Comments on: When Adoptions Go Wrong

By: Dawn

Dawn — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:43:34 +0000

I am so sorry your family is still struggling. RAD is a treatable condition. Listen to some of the Creating a Family shows we’ve done on attachment and parenting children with attachment issues. Also check out some of the resources we list under attachment (in Adoption Resources). Get support for yourself because it’s hard work parenting a child who is not attached.

By: achildoflite

achildoflite — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:21:34 +0000

We adopted 3 children in one family and the DHS worker didn’t want to put a lable on children, so we have 2 R.A.D and one STSD. I feel the children should be in counseling when they enter foster care here in the USA. We need to get a jump start on the children Mental Health. When the children moved in with us, I put the 8 year old girl in counseling with her 6 year old sister and I had ask the case worker to do the paper work for the 4 year old brother, but she did nothing, so I waited untill after we adopted him at age 5. February 11 2009 was the adoption, we foster them for 6 months, We thought things would get better in time, But we are having are ups and downs, The now 9 year old put glue in my tea, the now 7 year old is cutting her self and is in daytreatment. The little boy just talks about hunting and killing. What we are learning from are children is the 9 year old has been raped, and has acted out on the other 2. We have 5 adopted children in are home. The other 2 case worker had them in treatment befor we adopted them, so they are doing real good. I need HELP with my R.A.D Children.

By: MamaBev

MamaBev — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:33:20 +0000

I watchted the 20/20 show with interest. I have adopted 4 older children from Russia in the last 3 years-one sibling group of 3 and the best friend of my middle daughter. My oldest adopted daughter watched the show with me (she is almost 20 now) and we saw a lot of similiarities in the Mulligans’ oldest daughter and her sister.
I have read more books on adoption related issues in the last 3 years since bringing the kids home. None were recommended to be read before the adoption. I have since had a very serious talk with the director of the adoption agency-more training IS needed for those of us who are adopting older children! And, it should not be an after the fact type of self training!
As for the small number of children who have been killed by their adoptive parents, why is the world looking at this through a magnifying glass? There are many more who are truly loved and suceed in life due to the adoptions! And, what about the children who are American born, often to too young of parents, who are subsenquently abused and/or killed by these incompent people-many more die each year at the hands of Mom’s boyfriend than total adopted children who are victims of parents’ frustration and inability to understand what they are up against!

By: Dawn

Dawn — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:15:45 +0000

Regina:
The show did say that most adoptions are successful, but I think you are correct that the take home message for most viewers is that adoption, especially of older institutionalized children, and especially from Russia, is too risky. What a shame.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:13:59 +0000

Mirah:

There is little of your response that I agree with, but I don’t have time now to do justice to a reply. I appreciate your thoughts and the time you took to respond, and you deserve a response that is equally thoughtful. I will post my response as next week’s blog. In the meantime, I would love to hear others thoughts on Mirah’s comment .

By: Regina Ruopoli

Regina Ruopoli — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:17:57 +0000

Thanks for the very balanced and carefully written thoughts. Another sad part of this is that it casts a negative light on all adoptions in the minds of many already prejudice people.

By: Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:17:22 +0000

In my experience, having been researching and working with members of the adoption community for about 40 years, writing presenting…the origin of th problem is twofold. You hit on one: expectations.

The depper problem is MONEY and greed (isn’t it always?).

Adoption is a $6.3 billion dollar a year international industry. Those whose job is it to redistribute children, and whose livelihood depends upon locating kids for eager parents willing to pay huge sums…are not vested in being supportive and hand-holding and certainly have no reason to scare off potential customers with the truth!

We need regulation of baby brokers and businesses called adoption agencies – even non-profit ones. We need to stop giving out adoption incentives that treat unscrupulous human traffickers on an equal plane with states who are trying to find homes for children who are truly orphaned or whose parents have been deemed unfit – right here in the USA…hundreds of thousands of them!

Why do people shy away from “special needs” older children and naively think that institutionalized children who do not speak English and may have been victims of FAS will fair better?

I highly recommend you read the following:

1. Child Trafficking by David Smolin works.bepress.com/david_smolin/

2. Romania for Export Only
romania-forexportonly.blogspot.com/

3. The Lie We Love by E.J.Graff
http://tinyurl.com/6p2sbb

4. Read what those adopted internationally and or interracially feel as adults:

http://www.transracialabductees.org/index.html

and: http://tinyurl.com/5qdjqe

5. The Stork Market: America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry
AdvocatePublications.com

Check with the UN. They state that adoption should always be a LAST RESORT!

Taking children one at a time from their origins does nothing to ameliorate the poverty of their family, their village or their nation. There are far more humanitarian ways to help.

More than a dozen children adopted from Russia have been MURDERED by their American adopters! Many others abused and abandoned.

It MUST STOP!!

By: Dawn

Dawn — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:38:57 +0000

Hi Sonya, while I share your frustration, I don’t want to be critical of the parents. Parenting an unattached child is so hard, and parents are often misunderstood. I don’t watn to perpetuate the belief that all it takes is love. It is hard, however, to imagine why they went so very public with such a private matter.

By: Sonya

Sonya — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:59:26 +0000

Hello Dawn,

After watching the 20/20 episode last week, I felt the same as you. I was so disappointed that something like this had taken place and was aired on national television.

As I mentioned earlier in a adoption group from my agency, I am a public school teacher and encounter children with these types of problems that are from loving biological homes. Although there are often some attachment issues that come along with adopting older children, the way that the parent reacts (or does not react) has a tremendous effect on the outcomes. Like you, I so wanted to be able to find a Russian Interpreter and sit down and hold that poor girl and assure her that everything was going to be okay and that it was okay for her to have the feelings that she was experiencing. It just seemed that they pushed her aside and place all of their positive attention on the younger girl.

I was heartbroken after watching that documentary, because I know that seeing something like that can negatively impact the adoption of children abroad and it breaks my heart to think that children are left institutionalized because of a biased show that does not depict the real picture of international adoption.