How many adoptive toddlers are truly violent in their grade school years?

ask your question on "adopting the older child" and the "special needs board". You might get some additional information.

ask your question on "adopting the older child" and the "special needs board". You might get some additional information.

With International Adoption like Domestic Adoption, you are able to "screen" the behaviors you would feel would gel in your family, and the problematic behaviors. My Daughter was in an Orphanage where the kids tickled each other and the Adults tickled the kids. To them this is very common. They were older, but her older Sister felt very threatened by this when she came home. Besides this she has never been violent, and I would not call what she experienced violent. I work with a 4 year old from Russia who at school expresses anger in a controlled environment with a lot of stimulants. He is very difficult to work with. With his Baby Sister, I would guess she is 2 he is very loving.

I am in the process of adopting a nearly 3 year old Internationally. So, I can't speak of experience yet. However, my nephew has a child in his class who in Internationally adopted and a bit of a terror as I've been told. But I don't hear anything about him being violent. Disruptive - yes! Disrespectiful - yes! In kindergarten, he made a mess out of the boys restroom - he defecated in the sink. When sent to the principal's office with a little girl escort, he exposed himself to her. At 6 years old! My niece is his babysitter, and she never has a problem with him - go figure. Another nephew, goes to school (different school) with an Internationally adopted boy, who my mother spend time with and he's an angel. Both were adopted at about 3-4 years of age. It just depends. Although, you mentioned your were 'concerned for the safety of your own kids' - you may get blasted for that comment. Whether adopted, or bio, they should all be your 'own' kids. My son is adopted, but he is MY SON.

When my son came to us at nearly 5, he'd been kicked out of 8 preshools and his most recent preschool found him to be very difficult and violent. He'd been in the US for 14 months after 31/2 yrs in a Romanian orphange. He raged one time in my home and I picked him up and held him until he'd was calm for a good 20 minutes. He was on large doses of Depakote, Buspar, clonidie, and something else(brain lapse). Anyway, he's not violent and he attended regular kindergarten, drug free, with no trouble. He needed a different kind of parenting. It is too stressful to take a kid from a familiar environment, fly him to another country and way of life where the language is different, put him immediately into daycare and expect him to be fine. Being violent was his expression of frustration for not being able to express his needs. I have another child I didn't get until 9. He was requesting and engaging in oral sex with handicapped children in preschool by age 3. He was every teachers nightmare. He was extremely violent. It really depends on the child. I think anyone taking an older child should study about attachment parenting as a lot of potential problems can be avoided with early intervention. Children who have lived in chaotic environments often need to be taught how to live in a healthy environment. They often try to recreate chaos because it's familiar to them. Although I have taken a child older then my youngest, all were verbal at the time. I would caution agaist taking a child older then your youngest as there is a potential for danger to your other children. Your children aren't old enough to defend themselves and the youngest would be unable to tell you if something happened. Just my opinion.

It's really hard to generalize about toddlers who are adopted internationally. Some children become available for adoption, abroad as well as domestically, because they were removed from abusive or neglectful homes. These children may well have issues related to abuse; as an example, the sexually abused child may try to engage in inappropriate behavior with other children in the home. Some children may come to you from inadequate orphanages -- for example, where the only way some might get enough food was to take it from others. Such children could well display bullying behavior, steal food and other things, and so on. Some children may simply have had too many losses, and developed attachment disorders. In their most serious manifestations, such disorders cause a child to have no conscience and no ability to care for or trust others. Children with the worst forms of these disorders could wind up harming children or pets. However, you have to remember that most internationally adopted children do just fine. Some may have been loved and given up reluctantly as a result of poverty, illness, government policies, cultural norms, etc. Some may have had reasonably decent orphanage or foster care experiences. Some may simply have been resilient and able to cope with bad times without being damaged. I adopted my daughter from China when she was a young toddler -- 18.5 mo. old. Her abandonment certificate indicates that she was abandoned when she was 9.5 months old. From her huggy/kissy/smiley personality, it seems clear that her birthparents gave her lots of love during their fairly long time with her, and that they made the decision to abandon her very reluctantly. She was also in an orphanage known to be "good" -- well-financed, able to attract foreign volunteers, and so on. She has no issues whatsoever, and attracts many friends with her loving and empathic disposition. She has never hit, bitten, etc. Yes, there are risks in adoption, and particularly in intercountry adoption. It is wise to be aware of them. It is also wise to choose a country based on your personal risk assessment, factoring in emotional health as well as things like incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome, likelihood of country closing, etc. When doing your personal risk assessment, you will want to look at which countries offer the most, and the most reliable, medical and social histories on children. You may decide to take the risk of going with a country where you get little information, like China, because of other things you know about the health of the referred children, but you may also decide to choose a country like Korea, where the information tends to be plentiful and accurate. Even more importantly, it is wise to select an agency that will be sure to give you every scrap of information it can find about a child. Agencies can't control country policies that may limit their access to information; however, they CAN control whether they release all information obtained to you. Unfortunately, some agencies, or their overseas facilitators, are unethical and conceal information about medical issues. By checking with families that have adopted through a particular agency, and also by talking with professionals like your homestudy agency, you should be able to develop a "feel" for whether it can be trusted to portray a child accurately. Sharon

I suggest checking with a major hospital near you - that may have an international adoption practice, like we do here in Cleveland. Maybe you could get a consultation and hear, in general terms, any common trends regarding toddlers adopted from different countries. There are so many factors, it seems the more you research, the better off you'll be... P.S. What a bunch of great advice in this thread:)

If you want to adopt, prepare yourself for challenging parenting. I know you are trying to prepare yourself through research, but you never know what a child will really be like. I don't agree with the comment about agencies telling you what is going on. Often, they have incorrect info or slant the info. You can read of such things on these boards. You must reconcile yourself to really wanting the child, no matter what. Otherwise, maybe you want to be a foster parent or reconsider adoption.

I can only voice my opinion on my own experience about adoption of toddlers international and their behaviors. We came home on June 13th with our THIRD daughter adopted from India. Sejona was 19 months old when she came home...Anjali was 18 months and our newest...Maya is 23 months old. All three resided in the same orphanage in India and we worked with the same agency all three times. I have also read the book Toddler Adoption and can say that it terrified me to read it and I found NONE of the behaviors listed in this book in my own children. What makes the difference...orphanages in which there are lots of workers...babies are stimulated and held. The babies are not fending to themselves so that the "survival" skills need to be learned. They form trusting bonds with their care givers because they do not have any reason not to trust. All of the basic nurturing needs are met. This is absolutely curtial in the first year. If you are looking into countries where children are warehoused and only the basic PHYSICAL needs are being met...you will see lots of orphanage behaviors and trouble with the child bonding. My experience with India is that the orphanage we dealt with had Ayah's on 12 hour shifts. The same caregivers there during the day...and the same at night. The ratio of caregiver to baby was no more than 3 or 4 to one. Our daughters received a ton of stimulation and Maya was actually enrolled in toddler pre-school for the past 7 months. When a child is not nurtured and loved for the first year...it becomes increasingly hard for the child to bond and they also become very angry etc. If you do not want orphanage behaviors etc. Look only into countries who have a high ratio of caregiver to infant in their foster care or in the orphange setting. For some children though it is genetic. But I can not believe that this is very common. Usually the bahavior is the product of frustration for the baby. All three of my girls were toddler adoptions and the bonding happened very easily. We had absolutely no negative "orphanage behaviors" and they were very easy to adjust to our home. Maya has only been with us for a few days and it is like she was born into this family. She is very gentle and loving and a beautiful blessing to us and she will be age 2 very shortly. Do not hesitate to adopt a toddler. But do all the research necessary to assure the child's basic nurturing needs were met. If this is not the case...many times it cannot be recovered. All the babies warehoused in Romania years ago should be a lesson to all of us. Even though they were adorable to look at and hold...the damage done by no one loving them for their first year was many times not able to ever be recovered. This caused the outrageous behaviors and many disrupted adoptions. To see the babies rocking themselves back and forth in their cribs trying to comfort themselves because no one else would...it is a haunting sight. Karen

Consult a developmental pediatrician that has experience with adopted children. I think you will get alot from the dr. also sometimes children that are adopted have sensory integration issues that stem from lack of stimulation in an orphanage. If the child is evaluated by a dr. and an occupational therapist and they feel therapy is needed it will help you all out. Again each child will be different from orphanage to orphanage and child to child, but some problems appear to be behaviors when in reality they are sensory issues that can be assisted with treatment. Good Luck, TanyaB

Can any one tell me what time of nurturing the children from Ukraine get ? Has any one been to the orphanages? Jtr

we are in the process of adopting a toddler from Russia. There has been some excellent advice given here, but when you say you did a search for "violent" and was enlightened to how horrible adopting an older child can be, keep in mind that many people come to the board looking for support, answers and a place to vent. More frequently people have negative experiences to vent, not positive ones. I beleive that for every horror story, there are many more success stories going untold. You might want to post a call for joy stories of toddler adoptions and see what pops up. I also knew someone was going to call you on that "my own children" slip. Can't tell you how many rewrites I've done for sensitivity purposes and my No. 1 (and only at the moment) son is ours through the hands of God by way of adoption. Best of luck on your journey. What is meant to be always finds a way.:)

I agree, you can't generalize about any age, country, or means b which a child comes into a family. More depends on the situation the child came from, the child's temperment, etc. Our boys were both 4yrs old when they came (two yrs apart) from a wonderful, small orphanage in Guatemala. They are two very different personalities, but we could tell both had been loved and disciplined in a consistent manner. We hope to soon travel for our 10yr old daughter from the same orphanage. Tho' this time around will be very different because of her age and the fact that she is a girl, we don't anticipate too many difficulties. Who knows? We've been loving her from a distance during this long process, and we are just anxious to get started on the journey with her! We had a relative ask us why we were adopting the first time, since "you don't know what you're getting." You never know w/ biological kids, either (we have 3 of those and a US adopted daughter). How were we to know how our own genes would "mix" and what could result of some "mutant", dormant genes. And whose to say that our genes are the greatest there ever were, anyway...that we don't have our very own "issues"? Make sure to discuss your concerns and preferences w/ your social worker and/or agency. Find one you can trust to be totally honest. If you know adoptive parents, ask their advice on agencies. Ask for a "mentor" family...one you can call and ask questions of, who also adopted from a particular country or orphanage. Remember too, you can say "no" to a child. We said no to some health issues we didn't feel comfortable with, turning down an Asian infant before a US birthmother chose our family. There have always been a lot of horror stories about adoption. I take offense to those, since I know just as many horror stories about biological children gone "awry"...or "lurking about" in our school system! Sometimes children raised in an institution for a time have better manners and more respect for other people than those running the streets unattended in the US. Some of the horror stories might even be true...or did it have as much to do with the attitudes of the adoptive family? Some kids really do have issues because of fetal alcohol, abuse, etc. whether they remain in their biological families or are adopted. But my experience, going on our fourth adoption, is that once you've said "yes" to a child, that child is yours and you know in your heart that you want them home with whatever "issues" might follow. Choosing to parent is worth the risk, no matter how your child comes to you. One of the most important things is to be honest with yourself about what you can handle and accept in any child. After you've decided on those things, don't let anyone else discourage you from pursuing your dream!