To ask for positive adoption stories

[Littleredboat]

I know there’s an Adoption board but it doesn’t get shown in Active and as per my post below, I suspect the people I’m trying to reach aren’t reading it much.

We are considering adoption, we have been doing so on and off for many years.

I have been spending a LOT of time reading adoption forums, and they are full of stories of placement breakdown, extreme behaviours, family breakdown, violence etc.

I KNOW all children coming into care have experienced loss and trauma to various extents. Please don’t think I am not grasping this because I am. I know you cannot ever guarantee what needs your child will end up having and you must be prepared for the worst, that’s why I’m reading them. Over and over. I absolutely promise this isn’t a rose tinting exercise.

But I also suspect that people mostly post on forums when stuff is going wrong. Or when faced with extremes. Most of us don’t post the every day things going right in our lives. So I suspect that the forums are skewed more towards that end of things.

So I am asking: is there anyone out there who has a positive adoption story you could encourage me with please, to redress some sort of balance in my mind from the “inevitable apocalypse” place I feel in at the moment?

Thank you

I think if I was adopted today and had to go through things like letterbox contact that could have actually caused attachment issues.

I don’t mean to jump on individual posters, I really don’t, but it’s important the OP gets facts.

Letterbox contact does not cause attachment issues.

We did foster to adopt and got out lo at 3 months old through local authority. Found the whole process easy going, just the wait to be matched was hard. If you go to an information meeting there are usually adoptive parents there you can talk to. Good luck with your adoption journey 😊

An old work colleague of mine adopted a little girl about 3 years ago, he and his wife were smitten with her and if she did have any problems at the beginning it didn't show, she has changed their life, he's so happy and all he talks about is her.

That's the only experience I have so not much but just wanted to put a positive experience out there for you x

All positive here. 12 years ago. Easy approval for a sibling group, took 6 months. Found our boys at the same time as approval panel. Met our children aged 5,6 & 7 two months later and they moved in after 10 days! It all just fell into place and we have been extremely lucky.

They are now 3 tall, gorgeous young men of 17, 18 and 19. All working, happy and well attached. Barely a worry in all that time (which is why I rarely post on adoption matters, I have no experience of the trauma etc that lots of adoptive children/families go through). I say barely a worry, but actually, we did have problems with schooling. Eldest struggled a little emotionally but not enough for the junior school to mention it to us! We only found out when he was at grammar school in year 8. We simply removed him and home educated. We were already home educating middle son due to bullying so it was a no-brainer for us. Youngest decided to join his brothers a year later, because he could, and we spent the next 4 years just living our lives. I'm convinced HE was/is a major factor in attachment. Adopted children are emotionally younger due to the trauma they have experienced and removing the requirement for them to keep up with their peer group frees them to move at their own pace. Our boys have friends of all ages, but one in particular has only younger friends. He's still maturing and will get there eventually.

We are a normal family. Well, as normal as anyone else. Most friends know our boys are adopted but those that don't often comment how much like me or their dad they are. It makes us smile.

We were lucky. Our children had fantastic social workers, Long placement with the same foster carers.

All positive here 😁

We are still very early days- 10 weeks into placement with a nearly 16mo little boy. He is perfect in every way and the best thing we have ever done.

It's not easy but right now it's also just bog-standard parenting. He sleeps 7pm-6am straight through, naps for 2 hours in the day, eats well, loves reading books together, is very mobile, no known health issues, met birth mum and she was lovely and supportive of us.

Its been the complete opposite of what we were expecting (although we had a very rocky few weeks at the start) after hearing lots of negatives. I know we have a lot to overcome in the future but for now we are very much a happy normal loving family.

Also OP if you're on Instagram have a look at my @becoming.mum page for an honest account from Stage 1 up until now. I posted recently about exactly what you've said - it's quite common to only hear the bad stories, but even though you need to be prepared for the worst I think it's so important to hear the positive stories too!

I was adopted when I was 10 after an initial adoption breakdown where I placed back into care. It absolutely wasn't plain sailing at all but my Parents were very strong, very considerate and always had my back.

The day I moved in with them my Dad told me "this is it. We're your Mum and Dad from this point on. There's no going back, no changing our minds, nothing on earth you can do to stop us being your family. There's going to be times you hate us, times you say we're not who you want to be with. But this is it, good, bad and ugly, we get through it together". His words were poignant for a child who'd learned never to depend on or trust any adults, he's been true to his word every day for the last 26 years and they were absolutely the reason I grew up happy, healthy and strong.

It took time, strength and absolute unwavering love from them. I'm sure there were times they thought "fuck this shit" when I was 15 and mouthy and angry. But my adoption was successful, my two younger sisters adoptions were equally as successful and we are all now intelligent, happy, functional adults with children of our own who are growing into lovely young people. I don't think about it often but when I focus on it, I see that we're absolutely the best-possible-outcome of adoption stories.

I'm convinced HE was/is a major factor in attachment. Adopted children are emotionally younger due to the trauma they have experienced and removing the requirement for them to keep up with their peer group frees them to move at their own pace. Our boys have friends of all ages, but one in particular has only younger friends. He's still maturing and will get there eventually.

This is fabulous. We have close friends who've adopted two siblings and began their HE life just after Christmas due to school struggles. It's made such an enormous difference to their boys lives and happiness levels. I tutor them both one day a week (I teach Reception the rest of the time) and the energy and effort they put in during their time with me is astounding compared to the children in my class.

I think were adoption is concerned you do have to shift your concept of positive and negative.
I have an adopted son, he will be 14 in July, he came to me when he was nearly 8.
I work three days a week. He loves school, has lots of friends, is a Scout, plays tennis, swims, plays footie, mad about the xbox, Formula 1, athletics, sport in general. We have camped in the desert and ridden camels in Morroco, walked with lions in Senegal, had great holidays in France and Rhodes, he is learning to surf in Cornwall. He is like a sponge and grabs any opportunity life gives him. He is funny, caring, kind and has a smile which lights up the room. All good so far?

So the flip side, he has autism and a learning difficulty. He came to me in special school, he is now in mainstream, he will get a handful of GCSEs, and probably go to college, and be employable, but he won't be going to university and getting a nice middle class job. But from where he started he has done stunningly well.
He is anxious, sometimes his grief and anger about his past is overwhelming. I have to hold him like a baby until the storm passes. I still hold him in my arms every night until he falls asleep because thats what makes him feel safe. When he was eleven, he became quite aggressive, I ended up signed off work with stress, I was lucky and got funding from the Adoption Support Fund before it was capped. We had over eighteen months of very painful life story therapy from which he emerged much stronger and mature and able to face the past. We are still having family therapy.
Although I work, its a job, not a career, it gives me what I need, which is mostly flexibility. My pension has suffered because I work part time. I have put on several stone, I have times when I'm very stressed and exhausted and my non working days slip past in a daze.

Monday is our 6th anniversary of meeting. This is always an anxious time of year for him. It beings back all the trauma and loss, he needs constant reassurance, even after 6 years, in his heart of hearts he is still not convinced that he won't be taken away from me. His behaviour can be very challenging at times, he is taller than me now, a 14 year old man child with his own opinions that I cannot manage in the ways I used to be able to.
So what do you think, positive or negative?
I think we are a success story. But its hard going. Its nothing like a birth child. There are things that people with birth children will never have to contend with, the birth family, the reality of what happened to them before they got to you.
You need resiliance, strengh and quite frankly a great big dollop of luck. We are lucky that his schools have 'got it' and work with me to support him, I am lucky that he came with a Statement, and that his LA gave me a hefty adoption allowance. We are lucky that we got the funding package before the cap.

My son is the hardest and best thing I have done or will do.

On Monday we will go out for pizza to celebrate our life together, I will give him a big 6 balloon, and we will talk about our adventures and what we have planned for this year.

I wouldn't swap my life for anything. Its very tough at times, its come at a cost but its filled with love and pride for the brave, passionate young man who calls me mum and plonks a cup of tea by my bed every morning ( because he knows how much I hate mornings !)

My 2 children are adopted from Russia. My son was 8 months at placement and he is small for his age and had delayed speech but he's 14 now and is healthy and happy.
My DD was 2.5 at placement and had significant health problems before adoption. She is now 10 and displays classic signs of early childhood trauma, developmental delays, socially immature, learning difficulties. She also still has her health problem, (heart condition) However she's brilliant. Sweet, funny, loving. We access some services, play therapy, Speech therapy, OT, Some free, some we pay for. She has learning support at school and her outlook is good. There is no reason to think she can't go on to third level education and live a normal, independent life.
In most ways we are a typical family. My kids fight like cat and dog but also get on well at times. They both have no attachment issues, TG and we have always been very open about their adoptions. They love Russia and are very proud of being Russian.
We were unable to have biological children which is why we adopted. It was by far the most difficult thing I've ever experienced. I sometimes wonder how we did it. How we sat through the intrusive assessment and dealt with social workers and did all that paperwork. There was mountains of it. And then travelled to Russia and dealt with all of that stress. It was mad when I think of it. But of course totally worth it.
Good luck

Some lovely stories on here. I think it's true that adoptions in the 60s/70s were generally probably for very diff reasons and had the potential to work out better than children these days who may have been abused/neglected before ending up in care.

I was adopted in the late 60s when I was 10 months old by a lovely couple who had been ttc for 20 years! I had a fabulous childhood, felt very loved. I was frequently told that I was a 'gift from god' and that they couldn't have loved me any more if I had been their biological child. So I had a very rosy view of adoption.

However in recent years I've seen a very close friend reduced to a shadow of herself due to her adopted teenagers behaviour. They were removed from their birth parents aged 3 and 4 due neglect and drug abuse.

They were showered with love and seemed to have a great childhood but were drawn into drugs in their mid teens and both are now violent drug users who steal from their parents, smash up the home ... it's a living nightmare.

Have genetics played a big part in that? I've no idea. It's all a terribly sad situation that they've basically returned to the very situation they were removed from.

So this has def changed my view of adoption.

Thats very sad, but unfortunately not uncommon, I have many adoptive friends facing immense challenges at the moment.
Its great to hear from new families saying how lovely it all this, and I don't want to spoil that for them, but I would be very wary of basing views of positive or negative adoption on such stories.

Our first four months were amazing, months 5 to 11 were quite frankly sheer hell. I was grateful that I had a year off work because I just wasn't fit for work. Age 10 and it started getting hard, I could see lots of warning signs, Age 11-12 were very hard going, age 12-13, in therapy, incredibly lucky to get such a hefty package. We are through the other side. I have no worries about him running back to birth parents. He is very anti drugs and alcohol. This week he told me that whilst he would like to see his birth mum and give her a hug, he would come home with me because I am the safest option.
I do worry about parents who say they adopted a baby so there is no trauma background. At the very least they have experienced the trauma of being removed from the mother and possibly a foster carer. Not to mention what happened in utero and the long term effects of drugs and alcohol.
Adoption won't fix a child, but it does give them a chance. And it can be a very hard slog

I was adopted at birth now 44 my mum and dad are simply just that,traced my birth parent ( sorry not keen on term mother )but never wanted to meet her just needed to know

Thank you, these are all so useful. And I agree that experiences differ with time in placement as well as chronological time period.

I absolutely promise this isn’t me trying to find rose tinted stories and ignore all else. It’s just when you’re trying to prepare, all the forums are quite rightly often full of people struggling and looking for help in some really dark times. And so the picture can get skewed the other way, you know?

Thank you all who have replied so far :)

The thing is you just dont know how its going to pan out. Around 1/3 of adoptions permantley break down and the child is then placed in the care system.
If you look at birth families around 1/3 of them dont give up their children.
Also people think a baby wont cause as many issues as say a 5 year old thats had loads of placements. Thats totally wrong as adopted babies can grow up can have loads of issues, they are not a blank sheet.
You need to go into with your eyes wide open and think about how you might have to cope with some really bad and disturbed behaviour. Often with inadequate support. I've known adopters get attacked badly by their children, could you manage this?

Around 1/3 of adoptions permantley break down and the child is then placed in the care system

Where did you get that stat. It seems high to me

My dad was adopted and very very happy with it and never felt the need to find his birth family. My DM and start-father adopted 2 children a girl aged 10 and boy 6 separately, both been through abuse and fostering, the girl recreated what her birth mother did has had numerous children and abandoned them - for my DM to care for, the boy complete opposite- studying to be a doctor, great friends, wonderful social live, travels and is a great happy person. It depends on the person/ child no 2 are the same.
Much luck to you

A girl I knew at school got pregnant at 15 and gave the child up for adoption. I see her around occasionally (she works at the supermarket) and she says giving the child away was the best decision she ever made, that doing so enabled her to get on with enjoying life. She doesn't want any kind of contact with the child because she doesn't consider it "hers" so I think adoption was a very positive experience for her in this case.

Where did you get that stat. It seems high to me

They got it because they misunderstood the bristol report. Disruption levels are nowhere near 1 in 3. The Bristol report puts 1 in 3 of the adopters that it asked in the category of severe problems, which includes disruption- not that 1 in 3 disrupted.

Thing is, the Bristol report was trying to study disruption and difficulty. It was trying to find out why people have difficulties, not get data about all adopters.

The highest figure I have ever seen for disruption numbers out of a whole cohort of adopters within an LA is 20%. That was in a specific (underperforming) LA over a specific period. My guess would be less than 5%, but there is (to my knowledge) no rigorous national data of any kind.

Also people think a baby wont cause as many issues as say a 5 year old thats had loads of placements. Thats totally wrong as adopted babies can grow up can have loads of issues, they are not a blank sheet.

It's not totally wrong, it's correct (on average). The firmest conclusion that the Bristol report came up with is that the younger kids are adopted the better the outcomes.

The issue comes when people imagine that a baby will not have issues and so are not prepared for uncertainty. Although the average outcomes are better, individual cases can still be incredibly difficult.

It might be a great experience for her ChelleDawg, and I'm not going to say it was the wrong decision. But that child will live with the consequences.

As PP said no two children are the same. I know of an adopted boy born addicted to heroin who is now ten and a dream child. He has never had any issues, however, it probably helped that he had one foster carer prior to adoption who showed him a lot of love and he wasn’t pushed from pillar to post. He was also clearly physically resilient to what happened in utero.

Nevertheless, the more information you can obtain on the child’s background the better. For example if you know the child’s parent has schizophrenia, you know there’s a chance it could’ve been passed down. If both parents have learning difficulties, the chance is higher in the child. If the parents have addictive personalities then you need to look for signs such as is the child smoking young, if yes, they could’ve inherited an addictive personality etc etc.

In terms of successful famous people who are adopted see Olivier Rousteing, the creative director at Balmain. He was adopted in the late 80s.

Not adoption but we are fostering two girls long term and it's been a fantastic experience. They are both amazing girls and we love them as our own. We know lots of other foster families with similar positive experiences.

Be aware adoption isn't rose tinted.
My husband was adopted at 1 and a half. He had a good childhood but has growth issues, didn't hit puberty til 18.
His sister was adopted at 3 with same family and has multiple special needs, doesn't look like she needs help but will never be independent. If his parents die then it will be up to us.

However they had an amazing childhood but be aware even the most perfect family will have to deal with another families genetic issues.

My 3yo came home to me aged 1; obviously I don't know how things will pan out, but so far it's the best decision I ever made. Like the pp who said they forget they are adopted, I forget (except when it is letterbox time) that my child is adopted-I genuinely could not have given birth to a better fit. (I hasten to add however that I do tell them their whole story every week or so).
However people come to adoption for different reasons and I personally think both the adopter(s)'s personal story as well as the adoptee's story, and how all parties deal with these,impact greatly.
Yes children today leaving the care system have experienced significant trauma. As a teacher however I also see a large number of 'non-lac' children with significant attachment issues due to chaotic family lives (usually involving various step parents/blended families, to-ing and fro-ing - I know I will get flamed for saying that but that is my experience).
As I view it however, and again this is very much my personal view, others might think differently, you are not taking on another family's problems, they are your family's problems because this is your child.