Avoiding certain specific issues and childcare question

Welcome to the forums! Congratulations on your decision to adopt When we went through or FACES training (similiar to mapp), they had us envision every worst possible behavior and start thinking about what we could deal with. You sounds like you're really started to process this step. thats excellent. You're ahead of the game. 3 people in the class said violence towards pets was a show stopper (including DH). So, I think thats a common concern. its perfectly ok to say - no kids with a history of animal abuse. Our dogs WERE our kids, for a decade. We still refer to them as J's siblings. DH could not fathom having a child who would hurt his kids. We got an amazing, sweet gentle girl. And guess what? Sometimes she's try to ride our female black lab. And sometimes she pushes our german shepherd. Its not animal abuse, but those are both (believe it or not) things reported as animal abuse in our state! If you get a potential kid with a registered history of abuse, it would be helpful to try and get to the bottom of what exactly happened. SA is a tough one. it is common for FHs to avoid anyone who had a history of sexual abuse, as a way to minimize gettting a perpetrator OR someone who might make false allegations. You certainly can ask if there is note of this in a particular kid's file. As for excessive violence, you won't find that listed. But you may find furniture damage, history of assault. You're right; the horror stories seem to be in the majority. Since adopting, I began volunteering for our local FAPA (foster adoptive parent association). The vast majority of these adoptions are great kids in great families. Good luck on your journey.

You are right. The media loves horror stories and there is no shortage of them. Also, people tend to accentuate the drama and don't talk as much, and sometimes don't even notice the really great things.I have three older kids that I adopted from foster care. My kids are all AMAZING. They all have various special needs of various degrees but I wouldn't change a thing.I adopted my daughter five years ago when she was 11. She is significantly challenged. In those lists you see on search sites, she would have been a kid that would have been marked severe in every area. Her social worker had given up on placing her, and deemed her unadoptable. We stumbled across her while visiting with her family family and fell in love. She's 16 now. We had to be very careful and teach her how to care for and nurture our dogs (who are our babies) but they were patient with her and now they adore her. My sons were each 5 years old when they joined our family. Now they are 8 and 9. Both were diagnosed with RAD and pre-natal drug/alcohol exposure, PTSD, asthma, allergies and ADHD. While my daughter certainly carries those diagnoses, these boys were improperly diagnosed. Or they were extremely mild cases. We still have issues with peeing and a curious kid that likes to take everything apart, but all they are generally fun and easy-going.My kids all came from disruptions and countless placements. My kids don't hurt animals and I sleep with my bedroom door open every night so I can hear if they need anything. They seek me out when they need their mama and hugs are in abundance at our house.We have certainly had our challenges and not everything has been easy by any means...but we love our kids more than anything and understand that when they act up they are doing it from a place of trauma and hurt and it's not about us.It's a long road and every kid is different. My first was hardest, not only because of the severity of her needs, but also because we were new to parenting. I'm glad we were new though. We did not have any expectations except to go with the flow.It'll be okay. Go with your gut. With all three of my kids, when I heard about them, I just "knew" they were going to part of our family. And they were.

Oh, my daughter was eligible for PCA (personal care assistant services) and my sons went to daycare with only minor scuffles.

It's been two years four months since our five year old son joined us. In the beginning I would never let him out of my sight. Mostly because he likes to touch and explore things. Knobs, buttons, switches. Also it is because you don't know your child yet. It is a strange feeling. You get over the stares and fear of embarresment quickly. Now people stare and tell there kids they wished they behaved as well as my son. This is a huge improvment to say the least. The private school he attends complains that he does not always raise his hand, but other than that he does well. They should have seen him before. He used to hit other kids daily. I think a lot of his behavior depends on the environment he is in. If other children are acting silly and are unsupervised, he does the same. Currently he is in summer school, and I suspect this is the case. Another child kicked him in the leg, so my son kicked him back. He has been taught how to keep his hands to himself and has not had this problem since kindergarten. I try not to play the blame game, but the staff at the summer school does not supervise the children like they need to. I think this is the key to our success, I watch my son like a hawk and constantly remind him of what the right choices are. Kids enjoy bending the rules of course and you can not expect them to follow the rules all the time. Sometimes my son breaks the rules just for the sake of breaking them. Then we sometimes let him suffer natural consequences, and I explain how he could avoid the situation in the future. Long story short, the job is never finished but it is a job that I love. I love being a parent and I love doing parent activities.

Wow - all good questions and truthfully some I didn't think about until I was in the situation. We adopted internationally, out of an orphanage, with neglect, ptsd, and although 3.5 at an 18mo level for most things with no idea of what communication meant. Childcare-----After three months with sole focus by both parents, I (mom had to go back to work) and dh was needing to work part-time. I lucked into an Audubon preschool that had an opening 1 week before it started. For some reason all teachers had a special need background, but no special need kids in program. They agreed to take her 3 afternoons a week. The first day dh took her he stayed at the Audubon site the entire time w/ his cell phone, sure they would call and tell him to pick her up it wouldn't work.. Two years later she graduated from preschool there and is ready for K. I too work out of the house, but need to be able to work and well, at least my kiddo needed constant attention or it wasn't really fair to her. So, for the rest of the time I found a recent teaching grad who didn't have a job yet from the county, but wanted experience. My mom lives far away, but has a background in teaching, so she came and trained her on how to have preschool w/ a special needs kiddo. She did everything we asked including no hugging, firm yet caring, etc. (She decided not to go into teaching after that year (she was worried if she couldn't handle a 3yo how could she handle middle school boys, instead she got a masters in psychology and has a great social worker job helping adults w/ special needs have a life so I don't feel too bad about it:)). She was awesome w/ our dd. I wanted someone that wasn't going to try to be mom and wanted to be a teacher. DD attached to her like a teacher and not a mom/caregiver. Six months ago we signed her up for regular childcare attached to the elementary school she will go to. So she goes there after preschool. She has met some of the kids she will to go K with and they take her over for her therapies covered in an IEP. Should help w/ transitions. Normal babysitters - truthfully, we haven't had one. I was too scared that a regular babysitter would hurt her if she went into one of her rages. I understand why she is doing what she is doing, but a regular babysitter just may lose their patience. Two years later, we could probably do it and be fine, but I cling to the old routine. Grandparents come in to visit and give us the time off for evenings out and they get to bond with the kids. Animals - ours loves animals and is very gentle. Probably more gentle that other kids. She seems to connect and want to care for them. However, part of me wonders if it isn't a bit of her need to control something and pets are well - easy to pretend that you control them. Therefore, we haven't gone to a dog, we just have a cat - that won't play into the drama:) You know - if a regular person not in the adoption world read your post ---I can handle a certain amount of violence, but not killing me or someone I love... I mean really, who could handle that kind of violence? The fact that you actually have to think about it just makes me sad. But you do. For the first six months our 3.5 yo was physically abusive. It was hard, we were bit, scratched, hit, bruised, kicked, etc. Oh - and she did all of that to herself as well. I ended up putting her on some medication to take away the anxiety and it worked long enough for us to get into her and help her figure out how to work out the anxiety, and then took her off of it and the lessons stuck. (Hence the reason for no babysitters). Now---completely night and day- no real violence, just normal kid tantrum type things. We took a chance and still don't know where it will lead. She is growing, healing, and starting to enjoy her time as a kid. We, the parents and grandparents are starting to relax (loosen the leash a bit). I let her go on a fieldtrip without us and I think she is actually ready for a playdate---so we will see. We are hoping that we can get through and she can grow up to be a happy person.