[fatcatcloseouts]

We started our adoption process in April. We were done with everything including home stuby in July. But we were selected for two little boys in November. We are still waiting for placement. We have visited them for one week and all of us, (husband, daughter 15 and son 21) are very attached.

The states messed up the paperwork and didn't get them here by Christmas like they were suppose to. We had certain things we would and wouldn't take and sexual abuse was one of the things we felt we could not handle too. Supposedly there was none in these little boys lifes. But when we got the "book" that is all the papers that follow the kids around that you don't get until chosen, it is mentioned here and there with other kids in the homes they were in. Bottom line, we are too attached and they are too to change our minds. A failed adoption can make life so much worse for these kids than they already have it. With kids that young, I would be scared. The guilt I would have if I brought someone into the house that did that would be unbearable. Even though these kids need someone. Maybe you can let someone like us with much older kids or someone with no kids try to take up the slack with these kids and you find the perfect child to keep you kids safe. Just be careful and ask LOTS and LOTS of quesitons. I even asked the same question to the same person more than once to make sure I kept getting the same answers. People who lie to you will forget what they told you over time. And don't let the guilt get you if you have to say no. Remember, we are the good guys here and have to keep everyone safe. Hope it helps just to know you are not alone

[Kansas Girl]

Originally Posted by lovemy6

I would NEVER recommend bringing a child into your home who is older than the children already in your home. You NEVER know the full extent of the abuse that child has had.

You can and will do what you want, but I'll tell you that SA can destroy your family and will affect your kids for the rest of their lives. I would really caution you against taking a kid older than your youngest. ... It's horrible what we had to live through, but our kids will be scarred for the rest of their lives.

I agree with lovemy6 completely on everything that was said in these two paragraphs.....bringing children older than those already in your home into your home is an extremely dangerous proposition ....personally, I would also never consider a child who is sexually acting out. We didn't find out our son had been sexually abused until a couple of years ago - when he finally felt safe enough to tell someone. However, he has never sexually acted out in any way. Also, as a survivor myself I can tell you do not ever underestimate the lifelong damage that sexual abuse can cause. Healing helps, but yes, the scars are there forever.

Fran

[juli714]

Originally Posted by Bippette

Social workers often won't tell you the complete truth. I would want to talk to the foster parents of the child, and bio relatives, teachers, sunday school teachers....basically anyone who can help give you a complete picture of the child.

Just curious as to why you feel social workers won't tell you the complete truth.

Thanks.
Juli714

[Mkuhlmann06]

Originally Posted by juli714

Just curious as to why you feel social workers won't tell you the complete truth.

Thanks.
Juli714

Juli714 - Its not a feeling as to why Bippette made that statement, its a truth. Many social workers will not give you or tell you 100%. Many times it may be because they don't know, many other times its because they know it may prevent them from being placed. I had a very positive situation with the placement of our adopted son, and I feel like they were very forth coming with a lot of information...but still, there are a lot of holes/gaps and Im sure they could fill them in, but haven't. Not all lie, all the time... but I think they leave things out a lot.

[Bippette]

Because they want to place kids, and often times if foster parents or adoptive parents knew the entire truth about a child they would turn down the placement.

I have been lied to or misled many, many times.

[marythemom]

We weren't interested in children under the age of 5 either. Through a long, complicated, string of coincidences , we ended up with both children older than our 2 bio kids. We'd never heard of attachment disorder, and believed that the only sexual abuse had been by peers on a one time basis. That's what the caseworker said too. No one knew, and the attachment issues didn't show up fully until they were in a family situation (they'd spent 2+ years in foster care).

One of our biggest issues is that both our (almost) adopted children are emotionally (developmentally?) much younger than their chronological age. Our 14 year old fully grown son (5'9" 200+ lbs) often has the self control and behaviors of a 2 year old at best. His 12 year old sister is a little higher functioning (about age 4). Our responsible, mature 11 year old bio daughter has a hard time understanding this and dealing with it. It's hard to explain to younger children.

I will not give up my children now - I love them dearly, but if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I know now... I would probably not have brought these two into our home and would have waited for younger children. This has been a VERY tough year.

Mary
mom to biodaughter K(11) and bioson T(8), hoping to finalize soon on daughter C(12) and someday on her brother D(14) -been out of RTC one week today!

"We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!"

Mary

[Again!]

I have to add, my younger children (3, 4, 6 at placement) have been harder than the older (10, 11 at placement). Per pre adoption reports, one of the younger (6) was known to be sexually abused. At least 4 of them were actually abused and I will probably never know about the youngest. Two of those have perpetrated, one of them on the youngest, so I guess we can count him also. I would NEVER bring a child into my home that was older than my youngest (bio or adopted). I would NEVER expose kids outside the system to the very, very high risk of abuse. I'm an optimist, and yet living with constant vigilance can wear anyone down. If you want to adopt, wait until later, there will still be lots of needy kids out there. Try working for CASA, or take your kids and volunteer at a shelter if you want to get involved now.

[sundara]

On the comment/question about 'why don't the SW's tell you/are they lying"

I believe many of the SW's simply don't know the full story - and not thru lack of trying. Often the issue is that the kids want to be reunited with their bio family, so they learn not to say anything about what happened to them for fear of TPR/loss of family permanently.

Even in the worst abuse cases, it is totally normal for kids to want be with their family, because it is all they ever knew & that family is familiar, etc.

As you can see, quite a few postings mention that the adoptive parents did not find out the truth until much later - typically years, occaissionally sooner.

I think it is because the kids wait out of fear - they wait until after TPR, until after being placed, after the adoption is final, after they feel that the new family/home really IS safe (can take a long time), until they feel the aparents 'can handle it', AND after something happens that triggers their fear of an abuse being repeated.

In our case, our most abused child did not tell us that the visits we were having with a half-sibling caused her extreme fear because he was her abuser - she suffered silently and no one had any idea because she was so good at hiding it. It was 3 1/2 years into our adoption that she finally told us. 2 1/2 years (and much therapy) after that, she is starting to recover. The road to get here was VERY rocky, but seeing her recovery now and how much she trusts us is very gratifying.

[momraine]

Remember that abused kids are taught to keep everything secret, so often they don't disclose all the abuse to the social workers or counselors until they feel safe and that can be years later.
Also it's not just sexual abuse you have to worry about when adopting a troubled kid. My little RAd kid has no sexual abuse that we know about, but he does have a lot of anger. He has tried to take it out on his siblings and the cousins that live with us on occasion (though mostly he takes it out on me) Luckily for us the siblings are all older and the cousins though younger are bigger than he is. We are working through and now I can see someday adding a younger child. (don't tell dh, he thinks we are done) He is not healed and if we did add a younger child I would not leave him alone with that child for quite some time. I am not afraid of him sexually abusing his siblings but he might try to physically hurt them. He was always very secretive in his attempts to hurt them. He did steal from them and break thier stuff. There are more kinds of abuse than sexual.

[book86]

I just want to say that you guys are all amazing people. Absolutely wow! A relative is struggling with her adopted son- he may have some sort of attention deficit disorder- and it is really hard to have to watch without being able to say much because I don't want to interfere. I just love them both as much as I can.

[aspenhall]

the best advice you can give someone who is going through this, is to refer them to the Special Needs Parenting Forum. It is amazing the amount of sheer genius exists in the advice I have received. In fact I contribute my and my dd's emotional stability and well-being and basic overall strength of our family to the members on those boards...In fact it's been SO helpful, that thus far we have completely avoided the need for any therapy ever, as every bit of advice has worked so well!

Not that I'd suggest that, but for us it works.