Adopting kids

[SunshineGirl2016]

Read an article today that's got me thinking about the issues of adoption such as children's behavioural issues, little support offered to parents etc. What are people's experiences of adoption? Asking out of curiosity mostly and to see if the article's negative premise that parents aren't given much help is true.

What's the AIBU?

Without giving too much info I can categorically say that little to no support is given to adoptive parents. From experience with a family member.

Sounds like you are doing a bit of research yourself?

There's a whole board here for fostering and adoption, try reading some of that?

Journalist?

I presume you are referring to that horrible article in the Daily Mail?

Nope just curious. I have a small baby myself, finding it hard work obviously and just wonder how people cope when it's an adopted child. New parents chucked in at deep end it seems. Here's the AIBU, is it wrong to expect all new parents to get more support than what's being offered? Feel utterly clueless at times trying to raise my own child let alone a child that may have come from a difficult background

Yes that article in daily mail got be wondering. It was negative and is that an accurate depiction of what it's like with an adopted kid or was it horribly one sided as I suspect?

My mum struggled after they brought me home. I was 4 months old and she struggled to bond. Some of the photos of her when I was small break my heart, she looks so lost and unhappy. My dad on the other hand took to parenthood like a duck to water. My brother was 11 months old when he came home (he'd come from a very abusive home) and had a LOT of problems. We never saw a social worker or even a health visitor. They just got left to get on with it.

Good old Fail. One minute it is Denise "baby snatcher" Robertson in which middle class parents' insatiable desire for nice "normal" babies leads them to collude with evil social workers who remove blonde blue-eyed babies from blameless families who just forgot to empty the bins. The next minute we are the honest, naive victims opening our homes to broken, ticking time bombs, products of reckless drug addicts and down and outs. I guess shades of grey don't sell newspapers. As an answer to your question op, services for traumatised children are woefully underfunded, including those for adopted children. Often children are given adoption as their permanence plan when it is just not suitable: they are not capable of living in a family unit and a therapeutic placement would work better e.g.

Firstly it's a hideous article. I feel deeply offended by how it treats the (adoptive) parents as victims and the children as monsters.
We adopted our son just over two years ago. From our very first enquiry, our training, the meetings with our social worker and our sons social worker, we were in no doubt that it would be hard. We were constantly reminded of how children end up being in the system, why they need to be adopted. We were given intense training on situations.

Wjen we were told about our son we had meetings with foster family and his medical advisor to find out about his history.
We knew that his birth mom had anger issues, mental health b issues, had drank and taken drugs throughout pregnancy. We knew there was the risk of fas.
This article underestimates our love for our son, our determination,our desire to be parents .we are not victims.

I can't personally think of anything worse or more problematic to bonding than a social worker interfering as you're trying to establish yourself as Mum!

We needed our social worker. So we could be reassured we were doing things "right" but mainly so that she could checl our ds was being cared for correctly. Ot wasn't about us as parents it was about him. He was grieving for the family he'd been removed from

That article made me really angry the whole way it was written.

I haven't read the article but I was adopted and the Courts and social workers arranged child counselling for me (I was 7) due to the trauma which resulted in my adoption.

My mother took me once and then decided it wasn't required and I never went back. I wasn't allowed to talk about my birth parents either.

Basically the support was there but my mother refused because 'the neighbours' you know.

As others have said, there is a whole topic on Adoption here, plus Adoption UK has lots of helpful forums.

We adopted a child literally ten days ago and we cant fault the support we've been given so far (even over Christmas and bank holiday).

To anyone considering adoption, I'd say carefully consider which agency or LA you choose to go with as that seems to make a big difference to support levels, especially post adoption support.

PS I second everything Scarfonthestarirs has written.

Adoption isn't comparable with looking after kids you've birthed yourself, it's much much harder. Especially in the UK, as the kids available to be adopted have to go through (sometimes) years of abuse before they can be taken away from their birth parents. It also doesn't help that SS often don't tell adoptive parents the full story of behavioural problems beforehand. This is probably why people go overseas to adopt - much more likely to get a healthy baby/toddler with no medical or behavioural problems due to years of bad parenting.

I know of two very successful adoptions amongst close friend. Very sadly a close relative of mine tried to adopt and it failed due to the lack of support and that daily mail article didn't quite cover the awfulness of what the child went through and my relatives. I also (through work) know of a very successful adoption and one that is successful in terms of the family are a family but the difficulties the children have break my heart and how the parents cope is beyond me and the support is crap.

I think support in the early days can be good.
What can be less good is 5 or 10 years down the line as trauma and issues surface in a more 'teenage' way.

In general children's mental health services CAMHS is poorly funded. My teen AC was referred to CAMHS in the summer. We are paying for private counselling as who knows how long the wait for CAMHS will be. Luckily we can do this, many can't.

I saw that article.

( shudders )

FAS...really?

I know 2 children who were adopted with FAS years ago. Retrospectively it was obvious they were brain damaged but no one told their adoptive parents. They had difficult childhoods.

Considering the cost of placing children in care I think there should be significantly more funding for adopted children to be supported once placed and then maybe more people would be encouraged to try. I know a couple of more recent stories which show there is not enough being done to support families.

Dowser is the fas comment to me?

Often children are given adoption as their permanence plan when it is just not suitable: they are not capable of living in a family unit and a therapeutic placement would work better.

Barbadosgirl, oracle.

I've not read the article. I'm a teacher and head of year. We regularly refer parents and children to post adoption services that we are aware of but the parents never are. There is a huge lack of support fot both parents and kids. In my experience, the younger a child is adopted, the fewer issues they seem to face as teenagers. Children who are adopted later or who come from abusive homes tend to struggle more. Attachment disorder is often a big issue. Open adoptions can be difficult for the child too - knowing they have siblings 'out there' that they see once a year. Contact with birth parents sometimes causes anxiety. I've been lucky enough to witness some amazing parents who go to the ends of the earth for their children and get them through the tough parts and see lots of success stories.