[Dawnzlight]

Hi Dad,

Dont apologize for your questions, I wish I had access to this forum during the last 10 years... .


Unfortunately, yes, your situation is very much an echo of what has happened with our son.


The foster family that he was in decided that he was just too much to handle and didnt adopt him. I was told differently. I was told that they had decided they were to old and their bio children were 18 at that time, and werent prepared to parent any longer.


Found out AFTER the adoption our son had been setting fires in their basement, sexual acting out with other children, etc.

I wish I could tell you that with our love, support and family environment and extreme counseling, that we have made it to age 18 1/2 with a fairy tale ending.

Its a hard road, to enter the lives of these children at age 7 ..8..etc.. and I dont mean to discourage anyone from doing so, just to empower them with the truth, with solid realistic expectations, support, and encouragement. If we ignore these children, I am not sure our society can handle the outcome of that either. I just know I am not sure I can handle the outcome anymore in my family and life.

I have had relationships tested, lost, broken thru the ongoing saga with my son. We have had Social services involved many times, accused of child abuse, cleared of all charges... but people believe what they will. I have adults, pastors, dr's look me in the face and tell me they think my son is very intelligent and I was over reacting. ( He is great at fooling people, and making me look outrageous) My own sisters didnt believe me for the longest time, until one of them moved in with me and saw him in action. My other sister just prior to that, actually was the one who reported us for child abuse, believing the lies he was telling her. I lost a 8 month old baby we were in the process of beginning to adopt because of the 'investigation'.........

I have so many 'horror' stories of what this child has done to my life, my marriage, my family. Yet, I let him move back home, AGAIN.

I am asking myself why? I thought it was because I truly hoped he was changing, and wanting to improve and move in a healthy direction and heal relationships....

I don't think it was any of the above now.

Sorry, I got off the tangent of answering your questions....

I think you are wise to really evaluate the situation, prior to adopting, and perhaps it really will be too much for your family to adopt this child. It does take more involvement, commitment to raise a child that has these anger issues, etc.. and there arent very many social workers, therapists or followups after adoption, or continued support to assist. At least there wasnt for me/us.