To wonder what on earth happened with the Leiland James case?

[Grasscrowns]

Utterly horrific, but AIBU to wonder what on earth prompted a woman with no criminal history to ‘leather’ a baby? Even people who believe a good hiding won’t hurt them and other such stupid statements don’t apply it to babies.

That’s shocking re lack of support and scrutiny post placement. My dog was adopted from dogs trust and they phoned to check we were ok plus had a helpline. Less than that for a human baby is appalling.

If she worked previously as a carer, I would bet any money that she has been abusive in the past but never been caught/charged. This isn't a normal person who wasn't given enough support. This is someone who quite probably always knew she was going to abuse that poor baby.

@Grasscrowns Yes, totally agree. I think every parent I know has probably felt that frustration and walked away, or shouted and felt awful about it, or gone and had a good old cry of their own while the baby yells away in another room. Like you say, it's the smacking, especially when the child is just a baby, that's just absolutely horrible.

The way they spoke about that poor little boy made it sound like they thought of him as substandard goods rather than a child. It's like they thought they'd bring him home and he'd just sit there and smile/laugh on command or something.

Plenty of parent’s biologically related to their children treat them badly, as a way to punish them for not fitting in with their own idea of what their child should be like, or for not being grateful enough to them.

Some people are just rotten bastards who shouldn’t be left to care for anyone else ever, no matter whether they are biologically related to them or not.

so horrid. Not many pictures of him released but he looks to have features of FASD. He was taken from a family who cared for him since he was tiny and a placed with a new family it must have been so distressing for him. I imagine challenging too but why didn’t they just disrupt? There appears to have been no bond. Poor little lamb.

This is a MN thread from last month.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4525269-I-think-the-current-government-should-ban-the-smacking-of-children

Plenty of support for hitting children even on here.

Hitting escalates. A tap. A light slap. A smack. Once a week. Twice a week. Soon it’s leathering. People lose perspective and control very fast.

If it were banned entirely you might stop the abuse starting.

I have hit my son three times. All three were reflexive after he hurt me (accidentally obviously).

After that third time I told myself it wasn’t happening again and that there are better strategies. That was 7 years ago. No more.

I knew it was wrong and had the tools to stop. It would be better to help people understand it’s wrong full stop than have this ridiculous notion that there is an acceptable level of violence you can inflict on a child.

They were sent on parenting courses before they were allowed to adopt though, and signed an agreement that they wouldn’t smack him. They had been taught better parenting techniques, but chose to ignore them and lie to social workers.

Yeah, they did know @Merryoldgoat , and even if they didn’t, then the pinching, the bruised tonsils. That’s not smacking. I don’t agree with smacking, but it went way beyond that.

Then how on Earth did that not come out in the adoption assessment! This is basic stuff!

@Bobbybobbins - because they lied.

I just read that he was removed from his bio mother at birth. I wish he could have gone straight to (good) adoptive parents and stayed there. It must be so hard for babies to bond with a foster carer and then be moved to someone else. I think he moved to new people at birth, then new people at 2 months, then the Castles at 8 months. I know it probably can't be helped but must be so hard for them all the chopping and changing

That's not what happens though. Children get lots of visits post placement and up to adoption order. Weekly at least if I remember correctly.

No it can't be helped. Foster to adopt placements exist but they are rare and it's a REALLY hard thing to ask adopters to do. The benefit is they get a baby from birth/very young but the risk of having that child taken away from them is enormous and extremely stressful.
parents have to have the opportunity to go through the court process and change if they have the capacity to. That's why children go to foster carers before they are adopted. Court takes months, sometimes closer to a year.

Sorry, if it wasn’t clear I think they are despicable. Utterly despicable.

My point was just if it were actually illegal rather than ‘not best practice’ or ‘advised against’ it might make some people think.

Thar won’t stop abusers like these abusing but it might help some who start down the wrong path.

Covid may have caused this to have been suspended.

Well it shouldn't have been. We were out visiting children in person from the April of 2020. I did a couple of adoption visits via zoom but most of them were in person. The government temporarily changed the law to allow virtual 'visiting' but it was never meant to be used exclusively.

We’ve had one visit since our placement in January, she was late, stayed less than ten minutes and didn’t even see our daughter as she was napping in the bedroom.

They had weekly visits from the social workers from what I read

Just so unbelievably sad I can’t get my head around it

I cannot bear to read the articles - do horrendous

All I will say is that IME as an adoptive parent no one really checked on our son after he was placed with us at4 years old - his SW came round about 6 weeks after placement and had no idea - my DH and I adore / love our DS beyond anything but we could have been doing awful things to him and they would have had no idea - it is beyond heartbreaking

They were sent on parenting courses before they were allowed to adopt though, and signed an agreement that they wouldn’t smack him. They had been taught better parenting techniques, but chose to ignore them and lie to social workers.

The pre-adoption training is pretty variable to put it mildly, and really nothing can prepare you for becoming a parent literally overnight to a child who is terrified and traumatised. Emotions tend to be all over the place and all ideas of how you thought you would parent go out the window - at least temporarily. So much of early day in adoption is counter-intuitive you do need a good degree of emotional intelligence and resilience to cope. Social work support in the early days is variable too - both mine and the kids sw visited weekly for about a month, so two visits a week - and they were an absolute godsend because I could say if I was struggling without needing to phone and ask for help, it was just there.

Other areas do it differently but I think at least weekly, face to face support scheduled and unscheduled is essential for adoptive parents and the child. You can’t imagine how many demands early placement makes on you until you’ve been there.

Nothing excuses or justifies what they both did, at all, but the local authority had parental rights over the child and should have been taking that responsibility seriously in post placement support.

Closeyoureyesandsee Sorry my post was meant to quote and respond to Simonjt who said she had no visits in 5 weeks with her son even though she was struggling and 1 brief visit with her daughter.

Yes I have to say that matches our experience of Special Guardianship. I thought maybe it was a bit laxer because we were family and DH held a relevant trusteeship (not that those are good reasons), but maybe not.

Simon is a man.

I adopted for the second time at the start of the first lockdown. The second time was nothing like the first. The first I felt like there was always a social worker or the health visitor here. If DS was napping when they came they would go up to his room to check all was well. With DD if there had been problems I don't think anyone would have spotted them - it would only have been through me speaking up.

Adopting during lockdown was so hard as the normal support network and resources were not available. Not that I am making any excuses for them. My DD was also 8 months when she joined us - it is totally inconceivable to me that they thought hitting a baby was acceptable. I was hit as a young child and did mention that in the adoption approval process when asked what I would do differently to my parents and that was accepted.