When Adoption Goes Wrong

Hmmm

As an adoptive parent from Russia, I had no idea what I was getting into. I did get a beautiful, wonderful boy whom bonded to us instantly. Most outsiders are shocked to hear that he was adoptive. He is a happy wonderful little guy.

That doesn't mean everything is perfect. He is a year behind in speech due to the 18 months he was without any real lingual stimulation. He is starting to make trouble in his school, but the teachers swear that everything he does is mostly mischief. We have been working on getting him the therapy he needs so he can be a better guy. There are all these programs to help parents of adopted children.

Also anyone who is adopting should spend the expense to get a international adoption specialist to look at the prospective adoptee BEFORE they decide to adopt . They look at the child's file and can see the reports that the orphanage is trying to hide. If they get bare minimal information and the facility is pushing too hard then something is up. We had to turn down one girl because there was no real information on her. It broke my heart, but in the end we got a kid we were meant to have.

It is any parents' who are considering adopting, duty to research what they are getting into. If things feel wrong then don't proceed. And when you come across trouble, instead of wallowing in it, get help. Personally this article is a bit of sensationalism. While this problem is real, i think the true message should be look ahead and don't be ashamed to ask for help.

its understanding why people feel they can handle adoptions. most of them adopt to be wat you call a role model provide the best parenting they can and when they realize its no good that problems still arise they blame their selves and keep it all in until they snap... in this case killing a lil girl... she serves her sentence its all done now but ppl need to seek help when they have to thats wat the agencies want

I have adopted three domestically, and my brother has had three biologically. They are all a handfull, regardless. Hilt just wasnt ready or mature enough. Adoption has little or nothing to do with being patient or just knowing when to ask for help when it gets to be too much.

It's articles like this that makes adoption less and less an option to would be parents, for every adooption that goes bad there are thousands that are awesome.
So please do parentless kids a favor and stop making an issue where their isn't.
Shane Saylor

I don't know what state you're talking about but in California you can't do foster care as a "business", foster parents have to prove that they have a regular solid income outside the foster income. If you can't make it without doing foster care financially, you can't be a foster parent, plain and simple. Social workers do the best they can but they can have over a hundred cases simultaneously so they depend on foster parents to keep them abreast of any new developments or problems with the child. Children generally do not do better in facilities than they do in foster homes. I don't think raising institutionalized children is the answer to the foster care system and it certainly isn't a more stable environment with children coming and going constantly through transfers and adoptions. The states need adequate training for foster parents, and more social workers if anything. I think this story is tragic, and that international adoptions are an entirely different issue with an entirely new set of problems than domestic foster care and adoption and thus the two cannot be examined with the same standards of critique.

It is awful to kill the one you wanted to help. It is important that the parents should be ready for anything before they choose to adopt. It is not easy to determine which child will beahve well or grow properly disciplined. Having said that, adoption should conyinue. I advise that when a parent feels that htey cant keep the child any longer, they should report to authoriteis or atleast consult with other parents with adopted children or professionals. Thanks.
Godfrey Rukundo

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712150324

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712150324

this is a good, informative article. The one thing I would argue is that i have a friend who is going to adopt a child here, in America. And she was mentioning to me last week that a lot of the kids she has meant have these same type of behavioral problems mentioned in this article. So I don't thing these kind of problems are unique to adoptions overseas.

I am having great difficulty relating to some of these comments. I am a foster mother. My husband and I are here to care for kids who don't have anyone to care for them. And that INCLUDES their bio family as mentioned by a further comment. In all of the situations that I have been intertwined with, the situation is quite different than commonly portrayed. I do believe policies differ from state to state, but where I live the official goal is for family unification at all costs. My question is WHO exactly is it costing? The parent who has housing from the state, food paid for and child care (from a foster family) at no cost, or the child who has been neglected, malnurished, abandoned for drugs and thrown into a strangers home for care? The real question needs to be, who is it costing? People wonder why there aren't decent foster families out there to love and care for these kids in their most freightning moment. I can only answer that question for myself really. There is nothing more frustrating than listening to a state appointed attorney whine on about how wonderfully these "parents" (it takes more than a blood to be a parent) have been doing for the last month, staying clean and only having one arrest. The picture of perfection. And everyone accepts this, lets the parents have more rights back, pats them on the back and goes on. The majority of the time the children aren't even mentioned. Maybe they are doing great in their foster home. Maybe they actualy have a chance to thrive and succede now. Of course they want their parents back, no matter how awful it was at home they almost always want to return. It's all they have ever known and even awful provides a sliver of security. Annother comment mentioned parents needing more state help in being better parents. Trust me, all the help they could possibly want is at their fingertips, THEY DON'T WANT IT. It is so much easier to be a victim of past circumstances than it is to work hard and dig yourself out of the mess you have created. There are so few people in the entire world who can change when in this scenario. There's something that gets a hold of them and won't let go. They are stuck in this awful, destructive way of life...draging their children along with them. So please tell me, who is paying for who's choices? Who is it costing really?

I find this article inappropriately and extremely negative. The vast majority of adoptive parents and children have pleasant experiences. Though it would be niave to suggest that there are no issues surrounding adoption, it is also faulty to report child abuse as "rare but not unique" in specifically adoptive families. Adoptive parents must go through extensive screening to assess their emotional readiness to accept a child into their lives. If they are working with a reputable agency or social work service, the issues of an older child adoption or an oversees adoption are squarely addressed.
As an adoptive parent, I am disappointed at such negligent reporting. The mother who abused her child was the sole one to blame for her actions. I am not suggesting that she did not need help or her child was not difficult, but the article hinted that the mother had no other alternative, she tried everything she could...and adoption was the problem. There are plenty of parents who have emotionally disturbed children and many of those come to their parents through birth.
Every time something horrific happens in an adoptive family, reporters are quick to mention the fact the child was adopted as if it may explain some awful behavior. This sends a terrible message to children who are adopted. They are strange, not safe, etc. The truth is quite different. Adoptive children are adored by their parents just as natural birth children. It is prejudicial to these families to continue to run stories like this.

WOW, BUT YOU HAVE TO ADMIT THAT THE ADOPTIVE PARENT'S MUST TRY TO GET AS MUCH INFORMATION ON THE CHILD BEFORE ADOPTING THEM TO PREVENT THE ABUSE

I am only 14 but I see the problems just the same as you. My moms friend has tried to have children for the last 10 years. When she decided to become a foster mother we were all thrilled. She fostered a brother and a sister both of which had an attachment disorder. Though they were said to be perfectly healthy. She raised in the time she had them, almost as you would any other child only with more individual attention. They began to become more aware that they could trust her and slowly lightened up. However when the time came to move the children to a different foster home they became so ditached that they completly cut off all comunications. A month later they came to visit and were spirling down int a wors state than before with a large argument with the agency my moms freind was able to keep them for another two years.
I belive that many of the children are not only effected by the home state before but by being moved for foster home to foster home. The constant moving of children with permanate parents is depressing, but the moving of familys just as they are becoming attached could scare the child for life!

To Lena127 in response to your Comment: to kenz78 - you don't "send the child back". it's a CHILD not a shirt that doesn't fit exactly how you wanted it to. When that child presents in a manner that is not seen at the time of placement, but comes to life because that child now feels safe enough to act out the emotions that come with a traumatized liffe of some of these little ones, another placement is a viable option!! No matter how hard it is as a parent to feel as though you have failed with a child, it deffinately takes a bigger person to say that a child needs more than what they have to give.

Thank goodness the media is talking about this issue. We adopted a child from Russia and were not prepared by our social worker or agency for the problems we would face. Unless you've been in one of the orphanages, at least the poorly run ones, you cannot imagine how these children live. The self-soothing behaviors we observed were frightening. The facilitator gave us a child who seemed impaired, but we were repeatedly assured was not. When we got home the nightmare really began. There was no post placement support or help in the mental health community. He was later diagnosed with ARND. To make a very long story short, we had to put him in an institution. We worry everyday about his future. It isn't the kids fault, but parenting them is exceptionally difficult. I, for one, will not judge others who've had terrible outcomes adopting overseas. I know many people who've had better experiences than us, but the adoption agencies need to do a better job of educating parents and giving parents honest assessments of the kids before placing them. Let there be no more Nina Hilt's.

Take attachment disorder seriously. It is a HUGE issue - in the US, as well as abroad. You cannot understand it if you have not dealt with it, but it is real. It comes from kids have chronic instability and/or abuse in their first years of life. It totally changes their brains. For some of them, it is a permanent situation. These are the kids who do things like the Columbine shootings and the mall shootings - absolutely no remorse, conscience or compassion. It has been stripped from them at the very beginning of their lives. For many, no amount of love or therapy will change it because it is biochemically not there. With all the abuse and neglect we have in our country, catastrophic things like the school shootings will continue to happen because of attachment issues. Six year old children killing family dogs, maiming small animals, smearing ***, trying to kill their parents. We like to think it doesn't happen but it does and it is real. It is a big problem and, for society, it is going to get bigger unless it is addressed. People think they can place these children without telling the unsuspecting family. What happens is a nightmare - for everyone. A young child with attachment disorder can literally bring a family to its knees - no matter who you are or what you think you can do. . Is the answer to kill that child? Absolutely not. But, there is not enough support for an adoptive family (or any family) who has not been told about the violence of the child they are dealing with. These children are very solicitous with strangers. So, the mom or dad may look overwhelmed because the child just tried to hurt them, but strangers cannot see it because the child is extremely affectionate outside (no fear of bonding). These children are terrified of love and will do anything to avoid it. They are not bad children, but they have extreme and outrageous behavior because they were "taught" as young children NEVER to allow anyone close. Again, their brains form differently over time from this "training." (Much like a Spanish child can roll his "r's" but another child, who hasn't used this skill, cannot). Also, now that I can recognize attachment disorder, I see so many of these kids in the schools. But, once they are located, it is often too late. This is a disorder that happens when a child does not bond to anyone (for whatever reason) during the first few years of life. After that, it can be too late. So, for those who are outraged by this, step up and do something. The quicker we stop early abuse and neglect, the better chance for preventing this type of situation. The problem is not in the adoptive family or the child - it is in a society that too easily throws away it's young children very early in life. Children need our time and attention from the day they are born - not three years later when no one can handle them and they are already irreversably violent.

Take attachment disorder seriously. It is a HUGE issue - in the US, as well as abroad. You cannot understand it if you have not dealt with it, but it is real. It comes from kids have chronic instability and/or abuse in their first years of life. It totally changes their brains. For some of them, it is a permanent situation. These are the kids who do things like the Columbine shootings and the mall shootings - absolutely no remorse, conscience or compassion. It has been stripped from them at the very beginning of their lives. For many, no amount of love or therapy will change it because it is biochemically not there. With all the abuse and neglect we have in our country, catastrophic things like the school shootings will continue to happen because of attachment issues. Six year old children killing family dogs, maiming small animals, smearing ***, trying to kill their parents. We like to think it doesn't happen but it does and it is real. It is a big problem and, for society, it is going to get bigger unless it is addressed. People think they can place these children without telling the unsuspecting family. What happens is a nightmare - for everyone. A young child with attachment disorder can literally bring a family to its knees - no matter who you are or what you think you can do. . Is the answer to kill that child? Absolutely not. But, there is not enough support for an adoptive family (or any family) who has not been told about the violence of the child they are dealing with. These children are very solicitous with strangers. So, the mom or dad may look overwhelmed because the child just tried to hurt them, but strangers cannot see it because the child is extremely affectionate outside (no fear of bonding). These children are terrified of love and will do anything to avoid it. They are not bad children, but they have extreme and outrageous behavior because they were "taught" as young children NEVER to allow anyone close. Again, their brains form differently over time from this "training." (Much like a Spanish child can roll his "r's" but another child, who hasn't used this skill, cannot). Also, now that I can recognize attachment disorder, I see so many of these kids in the schools. But, once they are located, it is often too late. This is a disorder that happens when a child does not bond to anyone (for whatever reason) during the first few years of life. After that, it can be too late. So, for those who are outraged by this, step up and do something. The quicker we stop early abuse and neglect, the better chance for preventing this type of situation. The problem is not in the adoptive family or the child - it is in a society that too easily throws away it's young children very early in life. Children need our time and attention from the day they are born - not three years later when no one can handle them and they are already irreversably violent.

To all who have never experienced the great sadness and completley overwhelming days and nights of caring for a child with an attachment disorder please go to this website. http://www.radkid.org/signs_and_symptoms.html
And once you learn a little more about the heartache that these children and caregivers experience just by reading though the signs and symtoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder, only then will you have a small understanding of what a foster parent or adoptive parent of these joyless children goes through day and night. Here is an extra to add to the cute packages that these blameless little troubled souls come in, just remember, that they are experts at being superficially charming and affectionate to those they cannot trust, yes that is you...the strangers that the appear so wonderful to. If only you could see and feel what I have felt as a foster-adopt mom who could not fix a beautiful little blonde haired, blue eyed girl (from America) with love and consistancy. Talk about an overwhelming feeling of failure and inadequacy. To all who may believe that it is my parenting ability that needs to be fixxed, my own three biological children are thriving, as are many other foster children that have come into our home. Even so, after two and a half years with this seemingly heartless child, I had to let someone else try. Her counselor said she needed residential treatment, at age four. The state choose not to listen. She has been moved to two other foster homes in less than four months. Learn about attachment disorders and then look to the agencies that are in responsible for making the right choices for these emotionally disturbed children who cannot love.