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Adoption

Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on adoption.

All the horror stories - but what is the truth

56 replies

Aeschylus · 29/10/2011 14:52

Having completed our prep course we are about to make a final application for home study. However my dh is concerned about some of the stories we have heard and as a stay at home dad, needs to be 100% so my question is this...

We do not expect a child to be adopted with no additional social and emotional needs or to not to have to deal with their experiences. Although every child is different and there is no definitive answer, how have your children reacted to being adopted and do any children accompish the sense of belonging in a family without having intense behavioural issues?

We have a child in the family already and feel ok to support attachment difficulties, low self esteem etc (I know there are lots of etc!!!!) but do not want our ds to feel threatened or have his world turned upside down (with long term negative effects). I know a child coming to the family would be younger but biting and scratching or breaking all of his toys etc hurts however old the child is!!

Please don't think I am being niave and expecting things to be easy, I am not and I know it probably sounds awful to even ask but it is just a question that I want to pose to people who are 'in the know' but also not trying to do the initial 'scare everyone off to see who is serious' thing.

Thanks

OP posts:
cory · 09/11/2011 11:29

Yes, I can see that that would make a difference.

In actual fact, my mother and I had a very similar situation: traumatised, occasionally violent (but also loving and much loved) child who acted out in very similar ways, but because mine happened to be biological it was much easier for me to ask for help. Nobody was going to say "you should have seen that coming" or start speculating on my commitment to motherhood.

Of course there were other factors too: a generational difference (my mother was also very reluctant to ask for help with health problems of her own) and the fact that she lived in a small town where everybody knew everybody and being different was...very different.

But I am sure the adoption question made things far more sensitive.

Maryz · 09/11/2011 18:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

descendantsfan24 · 10/11/2022 09:42

i am adopted
i hated finding out

UnderTheNameOfSanders · 11/11/2022 15:48

@descendantsfan24 Hi. You raised a very old thread, you may find it better to start your own if you want to talk?

I don't know how long ago you were adopted, but in modern times adopters are told to bring their children up 'knowing' so there is (or should be) no 'finding out' to be done.

Marcipex · 20/11/2022 01:01

I can give you a few examples of what adopters I know have experienced, but the main thing I want to say is that as your son is timid and sensitive, don’t do it to him.

Maybe consider fostering when he is older and can have a lock on his room.

Here are a few events I know to be facts.

Most details of child’s life were withheld from adoptive parents until a judge ordered otherwise post-adoption.

Foster carer was told by SS not to disclose the child’s violent behaviour to her, when she met the adopters.

Ss told the adopters that they wanted to rush the adoption through as the fosterer was becoming too attached to the child.
This fosterer later told the adoptive parents she could not wait to pass the child on and wouldn’t ever foster again because of him.

Child behaved surprisingly well for 6 weeks or so, then changed overnight. After this first few weeks, the child was violent-spitting, kicking, hitting, pinching on a daily basis. (Fine at school)

Child persistently and perpetually hitting and kicking the adoptive mothers breasts. Could not be stopped. She had massive bruising and abscesses which developed into cancer.

Child repeatedly saying they wanted to kill the adoptive mother.

Child ‘breaks all my things ’ is exactly what an older sibling of an adoptee told me.

Child attempts to hurt family pets so they have to be kept apart.

Family support falls away as people cannot cope with the behaviour.

Child at secondary age makes threats of false accusations as a means of getting his own way.

Child verbally abuses parent non-stop in a monologue as background to everyday life.

Family members are all afraid of the child as they reach their teens.

Child still wets and soils by choice, at secondary age.

Child sees the appointed therapist but the therapist, who would not allow the adoptive parents into the room, sobs when back in the waiting room, while the child laughs at her.

I’m sorry but there is no way of knowing how any child will behave. No guarantees.

tonyhawks23 · 20/11/2022 08:12

Goodness what an awful post and not at all my experience of adoption.this is such an old thread it maybe time to end this discussion.

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