Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Adoption

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

FOREVER

1 reply

user1471464167 · 29/11/2025 08:29

Many of us were encouraged by social workers to use the term "forever family" promising that we would be our children's family forever.
Whilst helpful for younger children who have had multiple moves the term forever can lead to. Misconceptions Social workers can get sucked into the belief that because we adopted the children "forever" we have to do just that ! So talking with them about stress/possible disruption/violence challenges the social workers narrative that we should have children in our homes /lives forever
It also means that as our children become older teens and adults they can use the phrase " but you said you were my forever family" to guilt trip us into keeping them living within the family unit. When people make marriage vows they expect their marriages to last forever but no one woild advice a friend who was experiencing domestic abuse to stay with the perpetrator because you made the promise to love them forever ( for better for worse etc) yet somehow we can feel we need to carry on living with abuse /violence etc because we said we would be their family forever. What do other people think ?

OP posts:
Jellycatspyjamas · 29/11/2025 09:11

I think the recent reporting has shone an important light on the extremes of adoption and how awful some of those experiences are for adoptive families, which is a good thing.

Adoption legally creates a situation where it “as if” the child was born to your family, and in that sense it’s a forever relationship. Even when adoption breaks down that child/young adult has changed your life irrevocably so that too is forever.

In terms of violence and aggression I think for all parents there’s a point where behaviour can become so extreme and dangerous that parents decide they can no longer accommodate the child at home, that they aren’t able to support them practically. In those situations with birth parents social workers will work very hard to keep the family together for many reasons, not least because it’s very hard for all concerned to take a child into care. It’s exactly the same for adoptive families - social workers will work very hard to keep the family together because they are your child first and foremost.

The gap though is lack of supports and specialist service that can come around the family together work with trauma and adoption. Instead of dedicated adoption teams, families are referred into statutory child protection teams who have a legislative framework based on the responsibilities of parents to care for and raise their children. Taking a child into care generally means there has been a failure in parenting fundamentally, however in adoption there are obvious complicating factors that are often just not considered and that services have no easy way of dealing with. Funding for all services is such that for birth or adoptive families there’s little support until they are in crisis - by which I mean there’s a significant danger to the child or adult, because there’s no money for early intervention.

The question of how you communicate to your child they are no longer welcome in your home is a hard one, but that would be the same for a birth child who had a reasonable expectation they could live with you in adulthood. No one tells a birth child they have a forever family, but the hope and intention is that they would. I guess though the “forever” part is dependent on that being a safe living environment for everyone,

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread