I'm an adopter AMA

[HammerToFall]

I have two adopted children who have both been diagnosed with attachment. There are so many misconceptions about adoption and the way it affects children - feel free to ask anything

13! That poor woman.
Will your children have any contact with their siblings?

It’s shockingly common for women who have had children removed to just keep on having children. I come across it in my line of work and I’ve known them to be having babies on a yearly basis. The cycle just goes on and on. They are so convinced that social services are simply victimising them and that they will be able to keep the next one. For some it’s more about “trying to win” than actually wanting the baby It feels so hopeless and I do admit that I find myself wishing that we could enforce sterilisation in such circumstances, however I know deep down that’s not a road we want to go down.

Also, just to add to the issue of siblings. My DH is adopted and has never wanted to find his birth family. He has no idea if he has any bio siblings nor wants to know. He says he is happy with the family he has and doesn’t want to complicate his life. Whilst that might sound quite cold, I can understand where he is coming from. It’s self preservation. His sibling (also adopted) has contacted their birth family and unearthed all sorts of tragedy and it’s triggered some mental health problems as a result. Suppose I just wanted to say that adoptive children don’t always want to contact or even know anything about their birth families once they are adults.

Discotits, we have letterbox contact with the siblings that were born after my two were and placed for adoption. We don't have any contact with the children born previously to them who are all placed on special guardian ships with birth family

I think that many prospective adopters are woefully unprepared for the reality of what adoption can be.

I adopted 6 years ago. The official preperation from the adoption agency really was inadequate. The system has changed now so maybe its different.

However, I read the adoptionuk forum for a year before applying. I was left in no doubt about the risks involved.
Adoptionuk boards regularly get requests for 'positive' stories. Many prospective adopters don't want to hear the reality, too many seem utterly surprised that their children display traumatised behaviours when they move in.
As a mum of one of those middle of the bunch kids I find it frustrating to have to frame our story as 'positive' . We are doing Ok, but its hard. Nothing will make my son not have ASD, high anxiety, attachment issues. We had a 90 minute therapy session last night. It was exhausting and distressing. But he is in school, wearing a smile, cracking on with life.
Its neither postive nor negative. Its our life. It is what it is - a family, with more ups and downs than most

Did you originally seek to have a birth child before turning to adoption OP, or did you decide to go straight to adoption when looking to start a family?

Did you suffer any kind of depression after adopting your children as the realisation that life was going to be far far tougher than you realised and if so how did you get through it (did you even?)

Bananafish, we tried to conceive naturally for two years, then after tests discovered that was impossible so had three rounds of ICSI, they all failed. After the third attempt we decided to go down the adoption route.

Pamsterwheel, yep unfortunately so. I am on medication for anxiety and depression and weekly counselling. Plus an hours therapy session each week for me and each child, so three hours a week of therapy I guess it's like anything in life, you do the best with the tools you have. I am unable to work because of the amount of appointments I have weekly for each child, which hasn't helped my mental health.

Do you have any advice for friends and family of parents who have adopted children with attachment disorder how they can best support them? Is there anything specific that you would have wanted from friends? I ask because my friend and her husband have two adopted children both with attachment disorder. One can be quite violent (doesn't mean to just too young to express their frustrations and confusion) and the other is emotionally very immature. As a friend I would like to try and support her better but other than listening and looking after the kids for the odd evening....??

Ostia, I wish I had had friends like you! An ear to listen to and looking after the kids to give them a break when you can is an amazing gift. I would go crazy without the odd night away, unfortunately my circle of friends and family has diminished greatly in the past 12 years!

The main thing I wish I could have had from my friends is that they would have stuck by me instead of choosing to limit how much they saw us because they couldn't deal with the kids behaviour/how they spoke to me etc, or they couldn't accept that there were attachment issues as 'they were too young'

I teach Reception and this coming September have a little one starting who has recently moved to his adoptive home. His Parents have been incredibly forthright about him and how he copes, but what - in an ideal world - could schools do to better support adopted children and ensure their emotional welfare is as well-supported as their education?

Sorry if you've already said this but are your children both siblings from birth or from separate homes?

Idontbelieve, ideally you will want to be very aware of attachment issues. It is likely that the little one will be in survival mode a lot of the time.

Rejection will send him into a tail spin so times outs are not recommended. My kids spend most of their life in shame believing that they are bad and not good enough so things like traffic light systems and reward charts will not be helpful as when they 'fail' this will feed into the overwhelming feeling of shame and confirm what they believe about themselves.

Empathy and wondering are helpful. Try and express that you see a certain situation is difficult and wonder out loud about why it may be difficult. This is so powerful as it shows that you really 'get them' clear concise choices, you can to choose either or, and make it clear what the consequence of each choice will be and STICK to it no matter what. Attachment disordered kids are programmed to not trust adults, if you don't do exactly as you say this reinforces that they were right to mistrust. Even if you say you are going to do something in six months months and then you don't they will remember and there will be a price to pay!

I describe it as going to Ireland via America. Everything takes fifty times a long as it would do normally, but hopefully with the same consistent message, the empathy and the non rejection it will start to drip feed to him that school is safe.

Do you worry that your children will make social media contact with their birth parents before they are 18?

Do you think your children will want to meet their birth parents when they reach 18 or soon after and what do you expect the outcome of that to be?

Socialanx, they are full sibs. My son came gone when he was 15 months, a year later my daughter was born, she was in foster care until she was one and came to me the day before her first birthday.

Las Elle's, I honestly don't know. I don't it would be easy for them to trace birth parents as they don't know their previous surnames BM's surname.

I think my son may wish to explore when he's older, my daughter I'm not so sure. She hates the fact that she's adopted and I didn't give birth to her and really doesn't like acknowledging it, unfortunately my son likes to talk about it a lot and tell people which is his right but upsets her so sometimes it can be tricky to manage.

Ah that does sound tricky, thank you for your insights into adopting and all the best for you and your family,

Why could your daughter not come directly to you?

And were you asked if you wanted to adopt any of the subsequent children that were born?

Sorry if I'm being too intrusive- you don't need to answer if you don't want to.

You mentioned that they told you that because your children were quite young that it would be unlikely that they would have attachment issues. At what age did there appear to be signs that something was up. Were they ok as toddlers?

Btw, your thread has been so informative. Thank you for sharing.

Discotits, we did push to have my daughter from birth as a foster to adopt placement, but social workers in their infinite wisdom though it was best for her to go into a foster placement until the placement order was secured.

Yes, we have been asked to consider every single child birth mum has had since my daughter and two of birth dads subsequent children. Unfortunately this isn't the right thing for our family. The children have enough to deal with and their own relationship is very strained, so adding more into the mix wouldn't work.

Discotits, we did push to have my daughter from birth as a foster to adopt placement, but social workers in their infinite wisdom though it was best for her to go into a foster placement until the placement order was secured.*

This seems so... odd, obviously I’m not really in a position to comment, but I’m surprised.

Socialanx, my son started displaying issues around age five, I guess they were always there but could very easily have been put down to normal toddler behaviour. School was a very big trigger for him, I often wonder if it triggered fears of abandonment.

My daughter was 7. Everything was fab as far as we were knew, then one day out of the blue she trashed the classroom at school and continued to do so every day until she was excluded. We didn't know what on earth was going on, but it has been explained to us that as she got older her emotional needs and feelings rejection etc were becoming more complex, she had masked for so long and just couldn't hold it in any longer.

My son has never had a problem at school. He masks really well. His meltdowns are reserved for home. I guess after coping all day at school in fight or flight mode, when he gets home where he knows he's safe it al comes flooding out.

Discotits, the reason was, until parents responsibilities are dissolved birth parents have a right to contact. Social workers thought it may put the placement we already had with it son in jeopardy as birth parents would see us when my daughter had contact, so would therefore know what we looked like if they ever saw us out.

The other reason is that obviously a placement order isn't guaranteed, so if after a year of her living with us, the court rejected the order and she had to return to birth parents it would have been a big loss to our son, one minute his sister is there then she is gone.

It was unlikely that placement order wouldn't be granted, but they weren't prepared to take this risk

You mention your children have feelings of shame and feeling bad - that was me as a child (and adult) too. I'm not adopted but have had other issues as a child - emotionally absent parents / domestic violence etc. I tried to be invisible to deal with things and wished I never existed. I think I was around 4 when I realised I hated who I was. Your children are so lucky to have parents like you.