My adopted teenage son has fasd ama

[Fasdmama]

Ama but please bare in mind I need to protect his privacy so some things I cant talk about. I want to do this to help people understand fasd more.

OP thanks for the thread.Really interesting to hear from someone in the teenage years as they are the years I fear for our own DD! We are very well supported so trying our best but the mix of fight flight trauma with the impulsivity,hyperactivity, confabulation,need for constant supervision etc is a worry!like what you say about 'yesterday' that's very much the same for us!any tips for the teenage years let me know!

Such valuable insights here, thanks.

My only contribution to the general
adoption talk is that an awful lot of people think parents still get one healthy baby from a pair of star-crossed lovers like they did in 1950.

Including Social Services who should be ashamed of themselves.

Judges could help with this - given their role in removal for adoption is to ensure a child’s best interests, they could specify what medical & psych treatment as well as therapeutic parenting their essential interests require.

And stop Mummy rolling up 👋 on Facebook when the kids have been fixed.

Adoption’s not a free middle class babysitting service for addicts.

It is a testimony to the beauty and bravery of the human spirit that most adoptions work and family love flourishes.

Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. Addicits are already in pain and to accept what theyve done will cause an avalanche.

This sounds incredibly difficult Im so sorry.

There is a lot more to it than just facial features

You are obviously in a horrendous situation. Your previous post was just dismissive and made no sense. And everyone’s children and experiences are different.

Yep re addicts - so they get high again. After a bit their frontal brain fails, they’ll never be able to parent again.

You can be as compassionate as you like but addicts can’t parent or even be a Disney Dad-type - ever.

@scribbleriran I'm so sorry if my post jas come across as belittling my son. I've tried to put across his positive characteristics as well and my complete love for him. The organisation sounds amazing. 🩷

You may want to consider a little more humility in your professional life. It is very common for sufferers of long term conditions, and their families, to become experts in their illnesses and to end up knowing more than their doctors, who often have a relatively narrow frame of reference that is limited to what they were taught. Yes, doctors still have a complementary role, but the worst doctors are ones who act like patients are inferior to them. Your posts are coming across as a stereotypical arrogant doctor who thinks they can speak down to others because of their job. Hopefully that’s just the internet version of you not the real life version!

@Fasdmama you really didn't at all (which is why I tried to distinguish between what you said and some of the replies). I was very lucky with my adoption but my eyes have been opened by meeting other adult adoptees who had a very difficult time and just like adoptive parents, everyone has a different experience. It's a very tricky situation to navigate for everyone, and I think compassion for other groups involved, from birth parents to adoptees to adoptive parents should inform all of us in this.

In what way?

@thetallfairy we first asked for an ehcp when he was in year 2 but school wouldn't support us and I dosnt at the time know I could do ot by myself. We had the paediatrician saying our ds needed an ehcp. We knew he did but the school refused to support us. Ds was meeting his targets and wasnt disruptive enough. He is so charming and sweet that all the teachers liked him so didnt want to say anything negative. He masked his short term memory issues by following everyone when it was break etc. Because he could tell the time I wasnt believed about the abstract concepts. Infact I was thought to be a helicopter parent. We tried again in year 5 but again weren't believed. When ds moved to high school everything went to shit 🤣🥺 his behaviour wasnt understood and he also started to mix with groups who didnt make the right choices. He shouted out because if he didnt say his answer immediately he'd forget it. He'd be late for less because he got lost so got a detention. He had so many detentions he was doing them 2 weeks later. It was awful. I was constantly talking to the senco but he wanted to leave it a year so he could collect enough evidence. By the march I'd had enough and applied myself. The school completly supported us and by June we had his EHCP. He now has 25 hours of support a week.
(Sorry that was excepting long winded apologies!)

@thepiecehall thank you. I just wish their was more awareness of FASD throughout society and especially in education.
The amount of adopted children who have some disorder due to alcohol intake during pregnancy is hidden so much. It needs to be spoken about more.

@liveforsummer absolutely. I think there was a time when people thought a child with fasd must have facial features. Worryingly a couple of years ago a locum paediatrician told my son he didnt have the facial features of fasd so probably didnt have it.
Its taken a long time for my son to accept he has fasd so such a flippant comment was nt helpful at all

Thanks for ehcp info OP,I didn't know we could apply ourselves so will get to that as be get towards secondary as that sounds very much like what I expect.primary knows me well and gave been really supportive but secondary will be so different.ehcp sounds a good plan for the future.

Huge respect for what you have done for your son. It is such a huge achievement of love & commitment and I am very sorry that one strange poster decided to be to be so rude to you- really baffling behaviour.

My question: given that when a very young child is adopted, his/her likely FASD status in many cases will not be ascertainable (for instance because there is no knowledge of birth mother’s drinking habits), do you think all adopters (or at least those adopting a child under 5) should be screened for their capacity to deal with FASD? I would assume that many simply can’t cope with it & that adoptions break down as a result.

@HoppingPavlovaYou are a rude poster.

School should have supported the application from the outset

Sorry it was so hard 💔

@Justlostmybagel exactly! The OP has come on to kindly share information, raise awareness and answer questions on a little-known condition and gets hit with horrible and completely unnecessary abuse.

Hi @ladyblakeneyshanky . I dont know how the Adoption process works now but when we started our journey we were educated more on trauma and neglect than specific disorders. So yes I definetly think more training should be given pre adoption. Ive still never been given any specific training its what ive learnt myself. But if I could of easily had that information to hand in the early days things would of gone very differently.

We persued a formal diagnosis for FASD as it means if he gets a job in the future the workplace will have to make reasonable allowances for his poor memory and low level of understanding. We don't know if he will ever be able to work but it means he might have a chance in the future. The consultant asked about history of his biological pregnancy lifestyle choices which SW was able to supply as it had been an issue at the time his older 2 siblings were taken into care. She also binge drank and was a heroin addict just the same through the pregnancy of his biological brother and he has been affected in exactly the same way. She had drank and took drugs to some extent through all 4 pregnancies but much worse through 3rd and 4th pregnancies and 4th baby was taken into care from birth and born with a heroin addiction.

As a general rule, I think it’s really important for children to be able to understand themselves and their diagnosis. It can completely change how they see themselves and give some relief “oh Im not a horrible stupid personal it’s not actually my fault.” A bit differnet as Im thinking more of ND but a lot of children and adults wished theyd been diagnosed sooner.

Also more understanding from others and supported instead pf purely being seen as problems. Knowledge is power, especially self knowledge. And being legally protected because of it.

This was the post I made the 😳 face to @ThePieceHall , not you!

I’m probably going to throw the cat among the pigeons here but I didn’t actually think that @HoppingPavlovawas being rude. Personally, I think it’s okay to analyse and challenge, especially if you’re a trained medical professional. There are lots of murky areas in the field of diagnoses of care experienced children. It’s no exaggeration to say that the vast majority of adopted children have been exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero. The problem is, unless there’s hard evidence ie court-ordered hair strand testing, the maternal consumption of alcohol usually relies on self-declaration to health professionals. Also, the received wisdom these days is that all adopted children are affected by ‘trauma & attachment’ and, generally speaking, very few social workers look behind or beyond these labels and then our children are offered a 10-week course of play therapy to help with their ‘attachment and trauma’ issues.

The fact is, in England, the only evidence-based clinic offering evidence-based assessments for adopted and fostered children, at the South London Maudsley Hospital, has been quietly closed by the NHS. Instead, we are fobbed off with non-evidence based assessments and less than helpful therapies. Also, there is only one centre of excellence for diagnostics of FASD in the country, the Surrey Clinic, where Dr Mukherjee (spelling?) is the leading expert on FASD. Very many adoptive parents are denied access to this clinic by their health boards.

Another point to bear in mind is the huge overlap in neurodivergences. It’s possibly important to consider that very many birth parents self-medicate with drugs and alcohol and engage in risky and chaotic relationships because they’re perhaps struggling with undiagnosed neurodivergent conditions, like ADHD and autism. God knows, it’s hard enough to secure a diagnosis and help for a child when you’re a fully functional sharp-elbowed person who knows how to navigate systems. When there’s multigenerational history of children and adults failed by the system, it’s not hard to see why people turn to drugs and alcohol.

@newsenmum I think you've worded that so well. All brilliant reasons for having a diagnosis.

@thepiecehall youve explained really well the issues with getting a diagnosis and support. (I do think she was a bot rude though 🤣)