Trying to understand

I understand what you're saying....at least I think I do. Let me explain something first......'disruption' is when the adoption isn't completed, or when, as you've pointed out, the child no longer lives with the adoptive family. "Dissolution' is when there's actually a total break in the legal relationship. (It took me awhile to understand the difference between those two and lots of people still use the two terms interchangably, but when viewed in a legal way, there's a solid difference, KWIM?) :) Okay...that said,.........the first thing is that children who are more often than not, the subject of dissolution or disruption, are those who've been adopted as older children. And, by older, I"m talking about children brought into their adoptive home over the age of 3 or 4yrs. Children who are older adopted kids---again, not always, but more often than not, bring with them a LOT of baggage that's dysfunctional. (How could they not be? They've been dragged from pillar to post throughout their lives, more often than not, the system treats animals better than they treat small children in foster care (and I"m meaning the system, NOT the foster parents, okay?) Sooo, when the hopeful adoptive parents bring home their new child---who's often seen more and done more and had more done TO them than most children their age--------they often aren't prepared. Classes, books, support groups (whom I find to be the best reality check of this stuff), can only give examples......living with some of the behaviors these children have---well, you've said yourself, you can't imagine living with children like this. (I know too, I taught in a school for behaviorally disordered children K-12th grade.) Soooo, suppose you have a child who has severe problems that counseling can't solve. Suppose there are other children who are harmed; suppose there are neighborhood children who are being threatened, harmed, etc...... And, even if you have fantastic insurance, no one will pay for the residential treatment to house the child who simply cannot stay/live in a traditional home. What's to be done then? Sometimes, the family has no other recourse than to dissolve the adoption, or release the child BACK to the system because THEN, the state will pay for the extreme costs of residential. (And, because you work with children like I"m referring to, you probably already know the cost to treat a child in residential runs around $8,000-10,000 PLUS each MONTH. ((and those figures are ones I was aware of 10-12yrs ago.)) ) Now, some people feel that no matter what----the child should have to remain in the adoptive home. (And truly, some biological children are this dysfunctional...and they can end up in residential homes too...so this isn't just about adopted children.) Okay......IF the family should choose to keep the dysfunctional child in the home---and let's suppose the DCF is already involved ---which more often than not, they are: IF the dysfunctional child has already caused harm to other children or adults. If the child has already shown the 'damage' can/will happen again.......and, IF the child harms another child--- The adoptive family has to live in fear they'll be sued by families who's child has been harmed by the adopted child. And, should the dysfunctional child harm a family member-------THEN, the DCF can point the finger at the adoptive family, charge THEM with 'failure to protect their other children'....REMOVE the 'normal children'.....and put them in foster care. (And yes, I kid you not, this happens!) Not only do I know this happens, (though it never happened in our own family).......I DO know the final result for this then, is that the system won't have to deal with a sorely dysfunctional child (because the orginal adoptive family is left with just him/her).......AND, the 'basically normal children' can live safely in a foster home and sometimes---even be placed for adoption with other families at the direction of the DCF !!!!!!!!!!! Of course, now, the final result has occurred: The horribly dysfunctional child is with a family where he/she is the only one---which is a good placement for a very damaged child (especially RAD children). AND, the system doesn't have to deal with paying for anything, or, finding a home for the sorely dysfunctional child. Crazy, isn't it? But, it happens. Now then, THIS is often the reason adoptive families are desparately trying to find other homes for their adopted children. 1. They live in fear THEY'll be found liable for the actions of the 'abnormal child'.....and not only have to face huge attorney bills in fighting legal battles; they actually might lose their other children who've been innocent all along---the children they've been trying to protect in the first place. 2. They know ----even if they dearly love the 'abnormal' child-------there isn't any other way to get the help the child so desparately needs. Many DCF's won't allow parents (bio or adoptive) to place their children in foster homes...even if they offer to pay $$$$ toward child support---UNLESS the parents ARE CHARGED with 'neglect and abandonment'. THAT is something that's true---almost across the board throughout the USA. And, of course, IF the parents are charged with abandonment/neglect----here again, they risk losing any/all other children...AND, never adopting again....AND, losing any other children that may be born to them. Huge risk, isn't it? I think it is..... It shouldn't be easy to disrupt an adoption. But, the stats show this is NOT an unusual thing---and, the more the system pushes off children THEY know are extremely hard to place-----the higher the incidence of disruption or dissolution. (and yes, some systems are KNOWN for lying/falsifying/and hiding paperwork, events, etc ABOUT the child that's being placed, in order for the hopeful adoptive parents to accept him/her.......THIS, our family can attest to.) There ARE no winners here. At the core of this is the break down and failure of the foster care system; the 'unpreparedness' of hopeful adoptive families; and, the reality that some children (younger and older) simply ARE TOO DAMAGED to live in a traditonal home. And yes, some children are SO damaged, they will NEVER heal, they will NEVER be safe to be around other children OR adults...and yes, they must live somewhere.......but should NOT be around other innocent children/adults. I think I've explained about as well as I can. And, I hope you don't think I've been flippant, because I mean my comments (though, I know I write too much)...with the most respect to you. I was just like you---many years ago. I could NEVER understand how any parent---REAL parent---could 'leave their child'. But, once in those shoes, it was a very bitter pill to swallow.....but swallowed, it was. Most Sincerely, Linny

When you are talking about disruption, comparing biological children to adopted children is like comparing apples to ostriches. Let's take a child with typical RAD symptoms: When a biological child with RAD is abusing parents & abusing other children in the home the state intervenes and removes the child because the child is not safe in the home. When an adopted child with RAD is abusing parents & abusing other children in the home and the parents suggest that the child should be removed and is not safe in the home they have to fight the state for services/support. And if they decide that the child is not safe in the home, they get accused of not being committed enough, not treating their adopted child like a bio child. But if it were a bio child - the state would be seeking a removal rather than fighting it. The comparison just isn't fair. Raising an adopted child isn't like raising a biological child. Not better, not worse, just different. and when your adopted child has challenges, the differences are amplified.

There are also places where dissolving an an adoption is the ONLY way to get out of home placement and treatment that some children desperately need. One parent's therapist told her her kids absolutely could not live in the same house and she had to make a choice as to which child would be placed out of home(and the therapist was dead on). She did choose to place the adopted child rather then the biological child as the adopted child was the one causing the issues. Another parent, after adopting a child, discovered she did NOT have the ability to parent her child as a single person as she had to work and this child required full time supervision. Without dissolving this adoption and rehoming him, he would have gone instead to a long term treatment center. He'd have hated that. There are lots of reasons and often, disruption/disallusion is better for the child as well as the family.

I admit that I don't know a great deal about this particular issue, but I don't think giving up parental rights and responsibility to an adopted child is really that different from doing the same thing with a bio child, from a legal standpoint. My daughter's birth parents, for example, went to the Nevada Welfare department and told them that they couldn't handle her problems any more and wanted to give them custody. I don't think there was anything they had to do to give up their rights that someone who was giving up a child who had been legally adopted wouldn't also have to do. Obviously the problems that bring it about with an adopted child tend to be different. Maybe not the problems, but the fact that the bio parent is more likely to have had at least some amount of potential to have prevented the problems, where the adoptive parents are more likely to have gotten the child after the damage had been done. In the cases of adoption disruption I have heard the most about, it is usually a child who is a teenager, has only been adopted in the previous few years, and whose adoptive parents had made a tremendous effort to solve the problems. There are often extenuating circumstances, like where the child is abusing younger children in the home. The idea of adopting a much older child scared the life out of me, from the very beginning. I admire those who have the courage to do it.

You realize people do turn over their biological children over to the state because of their behavioural or medical needs, right?I apologize if that's obvious to you, but you make it sound like it never happens... when in fact it happens much more often than most people would expect.This New York Times article is several years old, but it explains the issue: [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/nyregion/parents-of-mentally-ill-children-trade-custody-for-care.html?scp=3&sq=giving%20child%20to%20state%20for%20mental%20health%20treatment&st=cse]Parents of Mentally Ill Children Trade Custody for Care - NYTimes.com[/url]Now, I don't think it's "okay" to turn a biological child over to the state, anymore than it's "okay" to do the same with an adopted child. Unfortunately, families may find themselves facing situations where none of the options are okay - and it may be the only choice left to them.If you mostly hang out with adoptive parents, you'll mostly hear about adoption disruptions... but if you hang out with parents of biological kids with major special needs too, I would be surprised if you don't meet at least one biologically related family that has placed their child in care, or has at least considered doing so. I know I certainly have, and it was very eye-opening and sad.It's really tragic to me that there is not better support in the United States for all children with special needs.See, here's the thing. Say a child has several younger siblings in the home, and perpetrates against them. This child is not a terrible kid, but is recreating the abuse done to her. She is sent to a residential treatment centre, and with therapy reaches a point where she could live in a family setting but still can't be trusted around smaller kids.Her family has smaller kids. So in spite of this treatment breakthrough on her own end, she can't go home.If her adoption was dissolved, she could go to a family where she is the only child, or is significantly younger than the other kids in the home.Should the original adoption not disrupt on principle because family is family, even though that means she'll likely remain in an institution for the rest of her childhood, because her current home is not suitable for her? Or is there some possibility that the right thing might be for her adoptive parents to let her go to a different home where she has a chance to heal and thrive?These aren't simple choices. Sometimes all the options are painful.I hope this didn't come off as a criticism of you. I understand how disruption is a troublesome concept, and personally I don't think it should ever happen unless every less drastic option has been tried or at least considered, and there is a demonstrable benefit to the child from severing legal ties rather than simply pursuing out-of-home placement. (For example, access to better services or the possibility of home-based care in a different family structure rather than long-term institutionalization.) I don't think it should be taken lightly, or seen as an option of first resort.I think before we condemn, though, we have to look at whether the child really always benefits from forcing a doomed family situation to keep on struggling and failing, instead of trying something new. Sometimes it's better for the child for there to be a clean break and a fresh start.

I did not actually know that was an option in some areas. In my state a parent - biological or adoptive - cannot simply turn the rights to their child over to the state without being charged with abandonment. And I do, in fact, know what I'm talking about - I work in children's mental health with some of the most disturbed kids you'll ever meet. I work a lot with the system, and know the state laws well. It actually makes me feel a lot better that parents can do this with biological kids in other states. I know the relationship with an adopted child may be different than with a biological one (not having bio kids I wouldn't know first-hand), but the responsibility isn't as far as I'm concerned, and I'm glad to know the laws seem to parallel. I get the needs of the kids, believe me. The problem I had, as I tried to state, is the difference it appeared to describe to me between biological and adoptive children, and parents' responsibilities toward them. I was not judging, and I stated that clearly. I did simply want to understand, and that is made more difficult, as I said in my original post, by the fact that you can't do it here. There may be rare exceptions, but if so they are VERY rare (I have certainly never run into one, and I've been steeped in this system for a long time). I do really appreciate the posts who helped with information and understanding. Linny and noelani, especially, your posts were very helpful. I think we all often get blinded by our knowledge of the system, which is different depending on where you live. I guess it's helpful to know that I am as guilty of that as the next person. Thanks for the information and help; I was very concerned with asking, because I knew I would get some judgmental responses, and I appreciate those who were kind in their responses.

Laws maybe, but I still get this underlying current of "how could you possibily...." Working with children is FAR different than parenting. As someone who *works* with severe kids, you get a day off. When that child leaves your work area, you'd done. You can go out to dinner, read a book, have friends, get support. Parents don't get that outlet. My mom used to work with severly disabled children and adults. We're talking 30+ years of experience working with regular LD kids on to children without brains...a few months into living with LG, she said she'd had no clue wha it was like. Now his needs are different, and there is no disruption anywhere on the horizon since he's the sunshine in my day, but it just goes to show the difference between "work with" and "living with". Assuming the parent can keep a job, and that's a HUGE if ((I lost one job due the needs of a foster child)), they have the added stress of negoiating time off and work-life balance. If they have friends, which again is a big IF since most people don't understand the demands of special needs, those friends probably can't relate to parenting a child that routines molests other children or tries to kill their parents on a routine basis. Church/faith group support? Again, for a worker, no big deal, but how do you go to church when the local child predator is *your* child? Mental health treatment? Let's be honest here, in the real world there is NO effective treatment for oh so many of the mental illnesses that affect not only children but adults. Pffft, there isn't really even an effective treatment of alcoholism and that's way common! How than can there be a dependable treatment for sociopaths and sex predators? Again, that's the difference between working with and living with. Workers can try this little fad, and that new thing, and oh, darn it didn't work....or better yet, ya'll get to pretend it did work. Families don't have that luxury, they get to live day in and day out and never get to go home from the office.

Actually this is very common, not something unique to your state. The vast majority of parents I've heard of who have relinquished to the state (as opposed to arranging a private adoption with another family) have been threatened with charges or have actually taken an abandonment charge to do so. And yeah, it's both adoptive and biological parents equally affected. When a situation with a child in the home is very severe, sometimes being charged with abandonment is not the worst thing that could happen, so the parents accept it to get help for the child or protect their families. I realize that you know a lot about these issues from the mental health provider side, but I think it's good that you're seeking out information and understanding of the parents' side too. :)

With the several disruptions/dissolutions I know of, most of them were done privately without the state involvement. (Due to the abandonment charges you talked about) There are organizations that help with finding homes for adoptive children who need to have another family, which is more than I can say for those with biological children. (overall) Since there is the option for more help & support in the adoptive community, I think that adds to why we might see more of it too. Another "reason" I've seen in regards to the is that sometimes the first adopted family is more of a "stepping stone" for some of the kids adopted internationally or from foster care. They see the first adoptive family in a negative light, especially the amom for "taking them away" from their original/birth families. (never mind that they were in the orphanage or foster care) In an odd way, the 2nd adoptive family ends up being the right family to these kids because there isn't the association at all with the birth family or birth country.

I always thought "how could anyone disrupt" until the teen foster daughter we had planned on adopting, who had lived with us for 2 years totally lost it. She was RAD, ADHD, Bipolar, ODD, and everything else in the book. While she was at least on minimal medication, the daily screaming and crying sessions, manipulating everyone in the household, and negatively impacting the other kids was tolerable. When she refused to take medication at 17 (and we couldn't force her and couldn't get her committed), she got in multiple fights where she knocked out others teeth and they had to get stitches, throwing stuff around the house and at people, her lying about us and others to manipulate to get her way, threatening everyone around her if she didn't get her way, planning on how to hurt others, and finally trying to hurt everyone in the family - we called the police and had her removed. It was all a game to her. Even though we thought of her as family, she didn't think of us the same way. Before, I was so sure that given enough love, every child could be helped, now I know that some children are so messed up that they may never be able to love or function. I remind myself of what we went through everytime I start to judge others and think better of it. Except for the grace of god go I. Unless you have been there, you have no idea how one messed up child can potentially ruin your whole life (your marriage, your other kids, your job, your friends, your reputation, your extended family, legal issues, mental, and financially). I have great admiration and compassion for those going through this. Btw, like many others, we weren't given the full history of our former FD, didn't get support from the placing agency or therapist, and couldn't get her the help she needed. We were very lucky in that we had not adopted her. We weren't new at parenting either, having 3 bio children and already adopted one foster child. In our case, the teen foster daughter took more time, effort, and money than all the 4 other children combined times 10.

Having lived through a dissolution, here's my take on this as I have a child from birth and had one that was adopted. IMHO it's the wrong way to look at disruptions/dissolutions, and by doing so, hampers the corrective actions that those in "the system" need to take to make adoption better for the children and APs. I fell head over heels in love with my birth child from the point of conception (ours was IVF so I knew exactly when it occurred). Every ultrasound, and there were many because I had complications, every kick and movement in utero, etc. deepened my love for him. I never knew what unconditional love meant until my pregnancy. My bonding and attachment happened then, so even if he had come out with any issues whatsoever, my love for him would have helped see me through. If he had been an "adopted" (non-bio) embryo in IVF, I don't think it would have mattered because I believe I would have gone through the same intense bonding in utero. With AD, I did not have that same bonding, love, attachment with her from the onset, and she came to us with multiple issues that prevented this from happening. I liken it to an arranged marriage. If the pictures and stories I am told about the person with whom I'm about to commit to for a lifetime are in fact true, and my expectations (right or wrong) are met, it lays the strong foundation to forge that relationship. However, when the opposite holds true, the pictures and stories cover up a stark reality, then I begin the relationship already at a strong disadvantage. Can you imagine going on a blind date and then be expected to live with that potential mate for the rest of your life, despite his/her severe and pervasive issues, ones that you cannot personally handle? What if you knew and met the ideal mate for this new spouse, one with the right personality that could love and nurture this person to help him/her reach his/her fullest potential?