Hi All,
I read lots of threads on the board about the increased risk of adopted children having/developing additional needs.
Our son was considered ‘unadoptable’ due to his complex needs but I guess I just wanted to add some balance and insight as to what parenting an ‘unadoptable’ child is like.
Our son is now 5 and (I may be slightly biased) is the most amazing little boy in the world. Every day comes with challenges but so does parenting any child, our challenges may be different but they are different not harder.
Our son’s needs span a physical disability, high medical needs, autism, sensory impairments and severe / profound learning disability. What these things don’t tell you is that despite his challenges our boy smiles and giggles 90% of the time. Every tiny achievement he makes I feel like he has got into Oxbridge 😂 He has a completely unique (and bonkers) way of looking at the world and never does what we expect. We love spoiling him rotten but he genuinely wouldn’t notice or care if everything he owned disappeared. He is loving and affectionate and will spend literally hours on my lap. He will never understand that he is different, he would never notice if he was bullied. He is never oppositional or defiant, he doesn’t have the cognitive ability to be so. All in all he is a happy, affectionate, quirky, entertaining and adorable little boy.
With every pregnancy there is a risk of additional needs some of which may not be apparent until later. I am not trying to trivialise the challenges that parents can face. I just find the attitude towards children with additional needs in adoption circles frustrating! Social workers were astounded we wanted to adopt our boy, the kept saying how amazing we were. It felt really hurtful, we felt like the luckiest parents in the world the day we got our adoption order but still were treated as heroes for just wanting our little boy!
I know there are lots of parents on the board with children who have additional needs. I don’t know if I am the only one that this irritates 😂
I understand that there needs to be matching criteria but I can also see why there was zero interest in our baby when he was a paper profile. The labels that he has (and my goodness there is a lot of them) tell you nothing about what our days and our lives consist of. I know activity days are controversial but I do understand what they are trying to achieve. I read about children showing attachment issues and dysregulated behaviour, to me it sounds so much harder than tube feeding, suction etc!
Sorry for the very long bumbling post I just wanted to reassure that additional needs are not a negative, parenting a child with additional needs is just as wonderful 😊