Comments on: Disruption and Dissolution

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:06:39 +0000

Yes, a thought provoking discussion; in mentioning dissolution, I shudder at the thought and I feel so attached to my child that I believe it would kill me to give him up. But I think more parents (those birth parents we have adopted from) do in fact give them up even when they don’t have special needs for many reasons. I understand what you are saying though, Most parents of biological children do not consider “giving them back” because of special needs or otherwise. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words. Thanks for sharing.

By: JHS

JHS — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:19:53 +0000

A thought-provoking discussion. My first reaction is, however, “What about those of us who gave birth to our children? Those kids frequently turn out to have ’special needs.’ We can’t ‘give them back.’ We have to work through the issues, persevering. I guess, theoretically, we could put them up for adoption, but that’s not something a parent considers.”

Tough issues. Tough choices. No easy solutions.

Thanks for participating in the Christmas Edition of the Carnival of Family Life! The Carnival will go live at midnight (Pacific time) on December 24, 2007, at Colloquium!

Happy holidays!

By: pickel

pickel — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:56:15 +0000

We do biomedical treatments. One thing I have found in the last week that is really beneficial to him is additional magnesium. Try giving Epsom salt baths before school to see if that lowers his tolerance or calms him.

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:43:41 +0000

We are in the middle of these same issues. Daniel who has FAS has good days and bad, but on any given day, he has a hard time listening to me, and when he doesn’t get his way he can be aggressive. It has gotten somewhat better, but he still takes a swing at me when he gets mad. He is not really aggressive at school, but he is terribly impulsive. Yesterday, at the bus stop, he was making fun of his “friends” and being disrespectful to me. I know what I “should have done”, but I wanted him to go to school and avoid a major meltdown and wrestling match. I realize now that sometimes I just try to avoid confrontation with him, which really doesn’t teach him anything. But, I did decide that he will not ride the bus for a while, which he loves the bus and he had consequences yesterday afternoon when he got home from school. This [raising these boys] ranks with one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life. I am trying to decide what to do with this experience besides share with other adoptive families. Really though, some days it takes all my energy just being Mom. Thanks for writing this blog.

By: Marcie

Marcie — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:07:52 +0000

Becky,
I belong to an adoption group (yahoo but we all met through my agency). Everyone on there says their kids on doing great! But, behind the scenes some of them email me with questions on how to deal with behavior issues.

I am certainly not the one to ask all the time but the been there, done that kind of questions I can answer.

Right now were are starting to see the start of the downslide…the impulsiveness, the serious aggression, not listening, attention issues, etc.

I know that pre-adoptive parents need to hear these things but the problem is it would probably scare them away so agencies won’t do it.

THIS is the SOLE reason I freelance.

By: Becky

Becky — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:47:27 +0000

I have just been able to catch up. I agree as well that agencies do not do a good enough job of preparing pre-adoptive parents. I felt we got mixed messages; we had one all day training session about “adoption issues” which included RAD, developmental delays and the possibility of FAS, BUT the louder message I heard was there are more healthy childrenavailable and waiting for families in international orphanages than there are children in the US. SO, we thought, we will get healthy cheldren who will have ‘mild adjustment” provbems. When we got home with our boys, everyone remarked at how well they seemed to be adjusting and how bright they were. And they were, but home life was a differenjt story. After about 2 years of post placement visits, we finally started seeing the truth; they had more than just discipline problems, they had complex trauma, ect. Being mad at the agency does no good, we didn’t believe dissolution was an option or necessary (although, I’d be lying if I didn’t say we wanted to send them back a time or two). Anyway, I am wondering if more pre-adoptive parents need to hear from post-adoptive families. We only heard from the ones that said “We’re doing fine!”

By: Hevel

Hevel — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:47:45 +0000

I have been reading, I just ended up being super busy with the holiday, my “kid” brother visiting from Israel and trying to help sort out that Canadian adoption fiasco and some health issues.

The foundation I work for is originally for aiding families and caregivers of people with special needs. It has been only recently that adoption issues were referred to us and we have been trying to help families adopting out of the predominantly Hungarian areas of Romania and mostly Italian families adopting from Hungary. And oh boy, are there problems!

By: pickel

pickel — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:24:23 +0000

Hevel, I wondered where you were!
I’m glad you can help families like the one you did. Kids need people like you. I know of several people who do this type of thing for Russian children and personally, I think it helps save those children’s lives.

By: Hevel

Hevel — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:43:33 +0000

When I read the news about this case I thought something smelt funny about it. However, as an adoptee and as someone who worked with families adopting special needs children, the dissolution of adoption is often the best thing to do. Mine own adoption was, fortunately, dissolved shortly before I turned 18. (I think I commented here about why that was the best solution for me.)

I think the way adoptions–and many times cross-cultural adoptions–are handled by certain agencies can add to the stress of the child or family life not being like the parents thought to be.

Just recently I helped with the re-placement of a young Hungarian Roma boy who was adopted by a Canadian family at age 16 months about two years ago. The agency that handled the adoption never explained to the parents that the child was ethnic Roma, that the child spent his first year in an overcrowded, overstimulating environment with his birth family, the reasons of the removal of the child from the home and many other things. Luckily the child could be placed with an ethnic Roma family in Toronto, so he wasn’t returned to Hungary.

By: Marcie

Marcie — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:41:08 +0000

Oh, certainly. We have worked VERY hard with our son and we thought we were prepared for what he would need.

Our agency schooled us on attachment issues. They did not give us adequate information on sensory issues, severe developmental delay, PTSD, institutional autism, and speech and language delays, all of which our son has.

Our agency made us read books but what we needed was more personal time with our agency…perhaps forums with other adoptive parents to tell us the truths about what is really happening.

I agree that pre-adoptive parents who want perfect little children. I see it all too often. And they are shell-shocked when they get home. Gosh, even my parents are still in la-la land when it comes to my son. They want him to conform to their needs and it just does not happen.

People don’t realize how hard adoption really is…I often get the feeling that people think it is the easy way out and it isn’t.