[BarbaraB]

I have to comment on the ideas that a younger child can be taken away with no transition, and that the child has to think the adoption is "happy happy." Even an infant quickly gets used to familiar sights, sounds, smells and surroundings. The idea that you can pick them up and plop them down somewhere else like potted plants is just appalling. As far as thinking the adoption is happy, in my opinion a child is going to be much more traumatized by the sudden disappearance of his caregivers than by seeing one of them in tears.

I know children survive this all the time, and maybe it is proof of human resiliency. But it should not be that way. I think the countries that require adoptive parents to spend a certain amount of time in the country before leaving with the child (or visiting the child before taking custody) are doing what is better for the child (regardless of their own reasons for the requirement, I think it's easier on the child to have that transition). The same is true of gradual transitions to adoptive placements here in the U.S.

As a guardian ad litem I have seen very precipitous removals of children or changes in their placements. Sometimes, unfortunately, those changes happen at the foster parent's request, not against the foster parent's wishes. Sometimes they happen because of allegations of abuse, and the state can't take the risk of leaving the child in the current placement. I observed one situation several years ago where a biological father who lived in a different state from his son and had never had any consistent contact with him was able to drive to this state, pick him up and take him "home" with no preparation. Ultimately it didn't work -- the child was such a handful (understandably) that the father gave up and sent him back to relatives after a few months.

The resources are not available in the U.S. foster care system to make every transition a smooth and gradual one, and I don't think the child's perspective is considered often enough. Similarly, the child's feelings were not considered at all in the situation the original poster described. It's wishful thinking to say that it was "easier" on the child to do it that way.

Barbara