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Adoption

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

Entertaining an adopted child.

92 replies

Futuremummy87 · 02/12/2018 16:10

Can anyone give me any advice.

It's a milestone birthday for my Dad next year. He wants to have a day trip to London. Our adopted son will have only been home with us for 5 months.

Dad wants to go to Museums and galleries etc and have a nice lunch.

How can I keep a 3 year old entertained while we are traipsing round places he won't be remotely interested in?

Also, I have no idea what little ones attention span etc will be like as we haven't bought him home yet. Feel stressed and neevous. He is our first child.

OP posts:
Futuremummy87 · 05/12/2018 17:04

Thanks TLDR. Is it in little ones best interests to expedite? How will the extra month or so benefit him? I will then put this to our social worker.

The timescales we have been given work well for us but if quicker is better for him I will push.

OP posts:
Ted27 · 05/12/2018 17:19

But you can't get them as soon as you are linked. Apart from anything else you have to wait for matching panel, with the best will in the world that can take a couple of months to get on to the list.

I was formally linked end December, with matching panel on 5 March, intros 2 weeks later. I was incredibly busy in that time with various meetings, medical advisors, teachers, birth parents, FCs etc , sorting out school, finishing work. Its hard to see where any time could have been saved,
If there is a gap between panel and intros, you might gain a week or so but really the key thing is a panel date. Its very possible that January panels are all booked now

tldr · 05/12/2018 17:24

If it’s expedited he spends less of his life in care is the short version. Two months is only two months to you, but to him it’s an 18th of his life. (So equivalent to maybe 2 years to you.)

It also means you’ll have him for this birthday which may mean something to him in the future. (It would mean something to one of mine, not the other.)

Maybe someone else can help with a more coherent argument.

I’ve seen an argument that says each year before the come home = 2 years healing required. I think that’s over simplistic BS myself, but might be worth a google to see if you can find a decent source for it or similar.

I know how hard it is to advocate for them when you don’t feel they’re yours, and I didn’t at all - I just did as I was told by SWs - but I regret that enormously. I so very much wish I’d got them home a month or two earlier.

tldr · 05/12/2018 17:27

Ted, I don’t know for sure obvs but it sounds like there’s been an extra delay added to accommodate birthday. That, imo, is an avoidable delay. Completely agree Jan (in SS) terms is now quite close.

Also, in our case, nothing happened at all during months of the wait and it was all done last minute to the deadline of the booked panel. If panel had been sooner, they’d have done all that stuff sooner.

Futuremummy87 · 05/12/2018 17:37

The earliest panel they can offer us is mid Feb now.

OP posts:
Thepinklady77 · 05/12/2018 22:21

“You will get on better on the adoption threads here if you learn to disagree with people’s opinions in a less dismissing and attacking manner.’

“I think @thepinklady77 does just fine on adoption threads. Her contributions have always been useful.”

Thank you Ilovedotcotten. This was going to be something similar to my reply to Kristingle. I have been surviving fine for the last number of years in these boards thank you very much. You may have been giving an opinion but it most certainly came across as an attack. These boards are great for sharing of experiences and thoughts and that was what the OP was asking for. You could have shared your experiences of how your little ones coped or didn’t cope with similar things in the early days of placement but instead you jumped on an attack of how you perceived she was going to parent this child.

Sorry if I offended you but to be frank your response to the OP offended me.

Kristingle · 05/12/2018 23:00

Thank you for your apology.

Now perhaps we can get back to the OP and her questions / issues.

Kewcumber · 06/12/2018 09:09

Please don't ignore some of the more blunt comments because they aren't "kind", mostly people post on the adoption board with experience and because they want to help parents and children.

And you don't love your prospective child yet so any decisions you make now are theoretical.

DS's difficulties didn't show significantly until he was about 7 and when I look back his behaviours clearly showed a problem much much earlier which I allowed myself to ignore because everyone assured me that it was "normal" that all kids show separation anxiety at XYZ age. I look back now and really regret not listening to that inner voice telling me all wasn't fine and compliance from a child doesn't necessarily mean all is fine and dandy.

I think far better to assume that this kind of day will NOT be OK and plan for a gentler alternative like a local park and lunch at home or locally then your father is prepared now and you're not trying to argue with him about it whilst you're exhausted in the early days of placement.

However I can never tell people enough how much I regret certain things that I did in the early years (yes years, not months) after placement because my son "appeared" to be fine with it. Now I have no idea if anything I did/could have done would have made a difference but I have to live with the knowledge that I didn't always do the right thing but the expedient thing (even with the best of intentions) - partly because I was trying to keep everyone happy.

No-one is impuning your parenting skills because a) we don't know you and b) you don't have any yet! Your post is written that you have made the decision to go ahead and how do you keep him entertained, so I don't think you should take offence at those of us who think you should rethink the plans and questioning why you're falling in with what your Dad wants. Even if some of us might be a tad more blunt than others...

And I (and others) can get evangelical about making sure prospectve parents hear our voices in situations like this because it's easy to latch onto those which are saying "well it could be fine" (with a gentle whispered "but it might not") because it's what we all want to believe. But Kristina and I probably between us know hundreds of adoptive families over a 20 year timespan (and if I went back through the thread and picked out those who have said the same thing in a gentler way you could probably add a hundred more) and I'd even go out on a limb to say that the majority of children adopted at 3 would not be fine with the day you describe a few months after placement. A large number might appear to be fine of course but I still think it's not in the best interests of a child when an alternative less demanding day could be planned. You might not even know at the time if your child would cope - why would you take the risk?

And we don't say any of these things to upset you, we say it because it might make a difference to a vulnerable child.

Having said that I wouldn't be planning anything at all in case it tempted fate! Just about everything that could go wrong with DS's adoption did and the timescales stretched longer than I expected as a result.

Sorry that turned into a bit of an essay.

Ilovedotcotton · 06/12/2018 09:46

To be fair to the OP, she has said multiple times that she IS taking the advice on board, and will act according to the best interests of her son. If you read all her posts, you can see that she talks about the trip as being certain but then moves to saying that she won’t do it if it’s not appropriate. This isn’t an AIBU post where she seems to be ignoring everything that is said!

Futuremummy87 · 06/12/2018 09:53

Perhaps how I phrased the initial question was unclear. It is more a question of is it possible to make this enjoyable for a 3 year old. If it isn't I would prefer not to take him and go by myself. That is why I explained A) that he is adopted and B) how early in placement it will be. It is clear that this is unlikely to be an appropriate trip and that I will be going my myself. This was my initial gut feeling in the beginning. I just wanted to check I wasn't missing a way that he could enjoy it.

I feel it will be too much for all of us. It's a long day and likely to be stressful with him in tow.

OP posts:
Kewcumber · 06/12/2018 10:06

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that the OP wasn't listening - my post was more of an explanation of why some of us get a bit strident at times.

And that many of us know each other either in real life or virtually and so are a bit more forthright than other sites.

But yes to being potentially stressful for you - I recall crying because my pushchair (reverse facing as instucted by adoption wisdom) wouldn't push easily in the direction I wanted it to. And that was about 2 months after having DS full time.

EightWellies · 09/12/2018 06:22

Wow Shock I don't know why you've been given such a hard time on this thread OP. You're clearly just excited and planning ahead, partly to get through this difficult limbo time before your LO comes home.

Flowers to you and I hope the next few months pass quickly and smoothly.

Futuremummy87 · 09/12/2018 07:19

Thank you Eight Wellies. We are very excited! I'm sure the time will fly by.

I hope you've had a great weekend.

OP posts:
sunnymam · 10/12/2018 04:39

Wow, you've been given a hard time!! Not really sure why, threads like this make me reluctant to ask for advice.....anyway, for what its worth it sounds like you are already doing a great job - planning ahead, taking advice on board and thinking about your little boy's best interest. Hopefully you've been able to take away some good advice from this thread and feel supported by most people.
Good luck and very exciting times xx

Worriedmummybekind · 17/12/2018 15:19

Is there any way your OH can take the day off and care for your son?

I can see this is important to you but it sounds like it will be really stressful for you and your little one trying to keep up with expectations to behave in a unrealistic way.

OlennasWimple · 20/12/2018 22:45

OP - have you been to these places yourself? So you know them, you know the lay out, where there are queues, where to disappear into a quiet corner, where the loos are...? I found that visiting the places I knew reasonably well was so much easier than the places I had never been to, or only once. Perhaps because small, traumatised children are unsettled by being in a strange setting with adults who aren't confident about what is going on. "I don't know" is a terrifying answer for them.

DS's difficulties didn't show significantly until he was about 7 and when I look back his behaviours clearly showed a problem much much earlier which I allowed myself to ignore because everyone assured me that it was "normal" that all kids show separation anxiety at XYZ age. I look back now and really regret not listening to that inner voice telling me all wasn't fine and compliance from a child doesn't necessarily mean all is fine and dandy

^^ This is exactly our experience also. Pay back for my smugness at how well DD (apparently) settled in and bonded with me, eh

GG2233 · 15/01/2019 01:38

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