Wannabe adopter but have nephew with serious behavioural problems

[Pegs11]

Hi, wannabe adopter here. I have a question… my nephew (14 currently) has behavioural issues (he has been diagnosed with mild autism). When at his best he is delightful and very well behaved. But at his worst he can be very difficult to manage… he screams and shouts and can be violent towards his mum and sisters, to the point that we are all very concerned for their safety. (I won’t go into too much detail about that here as that’s a separate issue.)

The family lives quite close by and my OH and I see them fairly regularly. Currently I childmind my nephew for a few hours a week (he is always quite well behaved at my house, sometimes a little demanding and forgets his manners but no worse than that).

If we were to adopt, I am sorry to say I would just not feel at all comfortable with my adopted child being left alone with my nephew, and would do my best to ensure this doesn’t happen. But even supervised, my nephew’s behaviour towards his mum and sisters can get so bad (he screams at the top of his voice, will not cooperate in any way and occasionally is violent towards them), I worry that it would not be good for an adopted child to be witness to that.

He is getting worse as he gets older too. More moody, more willful, less cooperative… the family is in a bit of a mess.

I hope I don’t sound horrible, I love my nephew and I recognise his inability to regulate his emotions and I have a lot of sympathy for him… but this situation is just the way things are.

How would a SW view this scenario in terms of our suitability to adopt? What measures might they consider reasonable for us to put in place? Do you think it be enough that we try to preempt when my nephew’s behaviour will be bad and make sure we are not around when that happens?? (There are definitely certain situations that trigger him and make him lose control and I think they would be largely avoidable.) And that if he does become unexpectedly triggered, that we immediately remove ourselves from the vicinity? Or might a SW consider it simply unacceptable to place a child with a family whose extended family is having such issues?

Thoughts appreciated

You sound brilliant- you have experience with children with additional challenges, and challenging behaviour. These skills are not to be underestimated. And you're already thinking about how you will prioritise your own child's needs above everyone else's, and how to ensure your child's needs are met, and they're kept safe. These are great attributes to bring to adoption.

Don't do yourself down to social workers, it sounds like you have a lot to give a child. Good luck.

It really does depend on how extreme the behaviours are, how much contact you have with your nephew etc. While you obviously have a lot to give, any adopted child may come with their own emotional and behavioural needs, may be very scared by your nephews behaviour and may simply not cope with the unpredictability. I’d be thinking about the current care arrangements, how you can vary them post adoption - initially any child placed will need your time and attention - and what would happen if your adopted child couldn’t cope with you continuing to child mind in the medium to longer term.

@rosiethefemaleone Thank you for the encouragement! Unfortunately the situation with my nephew is just one of the potential hurdles I am concerned that we may face when our suitability is being assessed. I feel like we have a lot of things going against us at the moment, so many reasons why we might be turned down... I am trying to work through them one by one, and figure out which things really are problems that we will need to ‘fix’ before we can apply for adoption (and if indeed they are possible to fix) and which are actually things I’m just building up in my head as being problems when they actually aren’t.

@Jellycatspyjamas The childminding I currently do won’t be an issue. I’m not the only person who could do that job… I do it because I want to, but obviously any child we adopt would take precedence. The really terrifying behaviour (violence, throwing/smashing things and screaming) only happens in particular situations, which are predictable enough, and we can ensure we are not around when it happens! But there is still undesirable behaviour at other times - he can be rude, sulky, uncooperative… he often ‘talks back’ to his parents and doesn’t accept their authority. Those situations will be harder to avoid because they are everyday behaviours. I worry about an adopted child being influenced by that bad behaviour, picking up the wrong messages etc… :/

Sorry- I hadn't clocked you're the same poster with the husband who has had recent drug problems.

My advice in that context would be that you are going to have time. Because your DH's issues are so recent, you're going to have to take time to sort that out, he needs a few years of being clean, and showing he can cope with adversity without drugs, before you can even consider adopting, IMO. The other things will either be bigger problems/hurdles, or not issues at all, or replaced by other issues, in that time period. My advice is to stop thinking about adoption, other than doing some serious homework into trauma, loss, etc, read read read. Encourage your DH to do some work on himself, and if he won't, decide whether you want to adopt as a singleton and make that happen first. You need to step away, and start making those changes, then come back later. IMVHO.

@rosiethefemaleone I think you’re right. I’ve been keen to get things moving because I feel like we’ve been waiting SUCH a long time already for things to fall into place for us… and a lot of things have, recently, which has encouraged and motivated me. Financially things have improved massively, and that’s been a big thing that has been hindering us to date.

It is so frustrating and upsetting to realise that we still clearly have issues to work through and that it will probably take years, not months. We are already well into our 40’s. I feel like time is slipping away and before we know it, we’ll be too old.

But those feelings are something I will just have to deal with.

In the meantime, my husband and I are going to get some counselling from someone who specialises in adoption, so we can clarify the problem areas and pinpoint what things we need to focus on and improve. My husband definitely needs to work on his coping strategies. He gets really stressed out and panicky in certain scenarios - like getting a bit lost when driving somewhere, for example - and I keep thinking to myself, how will he cope when this happens and at the same time we have a child in the car who might be having an emotional episode/screaming/crying…? He needs to learn how to respond calmly and rationally in such situations instead of getting in a spin. And I need to learn how to respond less emotionally too.

I'm sorry to hear you are facing so much OP.

I just want to echo PP's and say that children up for adoption often have their own emotional and behavioural difficulties. Many many adoptees have similar agression and behavioural issues to that of your nephew.

@Chocapple it worries me to hear that, and I’m hoping this is not the case in the majority of adopted children, because I know, from my experience with my nephew, that a) I would find it extremely difficult to manage him alone if he was having one of his episodes, and b) there seems to be virtually no support on offer, from schools or from social workers. His parents are trying to deal with it on their own, and they are really struggling, the situation is awful and scary and feels hopeless.

If I had faith that help and support was out there and available whenever needed, then it perhaps wouldn’t be so scary, but my experience is that social workers aren’t that interested, schools’ hands are tied when it comes to getting children into appropriate schooling, and councils are too under-resourced to sort it out. Maybe it’s different in the case of adopted children…?

I’m going off piste a bit here, sorry… I have so many concerns. But I’m going to read the books that have been recommended to me, as that seems a good place to begin.

@Pegs11

I'm probably not going to tell you what you want to hear.
Adoption can be very challenging, of course some children are more complex than others but at some point you would have to deal with difficult things
My son is 17, has been home for 10 years, we are in a good place, he has a good future ahead of him, but his early teens were very difficult. Like many adopted children we had years of therapy which helped him
He also has autism and a learning difficulty.
We were very fortunate with our schools but many people struggle to get the right schools
Adoption doesn't bring guarantees of funding and support - you often have to fight very hard to get your kids what they need,
You have to be tough and resilient. And totally honest with yourself about what you can cope with.

@Ted27 Well, it is certainly something we will need to weigh up. I understand we will need to be a lot more resilient than we currently are in order to cope with a traumatised child… this is definitely going to need work.

On the upside, I am VERY accustomed to fighting for things in difficult circumstances… I’ve had years of practice!

As a couple, our long-term resilience/staying power is pretty awesome, we have been through some serious shit, and we have got through it with dogged determination and incredible levels of stamina. But, we do tend to get very flustered over things in the short term - getting lost when driving, etc. This will not be helpful to a traumatised child, and is where I’m hoping therapy might help ….

I can’t bear the thought of never being a parent, it’s all I ever wanted, and we can’t have natural children. But I also need to think about whether I’m prepared to risk having my life being absolutely turned upside down by an unmanageable child.

Pegs11 The behaviour you describe, I would say, is quite extreme. I have a birth child on the spectrum and an adopted child and neither behave like that, despite some behavioural issues with both.

In terms of your nephew, I'd just make it clear, politely and kindly, that if and when you have a child they will come first and you will not be able to child mind. It may be easier to see your nephew on neutral ground, like a park, cafe or other similar place. Or at his home, and always when parents are there. So if you find his behavior difficult, then you will be able to leave easily.

It sounds lie you have a long road, potentially, and so maybe at least a couple of times, by which time your nephew will be 16.

We adopted when in our late 40s, our son was 3 when he came to us. Things that interest a three year old and a 16 year old are quite wide so may find you do not spend a lot of time with the children together.