[WVUMom418]

My agency has a little boy who just turned 5 years old who was adopted from Guatemala just 5 months ago.

"His adoptive family feels that they are unable to meet his needs and are relinquishing him for adoption."

He does not have learning disabilities or health issues.

"His current adoptive home believes that he needs a smaller family size and a family that has more time to spend with him on daily activities including improving his social skills, speech and language barriers and behavior."

I'm not trying to judge, not living in their home but is 5 months really enough time know that you can't handle this little boy who has been through so much in his little life. This just breaks my heart.

[Justhavfaith]

Wow, this is a sad story for everyone involved. I hope that everything works out best for the child.

[BrandyHagz]

Another story where the agency has clearly failed the child.

Any agency who places children has a responsibility to those children to make sure any home they place in is fully prepared to deal with the issues.

In the end, the only one who suffers is the child – and how lucky for the agency, they get to charge fees for the same child, twice.

Sad indeed – and if I sound angry – its because I have been in that little boys shoes and I can promise you, I am the only one suffering long lasting affects of a poor adoption agency.

[mcmom]

What will happen to him? Is your agency trying to place him?

[angieandstever]

I saw that too and it just made me so sad and mad. I just don't get it. 5 months and giving up? I don't want to judge these people but something seems wrong here.

[saranbr]

How sad for that little boy! I had seen him on the photolisting but they didn't share that he'd only been home five months. That isn't even enough time to give professional therapy time to work, much less time to let a five year old adjust. It took my DD who was seven MONTHS at homecoming longer to adjust than five months.

[kerrib]

I just don't understand a family who would do that. How utterly tragic for that little boy.

I hope someone sees this post and quickly moves to get him off the photolisting!

[Mariais5]

That is a very sad situation..

I believe this is what happens when people adopt for the wrong reasons.. You cannot expect a child to come into your home and be grateful that you chose to adopt them ~ no matter how good you are to them.
Should they be grateful that they were born into poverty in the first place?
Should they be grateful that they won't get to live with their biological family?
This is such a pet peave of mine and is why I get so angry when people tell me how 'lucky' my children are!

I don't know this family's situation either, but 5 months is definitely not long enough to decide that the situation cannot be fixed...

We adopted our oldest son when he was 6 years old. He was ADHD and had major behaviorial problems.. There were days that I felt like we had made the biggest mistake of our lives. He was in trouble at home, at school, at church, and everywhere we went.. But, once we signed those papers, he was OUR son, and we did what we had to do to try to help him.

Fast forward 14 years, and he's a very sweet, kind, polite, and special young man. He's in school to become a police officer and engaged to a sweet girl.. We still have some conflicts, but I can't imagine what his life would have been like if we'd said it was too difficult to raise him..

[afl]

How could they have not known there would be some pretty big adjustment issues with a 5 year-old??? If they were that ignorant, then shame on the agency and the homestudy agency for not educating them fully.

Sad, very sad.

[beachykeen]

Wow, that is just heartbreaking.

[mommytoEli]

I agree that the one who suffers most is the child. It is difficult to adopt older children, and the agency or homestudy agency should have made sure that this family was equipped to handle this,

HOWEVER, just a little parent perspective. You can take all the classes, do all the homework, think that you have had enough life experience, and believe you are ready....and then you realize nothing could prepare you for what will really was going to happen. I adopted 2 older children....they came to live with me when they were 8 and 9, and they only became my forever children and I only remain sane by the grace of GOd. I also had to find someone else who felt as crazy as I did who could assure me I would not lose my mind as long as I took it one day at a time. Everyone in our life, including my dr when I had to take stress leave from my job, told us to disrupt the adoption. They had already lived with us for 2 years at the time we were finalizing. It was a very difficult decision to make. I loved them, but I literally felt like I was going crazy. I thought I had done everything right, and everything was going so wrong. I couldn't handle it anymore....I had to quit my job. In the end, we knew that the best place for these children was with us, as hard as it was. But everyday it requires every ounce of all I have. I had to get dr's on board, IEP's, teachers on board, family members on board, friends that we knew we could call in the middle of the night when dd freaked. It is a completely different style of parenting. Sometimes the people around us don't understand. And that is hard, too. Things have gotten better, our children have grown, and we have grown as parents as well. But every day it is difficult. Their problems are very real, and even though it has now been almost 4 years that they have been with us, their issues are not gone.

To this day, I wish things could be different. I wish I could be different. I wish I could have the patience of mother theresa when it is literally the 17th time I have been manipulated and it is only 10:30am. I do the best I can, and it is still not enough some days. Last year, we tried to foster again, and we were matched with a beautiful 5 year old girl and her little brother. We loved her. But she was exactly like dd. THey had all the same problems, and I lost it completely. I am HONESTLY surprised I did not end up in a mental ward for a while. I was glad that she was able to be reunited with her birth family, b/c I know deep in my heart I could not have adopted her and handled her problems, dd's problems, and remained sane. We only had her for 3 months. I still feel guilty everyday for feeling like I couldn't love her like I wanted to or parent her like I feel I should have been able to. But nothing prepares you for poop in the bed when they are mad, pee on the wall (from girls), stealing, serious attachment issues(which often don't surface right away...or mask themselves as other things for a while), or lying in public to make you look bad.

Our agency was of no help to us. Their social worker was of no help to us.

I'm sorry if I seem too sympathetic to the aparents. I still think it is sad for the child, but we can not discount what they are feeling. We have no idea what has gone on in that home. We have no idea how hard they have tried. We don't know if this child had attachment issues, which escalates everything. I think you can go into this thinking you can do anything, and then realize you can't, and some people are not strong enough to continue. Even though disruption is horrible, I would rather see this little boy, or any child, be placed with a family who will be able to handle him then stay with a family who is unable to meet his needs. I am thankful that I have such a large adoption community, both here and in the "real world" to support me as I parent dd. But not everyone has that luxury.

[cyntil8ing]

This is definitely very sad, because it's this boy's second time on that list. Over the summer, he was there and an acqaintance of mine was interested in him.

She started her homestudy and was in the middle of it when the family decided to keep trying. If I remember correctly, they have five other children in the family.

So my friend ended up accepting the referral of another four year old boy who is still in Guatemala. They're waiting for DNA now. She's going to be heartbroken when she sees this.

[DianeS]

Thank you, mommytoEli&Ethan. Only someone who has lived with a child with attachment disorder can really understand how unearthly hellish life can become in a very short amount of time.

The child may not have learning disabilities or health issues - but attachment disorder, when it is diagnosed, won't fall under either of those umbrellas. Neither would most mental disorders. Or behavioral disorders. If the child has attachment disorder, it's likely to still be undiagnosed, as not too many therapists really understand it yet.

Of course there are awful adoptive parents too, who do give up on children whose behavior doesn't warrant it. And there are agencies that downplay the possible problems and that don't train their adoptive parents how to deal with them. The people involved could just be plain rotten. But the child could be seriously mentally disturbed, too, and may require an expert's care. Both possibilites should be taken into consideration by anyone who is thinking of adopting this child.

[cbpwife]

I had a dear friend whose adoption turned into a tragedy at 14 months post placement. Her family has been devastated. They were far from adopting for the wrong reasons, they were acting out of love and desire to open their family to children who truely needed them. Could they have been more prepared beforehand - absolutely. Could their agency have been more focused on the children and less on numbers and dollars - OH YES! But the end result is that a disrupted adoption would have been by far the best answer.

WE don't know enough to be passing any judgement here and assigning blame in a situation where all we know an age and time in country doesn't benefit anyone.

[Mandy4President]

I understand about the attachment disorder and that I'm sure it can make life hell and not fun and make you second guess every decision you've ever made.

However...

Do you not know this when you get into the adoption process? Five months, I don't care what's "wrong" with this child is not enough time to get him the help he needs. For goodness sakes, he needs a smaller family to help him deal with the language barrier?? Um.....he was five and lived in a foreign country, did they not anticipate this? I just don't believe in adopting a child and then deciding that they need to find another family. They are not a puppy that you can bring to the pound. When they are adopted, they are your child. Five months is not enough time to give to that child to see what potential he has.

Also, bio children can have attachment disorders and disabilities. I would never think of giving my bio child up for adoption for these reasons, the adoptive child shouldn't be any different. JMHO