Mid intros

[Adoptingdaddy1]

Hi, just a question about the length of introductions. We have been given 2 weeks and are 4 days in now and if totally honest lo would move in with us now if given the choice lol. Our mid intro review is middle of next week! 🙄 Has anyone managed to have theirs shortened as it's really upsetting for lo when we leave and we feel it could be causing unnecessary stress if we have to see out full 2 weeks. We understand these are professionals but there shouldn't be a template to suit all and should be assessed on a child by child basis really.

We managed to get ours shortened slightly both times. The Foster Carer being of the same mind is really important. Otherwise though, intros are really hard and unnatural. Just stick in there and they will be over soon.

I cannot say I am looking forward to this at all.
(assuming matching panel is ok today)

Our introductions lasted 10 days. We struggled with things to do but managed to get an agreement that we could take our LO to our house for the last 2 days and social services would pay the fuel (2 hour drive each way).

Looking back the whole thing was ridiculous, they expected her to spend 5 days with us in our accommodation then boom move straight to a house she'd never visited before.

I'd see what the FCs think and go through all the information you have to check you have everything you need to be able to support your LO both during the day and through the night, whatever their mood and know how to give medication and comfort when they are ill.

We had 10 days which was probably a couple of days too long. Ours and kids SWs would have shortened it, as would foster carers but team manager wanted to stick to the 10 days. Introductions are probably the strangest time of your life, but they'll be over in a flash really. It's almost a year since we met our little ones and we've forgotten most of the introduction stress.
Congratulations and all the best.

Hi and congrats.

Ours was 2 weeks (miles away from home on my own) and I have to admit at the time it felt like forever and I did have a few tears in the evenings after leaving LO.
By day 8 we were most definitely ready to come home but mid review was day 10 and still had to wait, though did get it reduced to 12 days.
I was also worried how LO would cope having got to know the rental property but as we pulled up to our house which had been in the intro book and video LO’s shouted out ‘it’s our house!!’ and ran in.

It’s such a lovely feeling coming home and being able to relax a bit and find your routine. That day may seem like a long way off for you right now but it will actually fly by 😊

How old is the child? We only did a week in the end as ours was young (12 months) with the agreement of the FC.

Thanks for replies everyone,

LO is a toddler and most definitely is as relaxed with us as she could be after a only few days (you would think she'd known us for months). We've been told they will review the time scale at review meeting which is also on day 10! LO comes home day 15 which is way too long for both us and LO, it's very upsetting and almost borderline torture for LO to see us leave every night and won't actually come to our home until day 12 😔 so it's a long time for them to see us turn up and then leave every day. There needs to be change in the way they do things as each child is totally different and they seem to have a model in place that they think will fit every child (oh how wrong they are). I'll update with how it goes when something happens... If something happens lol

Our intros were at a distance and all in were about 10 days with a rest day in the middle. It’s easy to think intros are set to a pattern which doesn’t take the individual child into account but it’s worth considering that your child may need the time. While he’s gaining you and a new home he’s also loosing everyone else - which he won’t necessarily realise initially. At this point he’s got a lovely new forever family, he needs time to understand that means he’s losing other people and to start to feel the loss of that, it’s important he has a good ending with his foster carers as well as a good start with you. The good start with you communicates that he’s moving on to his new family with the love and support of his foster family. A good ending with the foster carers communicates that you can deal with his sad feelings about losing people important to him, that you’re secure enough to know he can love you and them.

It wasn’t til around day 8 that my little boy realised he was loosing his foster family, that he really couldn’t have both of us. If intros had been shorter he wouldn’t have had time to start to adjust to losing them while having some security of still seeing them. Basically to be able to say goodbye with some understanding of what that meant for him.

Adoption is about new beginnings, yes but it’s also about endings and huge levels of loss -intros are designed to support both processes, grief and loss can take a bit longer to surface in the excitement of the new but kids need time for both. My two really grieved the loss of their foster family and sometimes that loss will still come back and hit them out of nowhere.

I hope the rest of intros goes well, it’s a very strange time but it does pass.

I’d also consider that any child being prepared to move in with you after just 4 days is an indication of how messed up their sense of relationships and attachment is, most children wouldn’t in any way be happy with that. Kids in care are very very used to adjusting their behaviour to suit what they think other people want from them - it’s literally how they’ve got their needs met. Him appearing relaxed is likely to be masking all kinds of fears and anxieties, which need space and time, simply put he needs to feel those feelings in the presence of supportive, caring adults so that he can learn little by little that his feelings are acceptable.

Intros is just the start of you looking beyond the surface presentation to think about what else is going on. I’d very respectfully suggest that 4 days is too soon to be thinking about moving him in.

In your shoes I’d look at bringing forward the point at which he spends time at your house, so that he gets the reality that he’s leaving his foster carers and maybe see how he is after that in terms of shortening intros.

Very wise words from jelly! Whilst two weeks is probably on the long side for introductions, I would not suggest a move before day 10. All that jelly said is true.

Young children, particularly those pre-verbal or with limited understanding of what is happening need time to transfer their attachment. A slow and steady reduction in foster family presence is necessary. Jelly is right, at the moment the LO is likely just seeing you as a new and fun person, not as her main care-giver and attachment figure. Remove the foster family too quickly and she will go into a sudden period of grief and loss with limited understanding of what is going on. Stick it out for a bit longer before considering an early move.

Also when she moves I would strongly recommend considering early contact with the foster carer (1-2 weeks in) and then again in another week or so, tailoring out to what every level both parties want to maintain. For all children but especially young children, more recent thinking and research is pointing towards this being best practice. These children lose too much in their short lives. They need early reassurance that people who loves them have not just disappeared.

All the best in the next few days.

I have just read your earlier thread about what to take to intros? There you state the child is 5? Is this correct? When you said toddler, I assumed you meant 1-2. This may change perspective a little but actually at this age I imagine she may have already had at least two moves in her life if not many more. This means that this move needs to look different. It needs to be slow and steady, with lots of time for her to process what is happening. Jelly’s advice re. grieving and loss is very important.

Is your DC aged 5? That’s far from toddler age and completely supports longer intros. The 5 year old will be masking hugely, by which I mean will be showing whatever they think you need to see for you to love and accept them. They will need time to adjust to all of the changes and loss. Pacing things at this end will pay dividends later down the line. Have patience.

Been moved forward 4 days 👍

Did you read the very thoughtful responses OP?

I agree with others comments and as a foster carer I would actually be concerned if a child wanted to come home after 4 days! It would sound alarm bells about that childs issues around attachment. Not trying to be negative because naturally it is v exciting for you to finally be becoming a family but it is easy to overlook the larger issues when you have no experience of them.
Anyway hope that things run smoothly for you and many congratulations

We have 3 of our own children so don't talk to me about experience, that came across as very condescending! As a 45 year old that actually works with children for a living and a wife that is a day care nurse I think we have plenty.

I am sorry you feel offended by the advise. I am sure it was no one's intention to come across as condescending. However, unless your children are adopted or you are a therapist specialising in adoption, you do not have relevant experience for this situation. Would your children have been happy to go home for good with a stranger after meeting them for 4 days? My advise would be to listen to the professionals who have done this many times before and to listen to experienced adopters.

How an adopted child presents and what is going on inside are often two completely different things. These children are survivors and one survival strategy is to make you feel that they think that you are the best thing since sliced bread, because they think if you get angry, you might kill them. So they make sure they are on your good side. I have seen this in many, many adopted and LAC children. It is very difficult to see it for what it is, because it feels so good. But it is a survival strategy and not personal.

My children were 5 and almost 6 at placement. One of my daughters saw (and still sees) adoption as her ticket to happiness. She understood that she would get her very own forever family and that is what she wanted. She would not have gone home with us after 4 days. In fact, when we took her home after 10 days, she spend 2 hours crying in the car, because she was so scared.

Good luck with your introductions. I hope everything will go well for you!

The professionals have moved it forward 4 days having agreed with our arguments, I haven't put the full details in the post so don't assume we don't have relevant experience. Thank you to everybody that has posted on here but I didn't come here to be spoken down to like a child. Some people really can't help themselves and put themselves above everybody just to look down on others.

I won't be responding to any further comments.

@Adoptingdaddy.
Sorry if I came across as condescending . It certainly was not my intention. I hadn't realised you had birth children etc and had wrongly assumed that this was your first foray into parenthood . Apologies for that.
I have 3 grown up birth children, 1 long term fc and an adopted 5 yr old and was coming at it from that angle because like you we also had a lot of experience but I have had my eyes opened by my experiences as a foster carer and adoptor.
Really adopting children who have been through the trauma of removal can be a very different experience of parenting . They can have significant issues around attachment and forming normal relationships as no doubt you have been told in training and one red flag is children who are overly familiar and willing to ' transfer ' their allegiance very easily.
Anyway I was trying to helpful but really it is a bit much to be saying that the powers that be need to overhaul their procedures all based on your experiences of 4 days of intros !
People were trying to gently suggest that there might be more to the child's reaction than there first appears.
Anyway I have probably offended you again so I will bow out now But I really do wish you well and hope that it all continues to go well for you all.
Congratulations again !

Your post did not say that you are an experienced adopter (it still doesn't). If it had, I would not have explained things that people who are new to adoption usually don't know. My response had nothing to do with needing to feel superior but was a response to the information you gave us. People come here and spend time to support and help each other, not to patronise others or to be insulted by them.

Sorry if I came across as condescending .

You didn't. The response was uncalled for and frankly, rather depressing.

I haven't been through this personally but what you and others have said makes perfect sense, although I can imagine it would be hard to hear if your soon-to-be son or daughter seems to be responding to you so positively.

@HPFA
Thank you. I hate offending people and sometimes when you only have time to write a quick response it can sometimes come across wrongly when written down.

@HPFA is right. You didn't sound condescending.

I think OP was posting for agreement only.

Really folk, including myself, were trying to be helpful. I don’t know what your experience is, because you haven’t said but your assessment of the intros process and your child’s “readiness” to move based on 4 days, and your referring to a school aged child as a toddler suggested inexperience.

I’m not sure the level of aggression in your response was in any way called for. I’d also say as a very experienced child care professional, adoption still knocked me on my arse and I’d do what I could to stop that happening to someone else.

Best of luck with your newly formed family.

OP if you are still reading this I do urge you to reconsiders your attitude towards these boards and others like them. Adoption is a hard road and completely different from parenting birth children. I suspect as others have indicated you may have tough times ahead of you. You may feel you require support/advice from like minded people who have travelled the road ahead of you and to learn from them. If so you may not always get the answer you think you want to hear. Over time I have learnt to accept this with grace and to take onboard the advice being offered even though it went against my own thinking and usually found it was a better road.

I wish you well as lo settled into your family. You will probably be considering therapeutic parenting and if you have not already heard about it I would urge you to join the therapeutic parenting Facebook page run by National Association of therapeutic parenting. It is a great forum to seek advice re. Day to day parenting issues of a trauma experienced child.