I’m glad to hear that you are considering this. However I didn’t suggest that you were going into it blind - perhaps you are confusing me with another poster ?
Experiencing other people’s children in distress for a short period isn’t the same as having your own child in distress and aiming that at you. It’s not just that it’s longer, the nature and intensity is completely different when you are the target.
Let me give you an example - I assume you know that children are sometimes abused by their parents and that you feel sad for these children. How much more sad will you feel when people have abused YOUR children? And perhaps you will have to interact in a professional manner with them. Because adopters don’t get to hate their children’s abusers - they have to empathise with them and put their feelings before their own.
How would you feel if you discovered today that your niece or newphew or a close friends child had been sexually abused by someone you know? Multiply that by a few hundred and live with that feeling. For years.
And that’s just your feelings, as a parent you also have your child’s to deal with. And that’s a lot harder.
You might understand that your child hates their birth mother or father for being a bad parent. But how will it feel when your child hates you and wants to kill you because you are a good parent ?
Adopted children are very good at putting their difficult feelings onto someone else - you will be that person as their adoptive mum ( I’m assuming here ) and that’s not easy.
These are the kind of issues I am talking about.
So the information I was suggesting you might need is not concerning the children’s background . It is about the reality of parenting deeply traumatised children and being a family living with attachment issues.
This is a big issue for prospective adopters who have a professional connection with looked after children . I know two adoptive families where one parent was a social worker and they both struggled hugely.
In one case it ended their marriage as one parent wanted to disrupt the placement and the other didn’t as they felt they couldn’t be seem to have “failed “ at something at which less qualified people had succeeded.
Your professional expertise and role can get tied up in ways that are unhelpful and damaging. And makes it hard to ask for and accept support, as you feel ashamed for “ not coping “.
One friend felt deeply ashamed at how she had judged foster carers and adopters and very distressed about some recommendations she had made that she now felt were wrong.
Anyway I’m not sure if these rambling thoughts are helping you, but I will Leave them here anyway for any lurkers.
I wish you well in your adoption plans OP.