To not know what to say

[bluejanuary]

One of my closest friends adopted a little boy a year ago with her husband.

I knew how difficult they have been finding it and today have found out the adoption has broken down

My heart breaks for her but I just don't know what to say. I've said I understand why it's happened.

Any advice from anyone (I have namechanged for this post sorry.)

I think you just keep telling them over and over that they did their absolute best and that they are/ will be lovely parents. I have known of this situation and it's heart breaking. Your friends will be grieving, and feeling like they have let the child down, but sometimes children have simply been through too much to be able to adjust to family life. Your friends need to accept that it's not their fault.

Thank you WannaBe for understanding my point of view, I'm actually crying my eyes out over this, imagining how i would have felt if my parents had decided I was too much to cope with. Going to back out of this thread now, it's far too close to home for me.

if you had a behaviorally challenging child who was biologically yours you couldn't just put them into care and society as a whole would take a pretty dim view of parents who did

I don't take a dim view of the parent of a child with ASD I know who has just placed her child in the care of the LA in order to keep her other children safe. She has made the right decision for all concerned, including the child and this may very well apply to the OP's friend.

'Behaviourally challenged' is massively understating the difficulties children with RAD can present.

It isn't reasonable to suggest that birth parents wouldn't hand children with RAD into care when the going gets tough as it was their inability to provide the most basic level of parenting that caused the child's disorder in the first place.

I'm so sorry for them all I've struggled enough at a few points in the 18 years I've been parenting that I floated the idea of disruption or of placing my child in care. We got through those points (except this year - I had to tell my DD2 to leave home a few months ago) but it's so hard. I've known several families who disrupted.

january I think all you can do, and it will probably mean a lot, is to just be there for them. Not judging (I know you aren't anyway), telling them you are there as a listening ear if they want, or if you are in a position to do more than that, maybe let them know if there's anything you can do for them, they should let you know. Don't avoid them - a little like a bereavement, people can often feel it's better to avoid the parents following disruption, but that kind of isolation is often very difficult. Let them take the lead.

WannaBe research suggests that the majority of adoptions don't break down. Something like 3% among young children, it will rise for children above school age but to not to above 50%. Then there's the difference between disruption and placing your child in voluntary care - disruption tends to be before the adoption order, and often with the ending of the parent-child relationship, whereas it isn't disruption for most people who find that their now older children need to be placed in care, but they remain acting as parents and involved with their childrens lives. The latter does happen at quite a high percentage with troubled teenagers

I am adopted-and I've never heard of adoptions 'breaking down'. It's horrifying to think if things don't work out, a child can just be 'returned'.

Poor, poor child. Didn't ask to be born, didn't ask to be adopted, didn't ask to be returned. WTH? Adoption is for life, come hell or high water.

Furry, I have threads that upset and frustrate me too. I can't go anywhere near the 'my body, my choice' ones on drinking during pregnancy because it's just too close for me when I think of DD.

I hope you're ok.

I also hope that the little boy concerned gets all the help and support possible. I think that support is also vital for the OP's friends. Nobody wins here.

It's horrifying to think if things don't work out, a child can just be 'returned'.

There is no 'just' about it. This isn't someone taking an unwanted gift back to a shop

I don't think people really understand the meaning of 'hell or high water' when it comes to modern adoptions of children with very severe behavioural and emotional problems, but it is difficult to understand unless you have experience which is why it's so hard for parents who disrupt, being surrounded by people with no real clue about it. However thankfully OP your friends have you and hopefully others who share your feelings. I suspect it will be a long road for them and they will rebuild their lives step by step and slowly.

Sadly, the poor parents didn't ask for this either. I'm sure they went into the adoption with hearts full of hope and committment and the desire to love a child to their very bones, and are utterly devastated. Disruption isn't 'just' returning a child. It's heartbreaking, it will stay with them for life.

I don't think some of you have a clue about this, and I (perhaps mistakenly) believed Mumsnet would have a more intelligent and balanced viewpoint than chest-beating theatrics.

I am certainly not going to divulge the sort of things that have led to the adoption breaking down, and I use those words deliberately. The child has not been "returned" - things have "broken down" irrevocably. She - and her husband - have gone through absolute agony, and didn't so much make the decision as realise they were backed into a corner with nowhere else to go: the only other alternative would have been for one parent to have moved out with the child and the other parent to have stayed with their other child and pets. However, this wasn't an option because it would have been too upsetting for their other child and also due to finances - she gave up work to try and make things worse.

Perhaps I am heartless but while I am very sad for this child my real compassion and heartbreak is reserved for my friend and her husband, not just because of the unhappiness they've gone through leading to this point but also because as much as I assured them others wouldn't judge them and would understand, I now see they will.

Lilka, thank you for your measured posts (and others) I think one of the problems is that if I were to explain the child's behaviour others would say that doesn't sound too bad, or my DS does that, or that is normal for a child of X age; I think what people don't realise is that it isn't often that extremes of behaviour are presented on not just a daily but almost an hourly basis, and the exhaustion and misery that comes hand in hand with that.

I feel sorry for the parents too-I can't imagine how any of them move on from this, but I stand by my original statement. I won't be commenting on this thread again.

genuine question and not wanting to be offensive. But, if the problems associated with adopting older children are so extreme, why would anyone want to put their family through the unknown like that through choice? disrupted placements, severe behavioral issues, possible breakdown of adoption? Or is it that the SW's downplay the genuine issues which occur in what seems like most adoptions? Given the increasing amount of information that is now available on the behaviors associated with adoption, is it likely that adoption of older children will decrease in time?

I know two people who have had adoptions break down, one adopted a group of siblings and one of the placements broke down resulting in one child being returned to the care system and the other two remaining with the parents, and the other I am unclear of as she worked with my then dh but she told colleagues that the baby had gone back into care because she didn't get on with her dd, after just eight weeks.

My dp grew up in long term foster care and I know of the issues associated with that also.

Op, sometimes it is human nature to judge, but tbh I think part of the reason why people do is because the idea of adoption is still romanticised in the media. Giving a child a forever home, the idea of having chosen the child, adoption week happens every year when unwanted/unplaced children are paraded on national television for people to ooh and aaah over and want to adopt them. I've even had friends say that "well, we can always adopt," when faced with possible fertility issues. None of this helps people's perceptions of adoption, a process which has changed radically in the past 30 years as there are no longer cute babies available for adoption but now adoption involves taking on a child with behaviors associated with their upbringing before adoption happened.

I wasn't judging your friend fwiw, merely stating that people will judge.

OP the more you post the more I am relieved your friends have you around them because you 'get it'. You are absolutely right - it IS the constant nature of these difficulties which eventually wear you to breaking point. And 'all children do that' is one of my pet hate sentences...yes your child has done the same, but your child did it for a different reason and your child definitely doesn't do it constantly and relentlessly and with the same intensity as mine. Sadly people will judge them. And you aren't heartless at all

Of course it wouldn't be right for you to say what exactly was going on - if they came to the realisation it was the only feasible option, then that's that, no judging. I've seen enough disruptions to know that it is for most people, something they were fighting to avoid for many months or years.

WannaBe, certainly in this case, they feel that SS did not give a full picture of the sort of behaviour the child was capable of. To further complicate issues, there have been problems with the birth family since the adoption occurred and this naturally has been devastating for the children.

However they adopted two children and while one was younger, not hugely younger. She is - well, as my friend puts it "you wouldn't know." Is it that the fourteen months was so significantly different or is it just different personalities? We just don't know. Their DC2 isn't an angel but then neither are non-adopted children. The only thing emphasised to friends was to please not show an initial interest then fade away - "They have to know you are safe" was a phrase we all heard at first.

It is a frightening fact and one we shy away from that damage can be so awful in a pre-school child that they will be almost unable to recover from it, but there it is.

Lilka thank you; I think "fighting to avoid" is such an apt term but in the months between adoption and this point, the unthinkable has become the inevitable.

WannaBe I can only speak for myself. But I went into a second older child adoption, having dealt with serious issues in the first adoption, so I was definitely not unaware. I suppose because a) despite serious difficulties at points, we had come to a point where we loved each other and things were going really well and we were a proper family unit. I knew that it was a loving parent that had made such an enormous difference in her life - so I wanted to do it again, and b) I never wanted an only child. I was still in my 30's with a nearly adult child, I was definitely not ready to stop parenting yet. I had years left in me and I knew it. I don't believe that older children should be denied a permanent family because of their age alone, if they will manage and attach within a family. I can't imagine my children alone in care with no one who wants to weather their challenges with them.

I also know that I would have been miserable as a childless woman. And I know other parents who despite challenges, are ultimately much more fulfilled as parents to a child who has challenges, than childless.

The majority of adoptions don't break down, and we all go into adoption with hope, hope for the best scenario, hope in the face of the unknown. Yes, I think we downplay the difficulties to ourselves...SW's can certainly downplay it...but otherwise perhaps facing childlessness or a very limited family size...you can't face the idea of this not working out. I know families who adopted older children and they have few difficulties which is amazing and fantastic for them.

But really, other parents would not have adopted again in my position. It depends...some of us are just willing and find we are comfortable with choosing more intense parenting and behavioural challenges. Other people are not comfortable with doing that, and that's okay. I know if i had my time over, I'd do it again. But if I had my time again, I'd do a lot more preparation and seriously adjust my expectations, which still come to bash me on the head sometimes.

I think realistic preparation for adoption is crucial. If families want to go ahead, we then need to seriously invest in support. Lack of support is a major factor in many disruptions.

This is desperately sad and, is more common than is generally known. It happened to someone very close to me and they never, ever spoke of it, I think the situation was so distressing that they just blanked it from their memory. I do think, in this particular case, that the 'support' offered was very, very minimal and in no way reflected the needs of the child - and yes, it was an older child and I tend to agree that it is very, very challenging to place an older child 'successfully' with an adoptive family. .

OP, I was going to suggest moving this over to the excellent Mn adoption forum, but I see that one of its posters has already posted here. I agree that you sound like an excellent source of non-judgemental support about such a traumatic thing. Your friends are lucky to have you at their side in such difficult circumstances.

I don't know anyone whose adoption has broken down after the adoption order was granted, but do know someone whose adoption of her daughter disrupted a few months after she came to live with them. I can only imagine how much more terrible your friends' situation has been for them all.

OP, your friends' situation is so desperately sad, and they will need all support and love you can offer in the future.

Here are a couple of links to the most recent research in adoption breakdown in the UK. The first is a news announcement by Bristol University, the second a pdf of the report itself

www.bris.ac.uk/news/2014/april/adoption-report.html

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/301889/Final_Report_-_3rd_April_2014v2.pdf

If families want to go ahead, we then need to seriously invest in support. Lack of support is a major factor in many disruptions.

Support in large quantities in the long term is crucial but also information. In order to be able to manage behaviour, you have to be understand it and very few people would understand the behaviour of a child with severe attachment difficulties. It makes very little sense and requires the use of parenting strategies that do not come naturally.

It is quite possible that, not only will these parents be criticised for the adoption breaking down, some people who know them may have seen an apparently angelic child being parented in quite a cold or harsh manner which will add evidence to their view that the parents are at fault.

It's incredibly difficult because I can see that information needs to be open and honest but also that information in turn can put people off adoption - which also isn't ultimately what SS want - so you end up with the rock and the hard place so to speak.

How absolutely horrific for all of them

A lack of adequate early - like first few weeks of life - attachment can cause horrendous psychological problems for the child. How can you possibly trust anybody if, at just a few days old, you're left in your cot with an empty bottle and dirty nappy for hours? (I'm generalising massively but you know what I mean) Generally that will lead to the child rejecting adults before they can be rejected themself, usually in a horrifically violent and hurtful way. I can well imagine that nearly all of us, faced with that level of anger and severe aggression many many times per day, would find it destroyed our family.

I'm sorry, OP, I don't know if there is anything you can say. The advice to treat her as you would a bereaved person is good; after all, they've lost a member of their family

that information in turn can put people off adoption

It needs to be given at the right time in the right way but, ultimately, if you place a child with these difficulties without adequately arming the adoptive family, you are setting them all up to fail.

I have worked with someone who adopted a lovely little boy then 'sent him back' literally six months later as he was 'too much work'.

My heart broke for that lovely little boy - she used to bring him in the office and he would come round and chat with us all, he sat on my knee and we drew on paper/coloured in with highlighters.
When they left the office he would shout 'byeee' and wave to everyone.

She couldn't cope with his constant wanting attention...........

Very very sad for all concerned, but at least they have a friend, in you, who understands. The advice at the top of the thread about being available to listen is all I can suggest too.

For those asking how it can happen - I say very easily IME. I work with children with special needs, and have been horrified over the years at the "glossed over" picture the SW has put into the report for adoptive parents to read. There is no way any of the ones I've seen reflect in any way, shape, or form what it will be like living with the child. Surely, at the start of such a journey, there has to be honesty, and then support (respite care even) as the journey begins. As for contact with the birth parents - you know, there will always be very, very good reasons why the children have been removed from their parents.

There isn't a lot you can 'say' but just be there to support your friends.
My half sister had 2 young children placed with her for adoption but unfortunately the placement broke down after only 2 weeks. The legal paperwork hadn't been finalised and the children were returned to their previous foster carer. My half sister was judged negatively by everyone. People seemed to take the view that she shouldn't just be allowed to give the kids back if things are a bit tough. Your friend might be in for a rough ride and will value your support.

Gemma I can't help but doubt that was the real reason but it is nice to think, isn't it, that adoptive parents want a cute cuddly animal and then return it when it is too much work.

Fairgame I'm sorry about your sister. How awful

Gold sorry, I wasn't clear :) I was just "thinking out loud" as it were, wondering how to present information in a way that is clear and accurate and doesn't have people running for the hills at the same time!