability)
NONE of the Post adoption promises have been kept – Oh let me tell you the big secret- THIS KID IS FROM THE USA – many therapists will tell you that kids with this sort of Severe Reactive Attachment Disorder is ONLY seen in kids that have been brought here from 3rd world nations- please do not believe thier lies- or uneducated opinions-
She will be 11 in a month , and daily I pray to find a way to disrupt this for the sake of the other 3-
I hear you when you say that there are some instances where it is just not safe to leave the child in the home- thank you for that
but when we approach CSB they will not follow thru on anything- ( or there is this small catch- we get a whole $250 adoption stipened and med card / month- would it not be fair to just terminate that amount?- NO they want $800- $1000 / month for child support… you know she is difficult to care for… uh huh- in our state adopting a child is not to change the families socioeconomic status- okay- we bargained for a “normal amount” for a child- therapies for this kid are astronomical- and frankly unatainable at this point- so the child gets worse, the family unit falls mare into shambles … and for what – for social services to cry that they need more money?? It does not get to the needed points anyway…
…just food for thought for all of you who question disruptions (sometimes they are not just inconvieniences)
oh and just in case you wonder why we did it to begin with?- we thought we might be able to make a difference in the life of just 1 child- – we sure did – we made a major difference in the life of 3 of them- our birth children-
since I look and see most of the kids who are 18 that we have had are already in prison, and or had their own children taken from them????
Wow, I have to say that I agree with you in so many ways. One question, have you ever lived with a child that tormented your life dialy ?
Well, I do everyday. She is 12 years old. She has stabbed me in the leg, physically attacked other children in the home, has hit my 200 lb. husband twice, and hits me on a regular basis.
She runs away and does anything that she wishes. She is out of control. She has been involved with the police and I am miserable.
I love my daughter though. Every day is a new day, right?
She has been in therapy for 5 years now and is only getting worse each day. She was in a RTC for 1 year when I received a call to pick her up because she struck a staff member with a bat.
Is there legal protection for parents like me?
Why did I have to make sure that her abusers were punished for what they did to her. By the way, we were informed 18 months after the adoption that she was sexually abused and not a victim of neglect like we were originally told. Why did I have to sit through a trial and pick up the broken pieces afterwards? Is this not the job of trained social workers?
I go to sleep with my door locked and my other children’s doors locked because she states that she will kill us in our sleep. She threatens to kill us monthly and says she is going to burn the house down.
Any advice for someone like me? I have considered signing my other children over to my in-laws for their safety. By the way, she is not the only adopted child.
TPR is something people like me consider. I can’t sleep at night fearing she will strike me with a bat or kill me in my sleep like she states.
I am not a bad person, just tired and scared!
Way to go, Anonymous! Thank you for daring to state the facts and reality of the hell those of us, like you, live every day. Although our daughter is only 5, she has been getting much worse, and not better, over time. She is quickly moving in the direction your adopted daughter has taken. I am so very sorry for the unreasonable burden you and the rest of your family are having to endure.
There is one other option that should minimize the direct daily emotional toll on your lives: ship her off to private (boarding) school. Expensive, certainly. The costs of this alternative screws your other children out of opportunities as available money goes to the higher-quality/high-priced school for your problem child. It also might teach them that reacting badly will be rewarded with an exciting education away from home. However, if the rest of your family is tight, your other children, would breathe a sigh of relief when the troubled child is away – only coming home on weekends and holidays should be tolerable. Final plus of this option is that it’s much cheaper than paying the government $600 – $1,000 per month for placement in the foster-care system.
BTW, Jee, if birthparents were so dedicated to preserving the family unit, then there wouldn’t be so many boarding schools around the U.S. and the world. It’s not as if boarding schools were created only for adoptive parents who want to disrupt but don’t want to risk having the family demolished by DCS/CPS.
Once burned by the government system that is supposed to help families, those of us in your situation have almost no alternatives…usually we continue to live the very private hell; continually admonished and ostrasized, and scrutinized by family, friends, and the communities that are supposed to help support us. All the while, the Troubled One continues to perform and dance for her adoring public.
Ultimately, there is no one, outside your immediate family, to turn to…to confide in.
And that’s when you must focus on survival mode. You, your spouse, and your other children are not possibly able to enjoy any quality of life. You, your spouse, and your children are all denied, by default, the love, attention, and positive energy you and they deserve. In the meantime, that “black hole” continues sucking the life and soul out of all of you. There is no possible rationalization that justifies an existance like this.
We have 5 beautiful, happy, and well-adjusted internationally-adopted children. Then, there’s our 5-year-old. Daily, she steals, breaks, hides, and throws away her sibs clothes, toys, pictures, et al. She continually (though unsuccessfully) tries to drive a wedge between my wife and me. She tries to get her sibs (mostly unsuccessfully) to do bad things to keep the home chaotic and anxious. Three of her sibs are very young and impressionable: they don’t catch all the subtle non-verbal abuse; such as when she yels “Hi, Mommy!”, in front of them and when their not looking, points her finger at us in the shape of a gun or sticks out her tongue at us. Then, when we react to punish her, it appears as if we are lashing out for no reason at our daughter.
All trash cans are searched daily. The largest is put on top of the clothes drier. We have to search her pockets and room constantly or things will disappear. At night, she will pretend to urinate in the toilet before going to bed, yet will, instead, hold it so she can stay awake all night. She’s been able to stay awake for 72 hours at a time with this trick. The results are disasterous for our family: She instantly tears into us each morning as we go in to wake her up – and it just doesn’t stop. We, then, have to force her to sit, every night before bed, on the toilet, listening for the sound of urination. You call this life?! This, along with eating and stealing misbehaviors are daily games for her.
Diabolical? Absolutely: Even when we’ve gone out for ice-cream as an after-school treat, she’ll gobble down her ice-cream and then scream at the top of her lungs. Her rewards are many: (1) She’s filled her stomach with ice cream, (2) so she won’t eat dinner, (3) her screaming draws attention from strangers, (4) the rest of the family is looked at accusingly, and (5) she disrupts the happy mood the rest of us were in – just rying to enjoy some freakin’ ice-cream. In all instances, she plots her actions around what will generate the greatest amount of return on her smallest investment.
When we adopted her, the foster mother literaly ran out of the room without even saying goodbye or hugging our new daughter – and it wasn’t because she was all blubbery from the separation. Much later, we learned her spine had suffered deep scarring and her leg was fractured in 2 places. Even in the arms of the foster mother, her arms remained straight out and she wouldn’t lean in toward the foster mother or us for a hug. She refused to eat at all (a game she continues frequently to this day). We’ve endured 4 years of projectile vomiting, urine and feces purging, pushing, abusive language, rage, and the like. And as I said, it’s only getting worse. Last week, she cut a sib’s hand with a knife she managed to find on the floor at a restaurant, and cut another sib’s arm with a pair of scissors.
Go ahead, Jee, make excuses and condemn us. We signed up for a child with any variety and number of physical complications, NOT emotional/behavioral bagage that is so great that she can not focus on anything other than controling and huring her family.
Until you walk a mile in our shoes, Jee, you do not have the right to judge us – the adoptive parents of a child with severe conduct disorders. As parents, our philosphy is to guide and coach ALL of our children through a full and enjoyable life.
We can’t even get 1 damn doctor to take us seriously – to get our daughter the help she needs. EVERY supposed “professional” sees her perform as a normally adjusted and bonded child. So, the doctors accuse us of having poor parenting skills as she is “obviously just fine.” We’ve had to secretly videotape her behaviors to get even a Food Therapist to believe us – and even then, her support was short-lived as our daughter quickly mastered the necessary skills to get out of going to Food & OT anymore. It’s just too draining.
We’ll be contacting our daughter’s adoption agency tomorrow. We’ve had enough – what I told you, above, about her behaviors is only the tip of the iceberg. I’m sorry to take so much of your time and space, but your readers need to know the truth about adopted children with conduct disorders as reasons for disrupting.
I am so, so, very sorry, “Anonymous.” Please know that you are not alone. There are many of us, but we can’t really come foward, can we?! There are so few true professionals trained to identify and then treat children like ours. It’s a sad state of affairs that our federal and state governments, that can’t even manage their own budgets and elections, somehow has the knowledge, capacity and ability to dictate to us how to be parents.
In summary, it is unreasonable to rationalize a position that 7 people must suffer and be traumatized so that 1 wouldn’t be traumatized by his/her disruption.
Also Anonymous,
If you are directing your comments to “Jee” as synonymous with the original poster, my I respectfully point out her name is Jae Ran. She is Korean and it is considerably rude to break up the two parts of her first name.
That said, I do not believe your child has a ‘conduct disorder’ as you described it. It sounds to me like classic symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder. A traditional therapist or doctor will not be well educated enough to deal with her issues. You need to find her and Attachment Therapist. I’m not sure what part of the world you live in, but there is an excellent counselling center in Portland OR, Corinthia Counselling. I suggest seeing Dr. Kali.
At any rate, for all of the parent’s here with children suffering from attachment issues, a great place to start is the website, a4everfamily.org . There is help and healing for your children.
Have you personally walked the walk? If you haven’t lived with an adopted child with multiple problems then you shouldn’t judge those who have given it their best and don’t feel it is enough. I have a 6 yr old who has my home is total chaos 24/7, I am overwhelmed and nobody cares. All I get is you are the parent now, she is your child, sorry can’t give you advice, can’t help you. I don’t know if dissolution is the answer but it is sure looking good right now because with no support system it is impossible to go on the way it is
It seems adoption disruption must make Jae Ran insecure about the bond between an adopted child and the adoptive parents as compared to that of the biological child. In a perfect world there would be no need for disruption. Parents who adopt go into it with the intent to have the same love and intense bond that they do for their biological child (ren). I wanted to adopt so that I could give a child that same unconditional love and devotion that I had for my birth son. My adoption failed not because I couldn’t follow through with those plans but because of a terrible adoption program. My story is long like the previous posts but I’m going to try to make it as short and sweet as I can. Preplacement: After taking preplacement classed we told our agency our fear of having an older child placed in our home with our biological child. The placement worker came over for a 2 hour visit to ease my fears and tell me they would never place a child in my home that was at risk of being a danger to my 1 year old. I trusted them that they would screen the child. We later found out the child had never met a psych person before placement. I should note that preplacement classes warn of bad behavior but the never tell you the signs of or even mention the name RAD. Who would think that shyness and charming in front of strangers could signal something negative? Placement: We has a six year old girl placed in our home we were told she had learning delays and was shy. They sent my husband and I to pick her up from her great maternal aunt’s home with whom the court ordered her removal. Yikes! Right there you could see they have a screwed up system. The aunt screamed as we left that “that girl’s gonna be a handful.” I asked my case worker about that comment and she said that the aunt was just trying to scare us. Our new daughter made zero eye contact,was difficult to redirect, and after a few months had slapped my one year old. My case worker said that she was insecure and when the adoption was finalized she would feel more secure. In my state a child must be in your home for 6 months before you can finalize an adoption. After 6 months 2 days the adoption was finalized. One month later the severe tantrums began. I called the agency for help and they told me they no longer would work with me and that I needed to work with a resource group. That right there was a huge problem. How can that adoption agency be motivated to make a good placement if they don’t have to deal with the consequences of a bad one. The two years following we dealt with day long tantrums and a child coming at us with knives repeatedly. She saw people and heard people telling her to kill us (schizophrenia). She would constantly choke, kicked, cut, tried to drown, kicked in the head, punched, strangled with the swingset chain etc. my then 1-3 year old son. She did the same to our dogs. We had to sleep with the door locked and our son in our room. She got nose bleeds and smeared blood through out our house, moved furniture constantly, ripped out her hair, ripped all wallpaper, broke windows, stole at any chance, hurt children at school every day..This is just some of it. I took her to every specialist and we tried medications. She was in RAD therapy, half day behavioral programs, I held and rocked her like a baby. NOTHING changed. It got worse each day. My husband and I would have to put her in a hold for three hours straight until the MUTT team would arrive. Meanwhile my son would stand there crying. After 2 years of that day in and day out and 5 hospitalizations later, a doctor told us we needed to disrupt if we didn’t want our son to get murded. She was institutionalized for a year and is now in treatment fosterhome. We spent so much on a private attorney we lost our home and are renting. Most people I tell understand but adoption workers and people who have been adopted look at me like I’m scum. Jae Ran, I’m sure your parents love you just as much as they would a biological child. The difference in my case and many others is that our lives and the lives of our other children should not be destroyed or terminated (murdered) to attempt to not hurt the adoptive child’s feelings. Many of us have been deceived and neglected by the placement agency. Our agency had to call and ask if I had my daughter’s preplacement records because they had gotten rid of them. They do sloppy placements just to clean out their files quickly and lower their numbers. People say the adopted child comes first but I believe the family and the adoptied child should equally come first because in the end the adopted child suffers when agencies fail to care for the families (including biological children) with whom the child is placed. Jae Ran needs to put her time in reforming placement agencies and their psych screening processes rather than examining the intent and actions of (well intended and educated) adoptive parents.
Given your immediate attack on Jae Ran and your completely ignoring of her continued statement that “she does not blame the adoptive parents” and “that it is sometimes in the best interest of the child and family” it sounds as if you seem to need to blame someone or defend your decision. As for your situation I have no doubt that is as you describe and I would not want to be in your shoes and I would not promise that if it happened to me that I would not do the same.
However, I know of several parents whose biological children have put them through exactly the same thing. And there are no “agency resources” for them to blame for lack of planning and help. And they did not go to court to terminate the relationship.
I think until parents court-disolve relationships with their biological children as frequently as adoptive parents do it is well within the adoption community to take a hard look at itself and the “bond” that we claim is just as strong.
The difference that a lot of people are missing? Jae and Laura, no you wouldn’t have any agency resources for your own child who may have theses problems, but a lot of these problems stem from adopted kids whereas they won’t from biological kids or if so on very rare ocassions, so to try to compare the two isn’t really fair. Obviously these places exsist for a reason, and this reason is because there is an understanding that adopted kids may have issues that can eventually become overwhelming for families.
When parents adopt a child their primary goal is to provide the child love, sadly sometimes love isn’t enough, and you have to consider the emotional toll a child with behavioral issues will have on the rest of the families and the harm a child can do to themselves if theyre not with a family who is equipped to handle such a kid.
It’s the adoptive child’s history that is the primary reason for their behavioral problems, these children just don’t have the problems that they do just by chance, so it’s kind of annoying and leaves me with the “really?” face when I hear people trying to compare the actions that you would take with your biological kids and adopted ones. Yes you want to love them all the same but these parents arent also therapist, and even when the child does see a therapist results arent guranteed or expected to be seen right away, so meanwhile the family is still dealing with the behavioral issues which in some cases, like seen above, are way more severe than others, so in a families safety and mental health can be put in jeopardy.
It’s a very sad situation but in most cases it’s the only solution. I feel for those who feel like they have to make such severe decisions, and I wish peace of mind for both parties.
I’m not in this situation, I have no children but reading this I had to comment. Im trying to be as empathetic as possible with these parents as I’m sure some aren’t.
At the end of the day, it’s not a perfect world and even situations with the most pure intentions sometimes may harbor unfortunate results.
I apologize for the misspelling and poor punctuation, I hope it doesn’t distract too much from my note.
I think the difference in this issue is, that if you have a bio child, and say it will have a mental illness, you have had it from birth on. So before you are having any problems, you have already started the bonding experience. By the time the child is maybe four or five years old and starts to act out in any severe way, you are bonded and really loving that child. If you compare that to an adoption situation that is just not the case. You get the child as a four or five year old. You don´t know much about your new child. You don´t have any good memories stored, that might help you through bad times. Now you might get a couple of honeymoon weeks, but even that is not always the case. We for sure didn´t. It took him a week to start acting out in our house. Not as severly in the beginng. Just constant wetting and just not respecting what I (mom) told him. So nothing that mature, things we thought we could handle. He´s been with us now for 18 month and live is unbearable. Not just for us parents but even more so for his sibs. I never had a chance to really love him. Love is a two-way-street. You can believe me, I tried. I tried with all what I had, to love him. But if all what you get in return is hatred, it just doesn´t happen. And now? I do not love my son. And it is hard to write that. I feel like a real failure just for admitting that. I do feel responsible for him, but that is all there is. I never stood a chance. And yes we have started talking about dissulotion. We just don´t know what to do anymore. I have to consider the health of three more children besides him. So do I retraumatize him once more or do I agree to let him traumatize the other three kids for the next 12 or more years? I don´t think that anyone makes that decision easily, or without consindering the need of the adopted child.
And just as a sidenote. Out of my 4 kids, 3 are adopted. I one of the other two adopted would develop a mental illness later in life, I would TPR either. Because we have bonded. I truly love them from the bottom of my heard and I truly love them exactly as much as my bio child. I wouldn´t consider TPR. I would consider RTC (and am still considering it with the other one too, we haven´t made any decision yet) but not TPR. For me the difference is,that I have never loved him, we have never bonded. And I am not sure if we ever will. I am not sure if I´m still able to. Meaning that in our case dissolution might not only be better for us, but also give him the possibility to find a family that might be able to do so. One more thing and then I´ll finish my post. If he were my only child I wouldn´t consider TPR either.
In my last paragraph I meant to say that I WOULDN´t TPR with my other two adopted children. Sorry about that.
Ok what happens when a country tells you lies and when you finalize your adoption the next day and all these medical conditions come out after the finalization?? That is what happened to us. Our daughter’s birth country left out huge amounts of medical information. She has severe needs. Severe. We never wanted these needs when we went through the pre-adoption process. We came home and immediately needed to leave our state and travel 10 hours to the hospital where they could handle her needs. Stayed there for 10 weeks….financially and emotionally ruined. Our family is falling apart and nobody cares. I am now a nurse to a critically ill child around the clock. I have my own medical needs which is why we were so careful to select only things that I could handle. But that does not matter either. What is sad it is not this little girl’s fault, but the system. She has a life full of surgeries and hospitalizations. The rest of my family is on the back burner because our world revolves around her. Nobody cares or helps us. Disruption is ugly, but in situations I see it is best. There would have been families able and wanting to adopt her.