Not a lot of details, because that’s not really the point, but I just found out that a business acquaintance of mine had to “send her child back.” The child was around 7 or 8, and was adopted early this year, but had some pretty horrible behavior issues.
I’m not judging at all, but just want to know more information about it. Obviously, I can’t ask my acquaintance these things, as she’s clearly in pain, and we’re not close at all. Has anyone experienced this? How does it work? Are you ever allowed to adopt another child? How in the world do you go about telling the kid they can’t be your kid anymore?
I’ve known two families who’ve been through this. It’s heart-wrenchingly horrible for everyone involved. In one case (an international adoption), the child had Reactive Attachment Disorder that didn’t become evident until quite some time after the adoption was finalized and ended with disturbingly psychotic and violent behavior towards her parents. In the other (domestic adoption), other children in the home were sexually abused, and the sexual misbehavior was ongoing.
Usually cases where parents/families ‘send them back’ are similarly extreme. It’s not very easy to do, legally. But a lot of older ‘orphaned’ children, especially those adopted internationally where institutionalized care is common, have very serious problems which don’t come to light until adoptions are finalized and they have ‘settled in’.
I am interested in adopting an older child someday but because of the possibility of this type of situation I’ve already decided that I would start as a foster parent (not ‘foster-to-adopt’ in which matching kids and families for adoption is the main goal) - it’s only occasionally that children you have cared for long-term are made legally free for adoption, but at that point you have a handle on whether their issues are manageable for your family. Plus fostering is a wonderful thing to do whether or not you ever adopt kids you have cared for while their family could not.
I know a man who was the child involved in a failed adoption. He and I aren’t close but I have heard the story through his younger sibling. He’s now in his early thirties.
Apparently he and his younger brother were fostered and later adopted when he was about 4 years old and his brother was an infant. He developed severe behavior problems and ended up being sent back into foster care and separated from his baby brother.
I’m not entirely sure whether his adoption had actually been finalized but it was emotionally a done deal before it turned sour. He ended up being adopted by another couple when he was 6 - both in the public health/behavior services field and so I suppose better equipped to raise a troubled child.
A few years later they had an unexpected bio child (the younger sib I know this man through). The adopted boy continued to have behavioral problems and got into drug use, and currently lives with his parents and has two children of his own that he is unable to care for. In my limited interactions with him, he appears to be very kind yet insecure and somewhat erratic. Very, very shy. I’ve never discussed the situation with him or his parents but it makes me really sad. On the other had, from what I know of the parents they are uniquely equipped both temperamentally and intellectually to have given him the best home possible under really bad circumstances.
Two posts and this thread is already ripping my heart out. One of the worst stories I ever heard was about a man who adopted a three-year-old girl and much, much later her history of sexual abuse began to cause serious emotional and behavioral problems. He relinquished her back into custody when she was thirteen. Thirteen! I know it’s impossible to put yourselves in the shoes of someone going through this, but I don’t understand how anybody could care for a child for ten years and then give up on her. Parents who give birth generally don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘‘Screw this! This is too hard!’’ so I don’t understand how it can happen in adopted families. Do they not get what ‘’‘parent’’ means?
I also had a colleague in the child welfare system reveal that she had a failed adoption. She said she had specifically requested a child with no history of sexual abuse but after the adoption the truth came out. She relinquished care. Again, I’m just…
I want to adopt, and long-term I think being a foster parent would be great. We have considered fost-adoption, but my husband feels very concerned about the idea of possibly losing a child after we have all formed a bond. It’s not a minor consideration in fostering and adoption. I think you have a very realistic and intelligent approach here.
It is just tragic, no matter how or why. We wanted to adopt our second child, and were considering older children (non-infant), then by good grace a newborn landed on our doorstep (not as figuratively as it might sound). We had done considerable research and went through a preparation and qualification process conducted by people who cared far more than many adoption agencies about the success of placement. The heartbreak of your acquaintance is a consideration for any prospective parent considering adoption, but there is no more fulfilling act in life that I can think of than being a parent to child who has none, and I’m glad so many are still willing to try despite the potential pitfalls.
I think these situations are quite heartbreaking, and to address what Olives said - sometimes I think adoptive parents are given a harder time about these things than birth parents.
For instance, imagine a couple that had 3 (birth) children, and one of them was severely disturbed for whatever reason - severe autism, personality disorder, schizophrenia, whatever, and was hurting or harming the other 2 children. If parents chose to put the trouble child in a long term care facility, I don’t think people would make a peep. I mean, you need to protect ALL your children, even if it means protecting them from each other.
If the troubled child was adopted, and hurting its siblings, and the parents chose to ‘send him back’ it seems that the judgment is much harsher. The reality is that most people aren’t equipped to deal with a child with severe RAD or ODD or severe PTSD and many such problems are glossed over by adoption agencies trying to place children.
It’s possible that some of the parents in ‘failed’ adoptions are selfish, obnoxious jerks that wanted a perfect child and wound up with one with a few issues. I firmly believe that most of them had the best intentions, were trying to grow their family and wound up in a nightmare that they were not equipped to deal with. This happens with birth parents too -they just don’t seem to be judged as harshly.
A parent is a parent, I agree, but adopting a child at a later age is a very different experience for most than having/adopting a baby, or adopting a toddler. Sometimes, the love just doesn’t happen (for one or both parties).
While I’m sure some adoptive parents who relinquish are ignorant/dicks who abandon their kids for reasons I would not understand, I’ve heard/read some bone-chilling horror stories and there are situations where I would definitely attempt to relinquish a future adopted child of mine. A child with severe RAD can destroy your marriage, family, home, career, and life (in severe cases of RAD it’s not uncommon for kids to threaten, assault and attempt to murder their parental figures). For these kids, due to the often psychotically violent behavior and sexual acting-out, a group home or institution with heavy security is often the safest solution. I know I couldn’t afford it. If the child is put back into state care, it’s covered.
It’s true that we don’t have this option with troubled/ill biological kids - but those kids have severe RAD very, very rarely. RAD might be the most terrifying mental illness I’ve ever heard of. Thankfully, severe cases are very rare. It’s not a reason to not consider adopting older kids BUT it’s something everyone considering it should be educated about.
One must also consider the impact a highly disturbed child has on the other children in your family. I think this is a huge factor in many disrupted/failed adoptions. I doubt I could continue to love, and attempt to bond with, a kid I had taken in who raped my other kids, for instance. And I would not want them living in my home. These types of unspeakably awful situations do happen and damn, I have no idea how I’d handle it.
Thanks! I’ve put a ridiculous amount of thought and research into it already.
I share your husband’s concerns and that’s another reason I think straight fostering (but being open to adoption if it becomes a possibility) is best for me. I would be going into it with the mindset of loving and supporting the kids, but above all seeking to reunite them with their families. It would be hard as hell on me emotionally and I know I would bond, but it think it would be a different bond than what I would develop with a child I took into my home with the express goal of being mine.
This might be in bad taste but I’ll go ahead and compare it fostering dogs and cats, which I’ve done for years. I get super-attached and love them to death but I am able to retain objectivity about the situation, and while I usually miss them when they go it’s not how I would miss and worry about my permanent pets (I can barely take a vacation, I get so anxious about leaving them).
With foster-to-adopt (as you probably know) you are usually matched with children whose parents are in the process of having their parental rights terminated. Distressingly often, after the child has already been living in your home and you have bonded with them with the idea of them becoming your son or daughter in every sense, parents will pursue reunification at the last minute, or other bio relatives will suddenly get off their butts and go for custody. I’m 99% sure this worst-case scenario would destroy me emotionally.
I know someone who used to work in foster care as a group home parent, and she adopted one of the more troubled girls in her care for a brief period (maybe less than a year?) before returning her to foster care. I knew the little girl as a student, and my heart just broke for her when I heard this. She’s been in foster care since she four, was severely sexually and physically abused by her bio family, and IIRC was not permanently in foster care but did return to her bio family from time to time and thereby was abused again. She was one tough little kid – very manipulative, very hard to discipline – but smart and lively and just someone you instinctively wanted to rescue and nurture. I don’t have any details on why the foster mom gave the girl back, but I can imagine that she was difficult to live with. Still.
One of my other friends recently went and visited the girl at school (not so little anymore, she must be around 15-16 now), and he said she seemed to be okay with returning to the foster home, but I thought, “Please. She’s got such a tough shell, she would never admit to you to being disappointed or crushed that she didn’t get to remain with a family of her own.” I feel so terribly for her. I had her as a student in my summer school program, and even years later, I still think about her and about ways I could have been a more effective teacher and positive female role model for her.
I’m sure the foster mom (because I knew her, and she was a very decent and sensible person) did everything she could before she and her husband decided to give her back to foster care. They have also adopted another boy that had been in the group homes, who was actually only a few years younger than they were (the boy was in high school when the foster mom and her then-fiance were in their early 20s), and he was another difficult case but he’s still with their family.
Those parents probably wouldn’t have ended up with birth children with reactive attachment disorder since usually RAD comes from not bonding with a parent/caregiver or instability with regard to caregivers. If you have your own biological children you have a degree of control in how they turn out but if you’re presented with an eight year old who’s been neglected/abused his whole life, that’s a different story.
I wouldn’t say they are selfish, obnoxious jerks. I imagine it would be especially difficult when other kids are involved.
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As for adopting children with severe emotional and behavioral disorders, I place the blame directly on the adoption agency for failing to give the parents information about the child’s history and condition. People place limits on what they feel they can handle for a reason. In the very least it seems they should be coordinating work with a specialist and getting full details on what realistic expectations are for a child.
As for Reactive Attachment Disorder, I’m skeptical. My husband, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology, just completed his written qualification exams (his oral defense is Monday) and one of his questions was the weight of evidence for RAD. This was of course a question we were both very interested in as future adoptive parents! I can only speak in vague terms because I haven’t yet talked to him about his findings in detail, but there is reason to be skeptical of such a diagnosis. Kids have behavioral problems, yes. Some of them severe, absolutely. I’m not denying the importance of early life stage bonding. But I don’t think RAD is very well-defined and therefore I am extremely skeptical of anyone who claims they can treat such a disorder, and if I hear of parents struggling with problem behavior under the guidance of an RAD professional, my first assumption is that the professional is making the kid worse. Some of the literature that my husband reviewed actually made him physically ill. There have been deaths of children due to well-intentioned but completely idiotic ‘‘experts’’ trying to cure this so-called disorder, by using treatments with no scientific validity, and most troublingly, these incidents did not receive a response from the RAD community.
Since I know saying that is going to piss some people off, I promise to bring cites when I come back.
That’s truly tragic, but when it comes to children especially, love is an action, not something you feel. People don’t ‘‘luuuurve’’ their natural born kids, necessarily, either.
But isn’t it rather well established that serious consequences result when there was almost no touch during infancy? I know in those terrible monkey experiements, the baby monkeys given to the “wire mother” were permanently damaged - They were unable to socialize with other monkeys. They stimmed (rocked back and forth endlessly) had no sense of proper sexual behavior and had misdirected aggression. They were indifferent to, or aggressively attacked, their own offspring, some biting or hitting their babies to death, others just ignoring their needs.
I thought that the same was essentially quite established for humans - that isolation and touch deprivation in early infancy leads to lifelong social deficits. I guess this is a different question than whether “RAD” – a specific syndrome with (supposedly) specific treatments – exists or not. Have I misunderstood you?
I just want to clarify my position a little. I’m not unsympathetic toward families that go through the failure of adoption. It’s just that when I hear these stories, it’s hard for me not to look at it from the kid’s point of view. It tears my fucking heart out. I’m concerned about these kids being slapped with the ‘‘defective’’ label from such a young age.
And it especially upsets me because I honestly believe that many failed adoptions, with the correct intervention, may be avoidable. It stems from my anger with the psychological field in general for letting so many wackos practice. I think if someone trusts you with the well-being of their family, you have a responsibility to use the best evidence you have.
Hello Again, to answer your question, no I’m not denying the critical nature of early bonding for child brain development. That evidence is well-established. My problem is really with the inadequate definition, diagnosis and treatment of these impacts.
There was a This American Life about RAD, told from the perspective of both the child (now in his 20s) and the adoptive mother.
The kid had been adopted from a Russian orphanage when he was a small kid (I want to say maybe five or six). He was fine initially (IIRC). And then it was his birthday and his parents made a big to-do about it. Having never celebrated his birthday before, he didn’t understand what a birthday was. So they explained.
According to the son, his mind took their innocent explanation and twisted it, convincing him that his adoptive parents were actually his biological parents and that they had abandoned him all those years. Bad memories started coming back to him. Pure hatred was unleashed and he became extremely violent and scary. Even as he grew older and realized that his adoptive parents didn’t actually abandon him, he still continued to give them utter hell. I can’t remember all the details, but it was so bad the parents considered giving up on him.
Anyway, the mother came up with a crazy yet successful way of treating him. She forced him to be with her 24/7. Literally. And she did not let him do anything for himself. He had to tell her what he wanted so she would do it for him. Essentially forcing the now teenaged kid to go back to infancy.
After a long time, it worked. An enormous amount of love and patience conquered the infernal hatred.
I know a girl who has basically had two failed adoptions - she was the adoptee. She’s 17 now and, from what I gather, her birth parents are both unfit. She is either one of two or one of three girls, I’m not sure which. When she was about 8her mother’s brother and his wife committed to raising the girls as their own. Soon after, they discovered they were expecting their own baby and put their nieces into foster care. I say that like it makes sense, but it doesn’t.
Retaining some contact with their extended biological family, the sisters were placed in separate homes. At some point both were adopted; the girl I know personally was placed into a different home from her foster home. In other words she was not foster adopted. She was a middle schooler when this happened. She lived with her new parents for several months when this adoption failed. From what I know, the adoptive parents were trying to replace a daughter who had died and the mom never bonded but the father bonded perhaps too much. So…they sent her back. Again, it doesn’t make sense.
She remains in foster care to this day and is actually still available for adoption but I think all parties feel it’s probably best to keep the status quo. Her foster mother needs the stipend she gets for fostering her but is, by all reports, a strict but loving parent. She’s better behaved than lots of teenagers and doesn’t seem to have any major issues.
I almost feel like this sort of thing happens more than one would think since the parents involved have all seemed so casual about it.
I have two adopted siblings…and do not understand what people are saying by “sent back”
Adoption makes you legally responsible for the child. As if it were you own. Foster care isn’t the same as adoption, and I’m a little confused.
-Sent back where? To whom? In a domestic adoption you have termination of parental rights. The other brother was adopted from Quatamala which makes ‘send back’ a even sillier idea. You can’t send your biological children ‘back’ so why could you send adopted children ‘back’?
Because it’s legally possible. There’s a court case (often hinging on the fact that the adoptive parents believe they were mislead about the severity of the child’s issues), and the kids are relinquished to their country of origin, sometimes the institution of origin, or go back into state care.
You can terminate parental rights on a voluntary basis for your bio kids too, you know. That’s how many American kids end up ‘legally free for adoption’ and in state/foster care. It’s a lengthy legal process of course.
I probably don’t fit the category of what you are looking for, but I will tell my story:
We are unable to have children naturally. We finally accepted that fact, and went through the classes required to foster or adopt a child. We went through the background checks and the home inspections. We waited, hoping to at least foster a child. We paid a lot of money for the classes, the background check, the home inspection, but we wanted to raise a child.
I had one of my co-workers tell me that he had got his girlfriend pregnant and since I was looking to adopt, would I take his child? I agreed and waited for the day when he said I could meet the mother. Two weeks later he told me the mother had an abortion.
About a year later, I am deployed to Iraq, and my wife tells me she has met a woman who is pregnant for the fourth time, this time with twins, but she has no children she is raising. This woman has given her three previous children to her brother to raise and she cannot bear to make him raise two more. So we talk to the mother, she says she wants us to have her babies and will do anything to help us. So we hire a family lawyer, pay almost $2000 for her to write up the court paper work. I take my leave from Iraq and come home to sign the papers. I ask my wife if she is ready for this. I ask the mother if this is what she want to do. Both women say that this is the best thing that could happen. …
When the mother delivers two beautiful baby girls, she decides that she cannot let someone else raise them, and she will let her brother have them until she can get off of drugs and alcohol. Well, it has been five years now, and she has yet to get off crack. Or take any of her kids.
Except in the case of pregnant mothers pursuing adoption for their infant soon after birth, parents who choose voluntary TPR (or who simply don’t make any resistance to court-mandated involuntary TPR) are usually pretty shitty parents who have a]already come under investigation for abuse or neglect of their child(ren), their inability to provide a sanitary/stable living situation, or their personal issues(severe untreated mental illness, addiction, prostitution, etc) or b]never really parented their kids; someone else has been raising them while they were off doing other things. Either way they’ve decided they are unable or unwilling to parent their kids at all, and they are seeking to transfer all rights and responsibilities as a parent to someone else (usually a more responsible bio relative) or just get the kids into state care.
The average parent would never seek to give up all rights as a parent to their bio child of course, no matter the circumstances they find themselves in and no matter if they are awful, abusive, neglectful parents. Even if involuntary TPR is on the table they fight like hell to keep their kids. And are heartbroken if involuntary TPR is achieved (which, if you put in any effort at all to have a semi-stable life and keep your kids, usually does not happen - the system is geared towards reunification of bio families, not so much to the best interests of the children).
Regular people with, say, a child they raised from birth who is autistic with challenging behavioral issues, do not do things like pursue voluntary TPR. This is because the bond you have with a child you’ve bonded with and raised from infancy is incredibly strong; no matter the intensity of their issues they are still your baby and the idea of giving them over to the state and not being their mom or dad legally is horrifying. I’ve met some families with kids with really terrible issues, but in all cases the love and commitment as parents is palpable, even if their lives are being destroyed. In most cases they also clearly have the love, trust, and dependence of their child, which is the main reward of parenting.
Maybe some would disagree, but I think for most parents adopting an older child is a different experience than having or adopting a baby. It’s a more difficult and lengthy process to create that bond (secure attachment) and love, on both ends, even if your kid doesn’t have serious problems. If your kid has RAD and acts like they hate you 24/7, I can imagine it’s impossible.