why did adoption fail our children?

Julie, I think this is an excellent subject. As you know, my son had a very problematic childhood and adolescence...in and out of psychiatric hospitals, group homes, residential treatment centers, and foster homes. I've often wondered what exactly went wrong... As a teenager and young adult, he displayed a lot of the same behaviors attributed to attachment disorders. But the thing that confuses me about that possibility is that I surrendered him to adoption when he was just 5 days old. Can a newborn infant suffer from RAD?? I had a normal pregnancy with him...no drugs or medications. I got plenty of exercise, went on long walks every day, and made sure I took my prenatal vitamins. I had a normal, if somewhat short, labor and delivery. I did receive a general anesthetic, but according to the delivery records, it was only administered after he had already crowned. (I think the doctor didn't want me to hear him cry in the delivery room ~ he was of the "old school" of thought about bmoms not seeing or holding their babies. Now, my son did go into a form of "cradle care", only they called it pre-placement foster care in those days. He was placed in the adoptive home when he was 30 days old. Can that short of a time period lead to attachment disorders? One thing I've always wondered about is this. From what I've heard, he was a very happy toddler. His childhood pictures show him smiling and laughing all the time, up until the birth of his brother (aparents' biological child). DS was 4 y/o when his brother was born. He was sent away to stay with family members for about a month after little brother was born. When he returned home, subsequent childhood photos show him with an absolutely panicked look in his eyes for the next year or so. And then the photographs start showing a very depressed-looking child with a wary look in his eyes. I do know his mom has told me that she never felt that he really bonded with her as an infant, only with his dad. Do some infants who are separated from their first mothers have trouble bonding with their new moms?? Is this an issue addressed by the Primal Wound theory put forth by Nancy Verrier? It's an interesting question...why do some adoptees seemingly thrive in their new families, while other's seem to flounder?

I am an a-mom who has a son with RAD. He was only 4 1/2 months when we adopted him. I felt attachment to him long before he came home. Immediately he was my son. I held him, rocked him, sang to him, am a sahm, and did all of the loving mom things and probably even more. I have worked with children with special needs since I was a teenager and have a great understanding of special needs issues. My initial reaction was "HOW CAN THIS BE??? I'm a good mom. I LOVE him with all my heart and soul. How can he NOT love me????" After learning about RAD and brain development I discovered that RAD is not at all what I thought it was. It is not simply the inability to attach and to love. My son is capable of loving in his own way and he does rely on us for many things including comfort to some degree. It is so difficult to explain. (J) is stuck in survival mode which was ingrained as an infant. With RAD there is an actual change in brain development. (J)'s story is much different than yours I am sure but it is true that a child adopted in infancy can have RAD. A child adopted as a newborn still feels loss in my opinion. The first nine months of their life is spent with their firstmom. That is not to say that I am against adoption at all. We have been blessed with three beautiful children who were all adopted. For our children, their first families and us--adoption was the right answer. Still I believe with adoption whether in a healthy situation or not there is always a loss or an emptiness for the adopted child. I believe that open adoption is changing that to some degree though. Just my 2 cents.

My daughter was with me for 2 days... she then went to pre-placement foster care for two weeks.... then she went home with the adoptive parents. the adoptive mother worked.... so my daughter had an additional caregiver (babysitter) .... i think it makes a difference.... scatter.... i found this quote, which also talks about the rewiring in the brain... A childs ability to bond with or "attach to" others is strongly determined by what happens between the infant and caregiver in the first few months, when the brain is still forming and developing. Relating to a mentally ill or inconsistent caretaker or having the lack of any nurturing and loving relationship can physically change the "hard wiring" of the infantҒs brain and result in an inability to regulate emotions and behavior. This may result in poor impulse control, a sense of alienation and separateness, and a lack of trust along with angry, controlling, attention-seeking hyperactive behavior. These children can have trouble accepting comfort and may be either overly affectionate or unable to express affection. A good caretaker relationship that is disrupted can cause the same things, as can sexual or physical abuse. More detail can be found in the works of Alan Shore, Daniel Siegel and Bessel van der Kolk. A prospective adoptive parent should find out everything possible about the infants background as well as that of the biological parents. Inherited temperament or mental health conditions can also affect the childҒs ability to recover from early influences. Insist that social and psychological evaluations be provided and translated, if necessary. Contact support groups for adoptive parents for assistance in questions to ask.

Cindy Fritz

Licensed Professional Counselor

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Bridgeton, MO Our daughters birthmother made a decision to not have contact with her after birth. She wanted us to "take the baby away".... she didn't want to see her or hold her... Had I known of her wishes prior to all the research i did about attachment, and only having my birthmother perspective, i would have encouraged her to at least see the baby and hold her for a minute or two..... but I did not hear of this until after i had read so much... and at that point, i found myself grateful for her choice.... We were able to be with our daughter immediately following her birth.... her birthmother even invited me to sleep in her hospital room so i could care for our newborn in the nursery... We also implemented a strict "no hold" policy for anyone who is not a permanent resident of our house... this even includes grandma's.... the only people who have held our daughter are my husband and I, and our three daughters... I am the main "feeder" to promote mother-baby bonding.... and my husband is my helper.... the older girls have occasionally fed her, too. I think there are probably a lot of different issues regarding attaching.... does the amom attach to baby? if not, how long before she does? if ever? how does this translate to how the baby feels about the amom? can all babies attach to an adoptive mother? the premise of adoption relies on the answer to this question being "yes".... but is that true? Will some babies simply resist attaching to anyone other than their birthmother? does part of attaching rely on a "good fit" between baby and adoptive parents? since my baby is my fourth newborn, the first three biological, I know very well that when she is fussy or "pushing away" from me, that it is perfectly normal... it's what newborns "do".... I've seen three do it... sometimes they melt into me and they are the beautiful little newborn baby we always imagined loving.... sometimes they scream, and kick... and fuss.... and buck away.... probably because they are gassy or trying to poo.... not so much the dream vision of my baby! how much of attaching is based on the perception of whether or not a baby is "pushing away" the amom? also... having four kids, i know first hand that they are not all the same.... my second child was a really difficult infant... i believe she probably had acid-reflux, but they weren't diagnosing that 8 years ago.... what if she was my first? whew.... not sure i would have had anymore.... what happens if THAT infant is the first adopted baby? does that kind of thing affect attaching? and ultimately, attaching goes both ways... most moms (bio or adoptive) do attach to their babies... what about the ones that don't? when i met my daughters adoptive mother in reunion, i couldn't shake the impression that she felt like a babysitter... and one who had suffered much... she honestly acted like she deserved an award for "sticking with her" through the bad times... it was a very foreign attitude to me... because i had expected her to be the "mom".... and to me, real moms never expect a reward.... and they don't really consider that they have any choice OTHER than "sticking with her" through the tough times... it's just what moms do.... julie

from the quote above: A childs ability to bond with or "attach to" others is strongly determined by what happens between the infant and caregiver in the first few months, when the brain is still forming and developing. Relating to a mentally ill or inconsistent caretaker or having the lack of any nurturing and loving relationship can physically change the "hard wiring" of the infantҒs brain and result in an inability to regulate emotions and behavior. This may result in poor impulse control, a sense of alienation and separateness, and a lack of trust along with angry, controlling, attention-seeking hyperactive behavior. These children can have trouble accepting comfort and may be either overly affectionate or unable to express affection. A good caretaker relationship that is disrupted can cause the same things, as can sexual or physical abuse. this indicates that lack of attaching or bonding with parents can cause the same type of behaviors in a child that sexual of physical abuse can cause....!!! in my adoption classes with our agency, attaching was not at all stressed as being this important... it's something that we will all do in our own time.... they don't indicate how important it is... or that there is a possibility it won't happen... and could have catastrophic results... julie

Our agency is pretty good about it now, but had no clue when we adopted our first child 11 yrs. ago. I think there are a lot more RAD children out there, but go undiagnosed because a lot of a-parents feel that it is a reflection of them or that they some how caused it. Yes, lack of attachment has serious affects in MANY areas of a child's life. Our son will struggle for the rest of his life. Therapy has helped, but I do not believe he will ever feel whole and he will struggle in many areas, emotionally and behaviorally. Our third child was also adopted at 4 months. She has attachment issues, but not to the extreme of (J). Her issues go the exact opposite direction as (J) too and may cause more issues for her in her teen yrs. (J) had and sometimes still has violent rages, is extremely angry and trust no one. He has generalized anxiety disorder and has very unrealistic fears (not so unrealistic to him) He struggles in schoolwork and has poor peer relations and very poor impulse control. (I) is extra loving, would go home with anyone and trust anything anyone said. She wanders aimlessly and could easily just wander away and get lost. We celebrated the first time she got lost in church and cried because she was frightened. That was a big step for us. She actually cared that she was lost. Still, she has boundary issues and school issues--needs lots of one on one to stay on task. Both of our children had medical issues when born. (J) was in an orphanage for the first 4 months and recieved no medical care. (I) was a 28 wk preemie. Went home at 3 1/2 months when they discovered she had group B strep and had an apnea episode. She went back to the hospital and then back with firstmom before coming to us. So both had institutional care for their beginning months. (J) was severely neglected during that time and was very sick. We have another daughter that spent 2 months in orphanage. She was healthy and is doing well with no attachment issues.

I remember reading a post written by Dr Art here on a.com many years ago.. An adoptee was writing about her unhappiness and how she was going to search for the birthparents in order to sort.. He wrote that she needs to sort her home life first.. then seek. He had a name for the home life.. the attachment.. I can not remember it and cannot find the original post.. or thread.. But I believe it comes to a place that says we are responsible for ourselves.. and if we have a medical disorder that is physical then so be it.. that is the stuff of our life and needs to be accepted or worked on or whatever.. Julie this is so interesting.. coming from your unique angle.. Jackie

scatter, do your children have different personalities? I read somewhere that a childs personality can affect how he attaches and eventually handles adoption... some naturally do better than others... just by how they are wired... your comment made me realize that i probably posted this in the wrong place... but i don't think there is a correct place for this type of discussion... because i don't think many adoptive parents with kids in psych wards and foster care come here.... yes... with my relinquished daughter this is true... it is up to her to decide what she needs to sort.... but i realize now, that i did not write this to understand what happened for HER sake... i want to understand for my baby's sake... i don't want to make the mistakes that they did... i do not ever want to send my baby away to a psych ward or foster home.... dr. phil made a comment about how when we make mistakes, we can learn from them and they become an education... or not learn from them, and then they are just a penalty... i think that holds true for all choices we make.... i want to learn from this... i want to make good choices for our new baby.... i want to wring dry all potential "adoption issues"... to learn what went wrong... i LOVE reading adoptive mom posts... because so many of them are doing things so amazingly "right"... how many times have a read one of those posts and my heart scrunches up... and I find myself wishing my daughter had a mom like that... i want to learn everything.... i want to minimize the potential for failure... julie

Yes Julie. All three have very different personalities and I can't really tell you how much of that is their true personalities and how much is due to how healthy each child was at birth and how they developed in the orphanages/hospital and whether they thrived at home when they came to us. Each of our children are amazing in their own way. (J)--a true survivor--a constant thinker and great athlete (S)--our little mother hen--middle child--fantastic artist & fashion diva (I)--a fireball of energy--constantly on the go--sweetest loving hugging girl--nature lover It didn't seem to me that you posted in the wrong place and whether you are posting about the child you placed for adoption or your newest child, I think it is a real issue. We are all mothers and connected to our children, whether you are a first-mom, adopted-mom or parenting your biological children. Sometimes our children have difficulties and sometimes adoption can play a part in that course. I think when we look at first moms we cannot ever put them all in one category. The same goes for adopted families. Unfortunately there are some people who have adopted and you look at them and shake your head and think.."HOW? How did you ever get through the system." At the same time the same can be said for firstmoms. Then there are amazing fantastic firstmoms and adopted families. Also, not all issues that our children go through can be a parenting issue. Sometimes people make really bad choices. With RAD it is a little bit of all of those combinations--birth issues, parenting issues and good/bad choices. Our son will struggle and may or may not land on his feet in the end. We will do everything we can to help him all the way through and will never stop supporting him and encouraging him. We will give him all the help that we can and we will pray that he will be ok. I hope you find peace and do not let yourself second guess the choices that you made. You did everything you could do at that time for your child. You did not know how things would turn out for her or what the family she went to would be like. Times are changing for the better with adoption and open adoption will make a great difference I believe.