Post adoption issues from Liberia?

We adopted our twin dds from Liberia. They were 15 mos when they came home and are now 2 1/2. They adjusted very quickly, but were perhaps younger than what you are looking for. They are also still quite young si it's hard to say what long term effects there will be from their separation, orphanage time and malnutrition. They made huge developmental gains just from having food and stimulation. They have some articulation (speech) delay but are both bright and doing well otherwise. Any specific questions you think I might be able to answer?

There is always the possibility that the child you adopt could have some of the issues you mentioned. I know a number of families who had very little problems adopting older children from Liberia but I have also heard some very difficult situations. My five year old has been home almost 4 years now (she came home at 19 months) and she was so easy. Then when my 2.5 year old came home at 13.5 months I expected her to be even easier because of her young age. I was wrong. It took a good 7 months to get past the initial anxious attachment issues she had and even longer to feel like she had a good healthy attachment to me. She had been abandoned at 2 weeks old and had wonderful foster care after that but you never know how their personalities will handle the situations they are thrown into. I know you are talking older children so I suggest you go to the adoptingfromliberia group on yahoo and you will get a much better idea of what families are experiencing with their Liberian children.

Older child adoption from ANY country is challenging. It doesn't matter whether the child is from Liberia, China, Russia, Guatemala, or the U.S. foster care system. The older a child is, the more likely it is that he/she has had negative life experiences that may cause emotional and behavioral problems. These experiences could have occurred in the birth family, where he/she may have seen a parent die of a disease or in childbirth, may have been abused or neglected, etc. They also could have occurred in care, as not all foster parents or orphanage workers are ideal and, in some poorly supervised settings, there may be a great deal of bullying by older and stronger children. And, of course, not all foster homes or orphanages have enough food, toys, medical care, etc. Also, the older a child is, the more likely it is that he/she will have bonded to people, only to have those bonds broken. He/she may remember his/her birthparents -- and losing them. He/she may have been moved from his birthparents' home to a relative's home to a foster parent's home to an orphanage -- learning to trust the people in each setting, but ultimately losing them. Attachment disorders often result when a child concludes that there is no permanence in relationships. Fortunately, most attachment disorders are treatable, and few are as serious as those you hear about on sensationalist TV shows. As a result, if you adopt an older child -- from anywhere -- you need to be fully aware that he/she is not going to come to you as a blank slate. You need to expect not only a fair amount of grieving, regressing, and adjusting, but also certain problems that may require professional help. In some cases, you will know or suspect, in advance, that a child could have more than the usual challenges, because the referral documents will mention something like a birthfather's drug abuse or the death of a sibling. In others, however, especially -- but not only -- if a child has been abandoned, you may not know what the child's experiences have been. As just a minor example, some parents of Russian children report that their children go ballistic when they hear, for the first time, that they are going to the dentist. They discover that the children have been held down and subjected to fairly major dental procedures without any sedation so, of course, they are frightened. One good thing about older child adoption is that you often know some things simply because a child is no longer a baby. As an example, it isn't always easy to tell if an infant was prenatally exposed to alcohol. But by the time a child is of school age, you may well have some clues -- like high impulsivity, inability to think in terms of cause and effect, and certain learning issues. Also, when a child is under age two, he/she may still be carrying maternal antibodies. So if he/she tests positive for Hep. B or HIV, it could mean either that he/she is positive or that he/she is negative but still harboring antibodies from his/her mother who had HIV or Hep. B. You really won't know until after the child is old enough to have lost the maternal antibodies and is retested. Another good thing about adopting an older child is that he/she can understand what is happening to him/her. A toddler may be totally spooked when handed to a six foot tall male with a red beard, and his blond-haired, blue-eyed wife, if all he/she has ever seen are fairly small people with dark brown skin and eyes. They may look like aliens or monsters to him/her. An older child, on the other hand, may have learned about the existence of other races, and may be able to articulate some of his/her concerns. In short, adopting ANY child involves a leap of faith. Adopting an older child involves a VERY BIG leap of faith. But if you feel able to take that leap, congratulations. There are too many absolutely wonderful older children living in care, who would make a terrific addition to a family. They deserve a permanent, loving family -- and can add an terrific richness to the lives of their new parents and siblings. Sharon