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When we adopted Beth after having had so much difficulty with our first two adopted kids, many folks wondered why on earth we had ventured forth yet again. We did try and adopt Beth through the domestic foster care system, even though she was a disrupting international placement, because we were hoping to secure some kind of subsidy to hedge our bet against hemorrhaging money on yet another deeply wounded child. My husband figured we had spent over $40,000 on our first two troubled kids by the time we added Beth. That is a lot of money … and that is just what the insurance DIDN’T pay. We were not successful, though, in running Beth through the system, so we took a leap of faith and added her on our nickel. If you have been reading this blog for any time at all, you know it was one very well spent nickel.
I speak to parents across the country all the time. I have recently been talking to a foster mom whose first placement was a severely RAD boy. (I blogged about them before.) In fact, he’s due to blow out of that home any time. The social worker who came to their home last time asked if it was their first placement, and then apologized for what “the system” had done to her and her family. This mom has articulated that they are done. They are afraid to try again, and who wouldn’t be? Clearly the system does not have their best interests at heart, and how many people would willingly choose to live with a child who disrupts the entire family dynamics as badly as some of these kids manage to do? (Except Cindy Bodie …) If this family had been dealt with properly up front, and supported appropriately along the way, they could have and would have been a wonderful resource and placement for some child who was appropriate for their family, and it would have been a win/win deal. Now it is lose/lose.
So how many of you have been so negatively impacted by kids already in your home that the mere thought of taking on any more is an anathema? How many of you thought you would adopt THIS many but ended up with much fewer because you got one or two that counted for twenty?
How many just want to cut their losses and run? That is what Deb Hannah said to me today … she wrote her book as a means of letting go of that chapter in her life, and she was thinking about how I still deal with this day in and day out, even though my severely attachment-challenged kids are not in my home any longer. I don’t know why I am compelled to wallow in it every day. I do know I wouldn’t have Beth if I hadn’t started ATN, and wouldn’t that be an incredible loss of a different kind?
It is because of most folks’ propensity to put ugly things behind them that ATN has difficulty in building a donor base from folks we have assisted in the past. If their kid heals, they want to forget there were issues initially. If the child disrupts, the family can’t wait to put that chapter behind them. And if the child is a long-term therapeutic parenting sinkhole, the family has no money or resources left to give anyone, even an organization that is helping keep them afloat.
Would you adopt again after having dealt with really severe kids?
I just read Deb Hannah’s book and was just sick. I anticipated alot of what would happen as I read because I’ve lived it (thank goodness to a much smaller level-so far). After our investigations and the betrayal I felt, I just wanted to stay in my house and shut out the horrible old world.
I would LOVE to adopt again in spite of it all. I want a bigger house on 50 acres and all of the services these kids need and wonderful adoption workers who love our family and can’t wait to finalize our many sibling group placements. That wouldn’t be our reality, of course, and my family is fed up. The kids we currently have are LOUD and unruly and no matter how much we work, they don’t seem to improve. Four of our kids alone feel like 20. We have spent thousands of dollars and more hours than humanly imaginable on everything from vitamin therapy, tutors, OT, PT, speech, dr.’s, counselors, psychological testing – you name it and it has only gone downhill. I can’t do this to my healthy children and husband again. I feel guilty that I brought my family into the fishbowl of foster care/adoption.
We received so many compliments when the kids were young and felt so confident as parents. The FAS, RAD, ADHD, etc. has taken all that away and tore our family apart. I’m still in the phase where I don’t trust the foster care system to do what’s best for anyone. Finding this site has helped, but I know I have a long way to go.
I think that the natural response of people who have moved beyond the trauma of parenting these kids is to just try to forget. So much time and energy has been expended already that they won’t get back that they figure its time to catch up and do something for themselves that doesn’t involve tearful recollection of traumatic events. I know if I ever get beyond this, I’d feel like that.
I DID adopt again after trying to parent a severely disturbed little girl. I knew she was coming to me with serious medical issues, which I knew I could handle. However, the behavioral/emotional/psychological issues were just TOO much. Her “issues” ran the gamut from self-starvation, to toileting wherever and whenever she wanted (she was nine years old) to severe self-injury. I had four little (3 and under) kids at the time and it was only a matter of time before she did something serious to one of them. My international facilitator urged me to place her with another family. She wanted to handle it – I think she KNEW what was going to happen in the adoption, and wanted to hide it all. This would have violated ICPC, so I refused and disrupted through the foster care system. I have never, ever been treated like such dirt before. All they saw was a cute little girl who turned on the charm. They didn’t hear the evil laugh of the child who hurled herself down a flight of stairs and laughed when I panicked. They weren’t there when she pooped on the floor at will. They weren’t there when she refused to eat ANYTHING for nearly a week, lost 10% of her body weight and had to be hospitalized and threatened with tube feeding (all this in a foreign language, I might add) Suddenly my entire family was under scrutiny. My parenting abilities questioned. (by DHS and by me, frankly) It took a lot of therapy, reading and time for the disruption wound to heal. It’s probably still healing in some respect. I have gone on to adopt another “special needs” child, which took an incredible amount of courage and a tremendous leap of faith. God must have been watching out for me because although we’ve had some issues – they are not horrible, terrible, life-destroying ones like my last experience.
I think we would have added other children to our family, if not for how our #2 drains us mentally and emotionally. I think we were just fortunate that we found our son sooner rather than later. If our daughter had been a bit older, say 2 to 3 years old, we would never have had considered adopting our son because we would have been well into the battle by then.
I would not adopt again, I will not adopt again. I know my limits and I’m there.
I would love to adopt again someday. I knew going into this that my daughter had very severe issues. I still thought I’d be able to adopt another kid within the next two or three years, but now realize after two years that she is going to need to be an only child for much longer. Since her behavior can vary literally from infant level to teen, it can be like parenting lots more than one kid! Her services also cost a lot more than I anticipated, but if I can afford it, I hope to have more kids down the road.
Our very first ever foster placement remains the most severely RAD and severely disturbed. He remains in a long term RTC.
And, then what’d we do?? (We already had another severely RAD child in our home at this point, as well as the sibs of these severe RADishes – which means they have some hefty issues themselves.)
We went and adopted a whole house full of kids with a RAD dx. It’s crazy here – literally and figuratively. Yet, oddly and amazingly, most of the kids develop a way of interacting with each other – and then with me – and many of these kids are thriving. It’s absolutely heartening. Keep in mind, we’re talking “thriving” as it appears in the tiniest of baby steps. But, we accept baby steps.
Would I recommend families knowingly accept a RAD child into their home?? NEVER. If they decide to do it anyway, give me a call – there are oh, so few parents in the world who understand the life we must lead to try to help our kids.