To think this mother needs to accept a proportion of blame for the way her dd's turned out?

[Memoo]

The father does too of course but he isn't the one being interviewed.

I actually felt quite angry reading this article and sad for the dd's who were dumped back into care. The poor girls had shit upbringings. It's no wonder they grew up angry and violent. And the stupid mother seems intent to blame everyone but herself.

Sorry daily fail link

Emotionally backward, as far as i am aware is just an out dated term for emotional damage. But people were mis-diagnosed before Autism etc was understood.

This can mean that the child is very unresponsive, it is quite sad to see this in a toddler, more so, i think than the challenging behaviour. It'slike they are a pernament 'blank canvas', like the children that you sometimes see in over stretched orphanages in under developed countries.

In the criminal case that the daughter was convicted for, all of the perpetrators have been through the care system and one had already had their child removed. Things were going very wrong for all of them.

There seems to be a shocking lack of post-adoption support in this country.

I think that there is a huge lackof support for any children involved in family breakdown for whatever reason.

If the child doesn't fit into CAHMS clinical criteria, some of the other 'support', for what can be serious emotional isssues, is laughable.

Agreed.

I just take issue with the notion that children with a high level of need cease to have those needs once they are adopted- particularly educationally. Some steps are being taken to address this, but I would like to see a huge shake up...

My own bugbear, though...

Post adoption support is woeful generally. I've been very lucky in that my LA and several of the PASW's have been very supportive and understanding, and two of my children have been seen at a wonderful therapy centre, but most parents won't get that support. That's what the government needs to work on. I fear for the rsults of 'speeding up' the system without improvement of support services

Asiatic - adoptions can't be annulled. The order can be revoked in the extremely unlikely circumstance that is was done illegally or the correct procedures weren't followed, otherwise it's final. So SS can't annull any adoptions. Are you living in the UK?

I think theirs quite a lack of support for anything in this country bar the NHS, which i feel is alright.

But, special needs, out of work, Post baby care? What if i wasn't coping with my baby? I am, and every things fine, but it seems to me that now i am fine it's all just stopped!

We have adopted children in our family (now middle aged) from a mother with issues. Bought up in stable family by sahm and policeman dad.

One went completely off the rails and has been to prison, the others vanished we dont know where he is.

Some people just have issues that stem really from anger management, one of dh's friends is lovely but gets sacked on a regular basis for assualting people. Whos to say his kids wont be the same?

Asiatic - adoptions can't be annulled

Reading her posts i think she means that the LA will not persue sharing PR, as is the case once a child reaches 14, depending on circumstances.

Things are changing with the new private fostering laws and them now being publicised.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133449/Mother-kept-boy-10-locked-coal-bunker-year-mattress-potty.html

These are the types of families children in 2012 come from I very much doubut this boy will ever recover from his ordeal

It's not even so much that he was held captive it's the fact the jailer was his mother who is supposed to love him.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133449/Mother-kept-boy-10-locked-coal-bunker-year-mattress-potty.html

These are the types of families children in 2012 come from I very much doubut this boy will ever recover from his ordeal

It's not even so much that he was held captive it's the fact the jailer was his mother who is supposed to love him.

YABU OP.

I used to work with kids like this and by the age of 3 many of these kids are unfortunately irreparably damaged. Some managed to live happily in foster placements until they hit puberty, then all sorts of scary behaviour emerged, especially predatory sexual behaviour. There is a theory that even very tiny children (babies and toddlers) in some way store memories of the abuse and troubled life they have before they are removed from birth parents.

If I was going to get angry at anyone it would be the birth mother and whatever low life she bred with - but then she probably had a terrible upbringing herself and didn't know anything different. It's a never ending cycle with problem families - ask any long-term social worker who has stayed based in one place and they will tell you it is the same families over and over again in each different generation. There probably is a genetic component too plus disastrous parenting passed on to each generation.

It makes me :( because it is so hard to intervene with any lasting change. A good education is the one thing that seems to make a real difference to looked after children because it brings them into contact with more people with (dare I say it) normal upbringings, gives them a chance to meet partners who had good parenting and have the skills to break the cycle. I do know one kid I worked with who was very troubled but by meeting a lovely partner managed to break out of years of violent, dysfunctional relationships and is now happily married with a child she adores.

In all fairness that case is rare.

Ongoing neglect is the main cause of removal and that can cover a vast amount of issues, including and always some emotional damage, some of which can be over come, so that cannot.

Disability can be hard to distinguish from ED, so foster/adoptive parents are faced with new challenges.

The whole system is made more complicated by ongoing contact with birth family members, or the ability to contact family members, so easily via FB, once the child is old enough.

Then, often the damage is done again, by the child falling for the promises made by the birth family.

I sometimes question the need for ongoing sibling contact, in very young children, as the LA can create the relationship and the problems.

I watched a fascinating tv programme a few years ago about a couple who had adopted about 10 children with severe behavioural / emotional problems over a period of about 20 years.

The programme showed them taking on an 8 year old girl who had had the most horrific upbringing (seriously neglected by birth mother, a series of foster placements breaking down and then finally a foster placement that worked until the mother got very ill (have a feeling she died but can't remember) and so the girl was whisked back into care and didn't get to say goodbye.

It was clear very early on at if the adoption with them failed then she would spend the rest of her childhood in a secure unit as she was very violent. They managed to find therapy that was working wi her but it was very expensive and the LA would only commit to a few months at a time. It was felt she would need it for years.

The irony was that 10 years of therapy would cost less than 1 year in the secure unit which they were trying so hard to avoid. The parents were told that their moment of "maximum leverage" for getting the funding was just before the adoption went through as once she was adopted then she would no longer be a priority. As a result they were told to delay with the adoption until they got the funding they needed.

The thing is that she was a child that no-one else wanted to take on and the couple had been through the process many times before and so knew what they were doing. With younger children parents are desperate to adopt so probably don't fight to have questions that need answering answered or to get any funding they may need as they are too scared that they wil lose a child.

Birdgottofly I'm not sure what the officail word is, when the adoption is undone.

It's an annullment, it works in the same way as the PR being removed from the birth mother, but it is rarely used, as you said, never for teens, unless exceptional circumstances.

I can't believe people on here posting - "why didn't they spend their money on psychologists" - well, I am sure they would have would anyone have told them who might help and where they could find these experts. We know that even today adoptive parents get patchy support and advice, 20 years ago the fields of psychology, therapy etc were far less developed. 20 years ago clinical psychology training within the NHS was in its infancy. They clearly went for help and did not get it.

That poor 3 year old had probably suffered horrendous physical abuse, probably sexual abuse and neglect and these parents and their village schools did not have the first idea of how to help.

I don't like the Daily Mail article at all, but I am so pleased to see a thread such as this on MN. I work in an adoption team and this sadly is the reality of our job. People have NO idea how difficult it is to adopt children from the care system. The system is too bureaucratic on both sides (children and applicants wanting to adopt) but assessment of prospective adopters needs to be rigorous to ensure they can parent therapeutically, I believe this is one of the most vital aspects of adoption.

My LA works using a slightly different model. We have half a caseload of children and half a caseload of adopters, we know our children and we know our adopters. Our disruption rate is approximately half the national average. (hoping I don't out myself too much here). We also have good post adoption support (could be better but funding is definitely not there). Other LA's child protection SW gets Placement Order then passes onto adoption team or works with adoption team who are often in different office. Not unusual to have weeks go by before meetings take place, they are safe in foster care so sense of urgency is gone! This is also where a lot of information gets lost, I know my kids like the back of my hand, and I tell adopters the whole truth (all information and any assessment/observations I have made) but imagine the difficult path adopters have already walked, it can be hard to hear and process everything when you are super excited at the prospect of becoming a mummy or daddy!

We are seeing cuts left right and center, it will get worse before it gets better. The government needs to seriously invest in post adoption support, and child protection. Whoever said SS need to stop delaying, it is the courts who delay the process, bound up by bureaucracy and the human right to family life for birth parents who abuse their children. Children are not paramount in this system, adults are.

Those two girls clearly had attachment issues, most probably combined with naive but well-meaning parents and a lack of professional support. Love goes a long way, but can't conquer all issues.

There needs to be more realistic information in the media about adoption. It can be amazing and live up to and surpass expectations, but it's not all fairytale endings.

Plenty of things make me uncomfortable about that article.

The way they keep going on about the beautiful, expensive home as if no child brought up in such affluence had the right to behavioural problems (if it had been a semi, though...)

This: ?John was old-fashioned. He?d been educated privately and believed sterner discipline was the key, such as sitting on a naughty chair for long periods. But Maryann didn?t care ? she could sit there for hours.'

Anyone who leaves a traumatised child (or indeed any child) sitting on the naughty chair for hours is just not the person to deal with this.

And her insistence that what adoptive parents need to take from this is to investigate the child's genetic background, to rule problems there, rather than look deeply at themselves to see how well equipped they were to deal with problems that do come with adoption.

The fact that she is prepared to let the whole country read this, about her children.

But of course this is not to say they should not have had better support.

Yes cory.
Exactly, well put.

I am uncomfortable with adoptive parents being blamed for disruption.
I am far more uncomfortable with the child being blamed.

This article serves no positive purpose whatsoever..

There is so much utter crap talked about adoption - from the cosy 50's version of dear little moppets being handed over for a better life by their unfortunate mothers - to the bad seed, cuckoo in the nest bent on destroying their kindly saviour's lives, driven by their inherent badness.

This article does nothing to show real life adoption with all its challenges and joys.
I dont think the reader will gain any insight from it. They wont understand the complexities of caring for a child from the care system.

They will just think 'well if I was going to adopt I would make sure I got a nice one from a good family, a baby'

I do not know what this mother was thinking when she signed up for this article. I can only imagine she was somehow duped into doing it, thinking it would be an educational opportunity.

But surely she would have seen the DM previously?

Danni-in my LA the child has passed through CP, then assessment, then usually LAC, by the time that happens, because of the turn over of staff in CP the person is no-longer available to have a conversation with. What is working well, is consistancy in family support and them knowing the child's background really well.

The best information about the child usually comes via a long term foster carer and what does work well in my former LA was the ability to build up contact with an approved adopter and then the senetive handling of the end of the foster placement.

This was needed for the foster carer/s, as i have seen them left traumatised by a failed atempt to adopt, or the separation and they find when the new foster child comes to them, they respond differently.

We need all round support, for everyone involved in the process.

In my DS's case there is no-one left on the orginal CP team. Its been a while but this was the case a year after his adoption.

This was a real issue when she went on to have another baby and her past history wasnt really taken into account. The sublities and complexities of what had happened just didnt come across on her written records.

We are lucky in that we know a great deal about b.mum already.
If DS had been adopted out the new family would know very little.

He has tons of stuff you would want to know. He is perfect but the fact we knew he was likely to have the disabilities he has pushed me on to get him help.

If I hadnt of known all I did I might have listened when I was told 'he is fine, wait and see' and 'he is just a bit delayed, no real issues'

I can quite see how this happens in adoptive families.

I'm an adoptive parent and reading this thread has made me want to slash my wrists. Or drink large quantities of gin, at any rate. I'm really interested in how prospective adopters, and adoptive parents of young children, keep their spirits up/hope alive while still being realistic about what the future might bring. After all, none of us adopt in the hope of enduring years of distress and dysfunction - however much we say yes, we understand the situation, some part of us is hoping for normalish family life and some measure of happiness. Otherwise we wouldn't be choosing to be parents, we'd be choosing to be child therapists and getting paid for it.

I've never resolved this conundrum for myself - I do just jog through life, fingers metaphorically in my ears, humming happily. I can do that right now because my dd is very young and developing beautifully, but of course that gives me no guarantees for the future. The thought of her developing the kinds of problems mentioned on this thread makes my blood run cold, and no amount of being told to be realistic will stop that because she is my child, I love her more than life, and I can't bear the thought of any unhappiness in her life.

It's also interesting on the service delivery level. We're constantly hearing on the adoption threads about social workers putting the fear of god into prospective adopters about what lies ahead. I'm not sure where I think the balance lies between giving people the full facts/range of possible outcomes, and effectively putting off good prospective adopters.

I also find this thread hard because I feel so defensive of my dd. I want people to understand the realities of adoption, I get so irritated by those who assume it's just the same as having a birth child, and yet I also shrivel inside when people bandy around stories about all the adopted people they know who turned out bad. I feel like it's the mark of Cain on my child. I fear that the fact of her adoption, plus the fact of her being black, means that she will be marked down from the moment she starts school as trouble-in-waiting.

Sorry for such a ramble. I'm finding this quite upsetting and have lost my articulacy.

Devora, you aren't inarticulate, you have expressed this beautifully, and I hope you don't stay upset. I think what you say about balance is important. I think people's expectations of parenthood generally are too high. It's tough and you need gallons of good humour and patience and tenacity to do it properly however your children come into your life. Your daughter is great and she will continue to be great. Expect that from her and keep loving her when she's not so great. That's all we can really give our kids.

I hate the Daily Mail and agree with everything mrsdevere said about it. It's a nasty nasty voyeuristic article that perpetuates myths and stereotypes.

Thank you, elinor. Your post is very kind and wise and has made me feel quite weepy [brave smile emoticon]

devora