Adopted Child not welcomed by family members

I'm sorry you are going through this. Perhaps it's time for a family meeting where you speak your truth. The pastor had no right to guilt them into not disrupting - when he disrupted this child first. What does the adoption agency that the original adoption went through have to say? Do they have any services available? Suggestions? Counselling services? The state Department of Children Services? Some children are very, very broken from all that they have lived through up to this point. That said, writing things off as a "mistake" is wrong, it's denial and denial never solved anything. I'm sorry you are going through this and really have no good answers but they need to demand services, keep talking, call the pastor on his so-called "vision"... One last thought, with this onslaught of the "Christian Adoption Movement" those promoting folks to adopt without really understanding need to be contacted and help sought from them. I don't know many but "Together For Adoption" is one. Kind regards, Dickons

Grandma.c, Give that preacher hell if you don't do anything else. I have allowed two of our local preachers to hear what I have to say about their madness and the harm they've done to several children and families they claim to care about. The "vision" is all they could see, their priority. It's a dream of something - not reality. When both of these preachers asked for the recently fostered, adopted and/or rehomed not to attend their church services until their behavior improves (because members were complaining) I and several others let them know, in painful detail, how we felt about all of their actions and their grand unicorn ideas about "adopting the orphan". We were already majorly changing our lives trying to clean up the mess that had been encouraged by them. If you are going to push adoption/foster care and resucing "orphans" so hard, you have to support the families too, forever, regardless. Your church will need to change. One of the churches has changed in a HUGE way. :clap: New classes and activities, more supervision, new education classes on everything adoption, more understanding and TONS of support. The other, still pushing it hard and dumping families and children when blending is impossible due to behavior of the damaged. Leaving them with one less resource to help them with their new family member that they were guilted into bringing into their family by the same people to begin with. We've brought some very difficult children into our home and lives - it changes the way you live. . If this is something you want to do, or are doing - you get to change your life. Your relationships with friends, family, church, job, etc. may be lost. These are things you have to be willing to accept and change/give up in your life. If not, you are just harming the child even more. I didn't get to go to Father's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving or any friend or family celebrations with severely troubled kids in tow. It's something you have to be willing to give up, for the safety and sanity of others, especially those that didn't choose, didn't encourage, and don't want to and probably never will choose to be involved in your situation. Sometimes it's not safe for the kid to go, sometimes other kids, and adults, are very mean or pick on them so bad they blow up, or blow in - neither is good in any way! It's sort of like having a kid with the flu - not safe for others, YOU get to stay home and care for them Mom and/or Dad!

Thanks for the quick responses. Unfortunately this was a private adoption, lawyer was pro bono from the church, and I'm not really sure an agency was involved. Or, at least I didn't hear of one - we weren't apprised of this adoption until after it was a done deal. Anyway, I have gone over to see the child at J's house and we try to act as if we were caring grandparents for J's sake. We have no interest in being cruel to the child - who knows why he is the way he is. But we will never do anything to put another child at risk, nor will we set ourselves up for the property damage and ensuing emotional wreckage that we previously suffered from this child. So he will be kept at arm's length, out of our home. I know this hurts J's feelings a lot, but it can't be helped. I just don't have a good feeling about the situation. J was actually adopted himself, by my husband and his first wife. So he is really emotionally invested in this adoption. J is a really good guy, but he has a borderline IQ and is slow intellectually, functionally illiterate. He's also quite passive, until he takes too much and then he blows up. He lets people walk over him again and again, until he blows. It just seems like they are the wrong parents for this type of kid. I can see this kid walking all over them, exploiting their vulnerabilities, abusing them until J has had enough and then, I fear the resulting explosions. My husband tells me just to disengage from the situation and if there are more problems, to just let J and his church handle it. J's wife's family is close to them and are founding members of that same church. So it's not as if he has no other support. Husband's probably right. Thanks again, this is all new to me.

There would have been an agency involved for the original adoptive parent-who likely knew very well what this child's issues were when he talked your kids into taking him. Guilting them into keeping him was not okay. International agencies, however, don't tend to be terribly helpful after the adoption is final. I would be honest with them. You will see this child in their home but will not put others at risk by allowing him into yours. He needs to be in a more structured theraputic setting and it doesn't sound as if these parents have had any training at all in how to deal with him. Find them a copy of the book called Can This Child Be Saved. As for the age thing-I have a 9 year old grand son that looks 13. He may really be 9- but he is highly disturbed.