To think my friends have behaved terribly?

[NC543212345]

NC for this, will try and keep it vague.

Basically I don't feel like I can be around our 'friends' anymore after the way they have behaved but dh thinks I am unreasonable.
They adopted 2 girls a year ago, it took a lot of time and effort to get through the adoption process but they finally got their wish and got these 2 gorgeous girls.
One of the girls struggled to settle and would hit out and have temper tantrums. Very much to be expected imo as she is still very young.
'Friends' have decided that actually they can't continue living like this and have decided the girls aren't the right fit for them!

I'm probably taking it too personally but I just can not believe they are giving in so easily and now these girls have to go through more turmoil, deal with more rejection and start all over again. I am furious with them and don't think I can ever look them in the eye again. Dh thinks we shouldn't judge but I don't think I can help it. Are you even able to just give them back?

Seriously- given everything that's been written on this thread you're comparing a broken down adoption with re homing a rescue dog?? Words fail me.

As the adoptive parents I'd still want the child with me or else he/she may not be treated kindly elsewhere. Can they live with that thought? I couldn't

A year is nothing in the life of a child to get them stabilised

Sorry Hee, but your experience with your dog is nowhere near the same. Firstly, you say your dog was loving and calm in the home, but had issues with other dogs. Presumably you would not have felt so benevolent if your dog had viciously attacked you in the home. Presumably then you would have had him put down.

Secondly, adopting a dog is nothing like adopting a child with complex needs. Really not. I presume you have never adopted a child or you would not be able to say with such conviction that you would never give them back.

Thirdly, the year might have been the placement period before the adoption order was formalised. It could have been that SS made the decision to terminate the placement due to the issues. You really haven't got enough information to be able to make these sorts of judgments.

HeeHighls - it is difficult, actually impossible, to explain just how massively offensive your post is.

I kind of feel the same way op. But I would have to force myself not to judge, because it's not my place too.

For me feeling this way is easy to identify as emotional triggers. Perhaps it is for you? I have never been adopted ot handed back, but grew up in and out of care. I worked in secure units and residential schools. Several kids adoption placements had failed. My own kids all have multipul disabilities and have been extremely violent previously. Getting a broken nose from an 18 mths old twice in two months is not easy to explain in a&e. Our children have taken up everything I have, all our money, all our time, energy, career is gone now, we have moved countries to access better resources and chance of their more extreeme diagnosis & help.

Like you the idea of giving up on them kills me. And I've been that child given up on. So I found it very triggering when I found out this happened to children I worked with. I agree many children need specialist foster care, often residential. I guess what I have never understood is why parents adopting don't 'train' themselves into being specialist foster care first, whether litteral you or figurtively. I just don't 'get' that,but it's something I can't get because of my own emotional triggers. I know I can't get my head around it because of my background not because of the parents are at fault. Abd I recognise that I can say I would never given up on my children because I am lucky enough to be able to say that, because building a therapeutic relationship with difficult to reach children was already a skill I excelled at, because I knew what help would help, because I knew how to access support, because I can be their carer & put my career aside. Truth is their are bio parents who can't manage that, and who do turn their kids over to ss. If I took all my kids disabilities, added in attachment disorders & ptsd (both I had myself), fasd, parents who didn't come from my childhood or career then I understand why it happens. So I wont judge, but part of me will allways be stuck where you are op because part of me will allways identify with the truamatised kid who needs carers to go to the end of the world & back just for them. & if I know I feel that way because of my triggers then maybe you could look at where your triggers come from & see if you can find a way past it so you don't judge & remain friends, if you can't, & I suspect I couldn't in many circstances, then step back but keep your mouth firmly buttoned.

No, HeeHighls, that is a terrible analogy.

Here's the main reason why: Put up with the bad behaviour or pass them on to give us back our peaceful life? What has happened here is a decision about whether the adoption will work. Everyone is assuming that the parents have just decided it's too much hassle, that they don't have the patience to allow the child to get 'stablised'. But this may be the wrong family for those children. The parents and social services will have tried and tried to make it work, and have now decided that this simply cannot work - either because the children are too traumatised, or because the fit is just wrong.

Nobody will have reached this decision lightly. We don't know how hard the parents worked, how reluctantly they will have reached this decision, if in indeed it was their decision - it may have been the social workers who felt that this situation is not going to improve, they should get the kids out before the final adoption order and give them a chance with another family.

A year is nothing in the life of a child to get them stabilised - massive assumption that all that is happening here is kids settling down. Most adoptive parents I know have found the opposite - that the problems grow as the children grow. And as for OP saying they are gorgeous children - I'm sure they are; but it is also common for adopted children to be very charming and loving to adults outside the family (it can be a sign of attachment problems, of a child who is desperate to be made safe by 'hooking in' every passing adult).

We don't know, we don't know. Your experience with your dog is, I'm afraid, no substitute for actual knowledge and understanding.

I see that everyone got there before me

*As the adoptive parents I'd still want the child with me or else he/she may not be treated kindly elsewhere. Can they live with that thought? I couldn't

A year is nothing in the life of a child to get them stabilised*

Words fail me tbh. My DS arrived home from school amidst total chaos - his sister was kicking off big time again! For no apparent reason. We, as a family, have received death threats because of the behaviour of DD2 at school, out playing with "friends", and basically her attitude, in general, towards other children. Her sister (our adopted DD1 -who is absolutely gorgeous and no problem whatsoever, is struggling because she has no friends - due to her sisters behaviour. She is a singer but has no support as family, friends and neighbours seem to hone in on her sisters behaviour and steer well clear. Therefore, as a family, we have lost all out support networks.

My son has lost friends and now refuses to bring friends home any longer because of the actions from his (adopted) sister.

Anyone who thinks adopted children are akin to birth children need to experience it for themselves. There are, obviously, great adoption stories. There are, however, stories that need to be heard to be believed.

I guess what I have never understood is why parents adopting don't 'train' themselves into being specialist foster care first, whether litteral you or figurtively

My husband and I had adopted and fostered children for over 25 years when we came across the placement that we had to "give back". As you can imagine that made us quite experienced, or trained as you say. And in that time had come across many children, each of whom had a unique experience. But what we faced with one young man threatened the safety/security of our whole family including our disabled children. Not sure the word threatened is right, perhaps what I mean is our lives were at stake. 25 years experience had not prepared us for this child that we loved so much. His life has changed because of our decision, but so has ours, our future is very different now to the one we had always believed in. So I have to actually disagree that training totally prepares you. It never can.

What a sad situation for everyone involved

Our friendship group had a split due to this very subject a couple of months ago.

Couple A felt they had to give back adopted dd (4) as they couldn't handle her. She had been with them for just over a year and had many problems.

Couple B were incandescent about this, I'm assuming because they have a ds with similar needs.

Couple B couldn't square the fact they had to give her back. They kept going in about how much Couple A had unstated they were 'just like' biological parents. To be fair they did make a huge fuss if they felt they were seen as different to biological parents.

I kind of understand why couple B were angry, but so also felt s lot of sympathy for Couple A. It's very obviously a decision that haunts them.

As the adoptive parents I'd still want the child with me or else he/she may not be treated kindly elsewhere. Can they live with that thought? I couldn't

Maybe you can't. But what if the choice was knowing that the very lives of the other vulnerable members of your family would be at stake. Would you still want the child with you if he was destroying the lives of your elderly parents, or of other children of yours that happened to be disabled and could not protect themselves, or your daughter who underwent the most horrific experience a young woman can, because of that child? I respect you if you can, but I couldn't. And I do think of him every day, but then I look at my parents, my disabled children, my daughter, my grandchildren and give thanks they are now physically safe, although always haunted by the experiences they were forced to go through because of the one child we could not help.

This thread has given me my very first panic attack, so I am withdrawing now. Thanks to those who have been kind.

Given some of the painful stories from those who have adopted I would give credit to them and their strength not judge and say I couldn't be friends with someone like that any more - who is the real quitter here?

I hope OP's 'friends' have plenty of other more understanding ones

Jeez Heehighls, do yourself a favour and take some time to read the other posts on this thread.

Sorry to add an irrelevant post but I can't contain myself any longer. There is no such thing as an 'At Risk Register' and hasn't been for decades. There are children subject to a Child Protection Plan and children who are on a Child in Need plan. I do have quite a lot of experience of this professionally and will post later but all this talk of a non existent 'At Risk Register' is making my pedantic hackles rise because it shows that the posters referring to this don't know what they're talking about

I am quite amused by the idea that if only we adoptive parent sought advice from birth parents we would be soooo much better at it.

The advice I've had from birth parents (who by the way are 95% of my social circle, not sure why you think adoptive parents live in some kind of odd adoption bubble) consists of

"Oh all boys do that" - well there are 18 boys in DS's class and only two others have regular sessions with the school EP and have an EHCP, so no, they don;t all do that.
"but surely he can't remember anything" yes and you can't remember that head injury you sustained so it can't possibly affect you, right?
"isn't he lucky" fuck right off with that comment in front of my child - what kind of twisted luck would your child have if they had been through what DS went through?
"have you tried controlled crying?" hollow laugh
"it's so much easier to adopt as your don't have to go through birth and breast feeding" - no words

I have some lovely birth parent friends but funnily enough I haven't found their advice superior in any way to what I've learnt myself. IN fact one has already said that she wouldn't have known how to deal with what I have. For the record like Dorcas I paddle in the relatively shallow waters of problems and I often gravitate naturally towards paretns of children with SN as there are similarlites in the problems and soutions, so it does surprise me that OP is unable to empathise with her friends. Or maybe her friends are just grim monsters (I don;t know them)

The adoption I know disrupted when the older child was found to be sexually abusing the younger, so it's not always fair to persevere.

There is no indication that the OP's friends are sending the DC's back to the pound this week and they may even be saying this to provoke a reaction from SS. There's a thought based on some posters analogies - maybe they should try clicker training on them?

I'm sorry it's upsetting you palmsprings your contribution has been very valuable. Contrary to popular belief, having a spare room and a lot of love often isn't enough.

Matilda Sorry, didn't see your post.

Palm I wasn't claiming it necessarily was. But there are certainly plenty of adoptive parents who didn't foster prior, who don't have psych or s/w backgrounds. I grew up in a very abusive situation, was very damaged because of it, worked hard through therapy & studied psychology amoung others before working with dangerous & damaged children. I allways feel like I live in a world other people don't realise is there, & the damaged kid in me just doesn't 'get' why adoptive parents who have longed for their own child don't realise they need to prepare to parent the child they will get (as damaged as I was) rather than the child they longed for. I appreciate that all the experience & qualifications in the world can't prepare you for alot of the kids in the care system (I work psych secure units, so children who rape and murder other children) but what I was trying to say is that part of me that identify's with the children in this situation will never be able to 'get' why parents don't adapt to be everything that child needs. I'm not saying they should, I know people can't and are only human and have human curcumstances but the part of me that will always be that truamatused child will never understand that. I don't think you appear to have understood what I was saying. But then it's probably not as simple to understand if you havn't grown up with your identity as fragmented as mine, triggered feelings arn't rational & just because I understand that it isn't that simple as an adult doesn't mean the part of me triggered will ever be able to 'get' that.

why adoptive parents who have longed for their own child don't realise they need to prepare to parent the child they will get (as damaged as I was) rather than the child they longed for

Can't speak for all adoptive parents only myself. But my prep course did indeed prepare us for this - in fact the prep course put the fear of god into all of us to the point that we rather wistfully thought of the nice family we had all hoped for rather than the mad axe murderers we were in fact about to adopt.

It didn't prepare me for the reality mind you but I guess I muddle along as well as any parent who is dealing with problems with very little support.

OP after reading some of these insightful and honest posts, do you still feel the same?

Kew you seem to be missing the point I am trying to make, the kid I was, that damaged part of me inside that I allways carry with me despite lots of therapy & healing doesn't get why parents can't be everything they need to be for their kids, that's the part that I found was triggered by working with kids who had been put back into the system (although not triggered by the violence the kids did) & it's this part of me that feels this way & would lead me to feel similar to the op, but I know that's emotional triggers & not rational & reasonable which is why I wouldn't voice it. I was trying to show the op if I can identify why & where my triggers come from then maybe she can identify hers & get some perspective.

I see a lot of fellow adopters have replied echoing my thoughts while I dealt with my DD who is adopted and having issues with bedtime.
For Heyheels - you can't compare adopting a child to a dog - it's wrong on so many different levels.
Palm, Kew and others have raised very interesting and valid points.
For us we couldn't have birth children and we took 4 years before coming to the decision to adopt. We had both had close family friends who had suffered badly due to their adoptive children being abusive, not informed of disabilities, attachment disorder, etc and still made the decision to go ahead having had no previous experience of parenting ourselves. The first few months were hard - really hard !
As for having to have experience then who funds this? Local authorities don't have the money ! Adopters take on kids with very little or no support but are expected to be their saviours and "fix" all issues.
I could go on and on but I think a lot of it has already been covered.

OP seems to have disappeared. Fancy that!
I reported this thread hours ago and can't believe MNHQ haven't pulled it. It would be hurtful if the parents were to read it assuming its true or the Daily Mail to get their grubby mitts on it.

I'm sitting here incredulous at the number of ignorant posts on this thread....as usual from those that cannot even fathom what being an adoptive parent is like, nor what parenting a child that hurts is like.

Sorry Wobbly I did indeed misunderstand your point - in my defence I was perhaps not thinking clearly after poster comparing it to rehoming her dog...