Article on Disruption in Brain, Child

[Julia Rose]

"Disruption is the dirty little secret of the adoption industry."

Has anyone seen this article?

Very depressing.

We are at the beginning of our process (almost ten months into the home study process and waiting for SW to write it . . . she's at Catholic Charities and seems to be incredibly overworked . . .).

What bothered me most was the statistic that between 10 and 25% of adoptions are disrupted

Thoughts?

[RedOakMomma]

Good article....good enough that I think this should be included in many adoption resource binders given to PAPs. These subjects aren't talked about enough...the whole spectrum of it from not feeling insta-love to how to process the subject of disruption.

“Is it really realistic to think that every adoption will work out?” asks James, of the Attachment and Bonding Center. “People go to a foreign country and come home with a virtual stranger. And, on the child’s part, they are moved so abruptly from one country to another. There are going to be cases in which the parents or the adoptee simply cannot adjust.”

“We need to be looking at adoption through the lens of the child. It is a normal human reaction to have some serious attachment issues when you are taken from your birth mother and placed in an orphanage,” says Dabbeni. “We need to honor and recognize that adoption is different and not a replacement for birth children we never had. Not until then can we really embrace how adoption really is different and how we need to go about parenting differently. Social workers have to speak the truth about that.”

I think it's so important for PAPs to read these stories and see that this could be them. In the world of picture-driven adoptions and multiple child international adoptions (sibling groups or otherwise), so many PAPs go in with the best of intentions only to be overwhelmed by the reality of their children's needs.

I also liked that this article talked about putting a knowledgeable attachment/adoption therapist in place before arrival of children, and I LOVED hearing about agencies that have family preservation teams. It's a resource more agencies should offer and invest in.

Thanks for posting this. I bookmarked it, and will be sure to share it in the future.

[Julia Rose]

Good points, RedOakMomma. We're adopting locally, and it's up to the placement gods; the picture-thing is one of the reasons we chose to do it this way. The falling-in-love-with-a-picture notion is completely foreign to my experience. It just seems inherently dangerous to look at a picture and allow your life to be guided by the feeling that picture evokes; it seems like a plot device out of a rom-com. I imagine that decisions made on that basis often lead to disappointment at best.

[RedOakMomma]

As for it being depressing...I don't know. I didn't get that feeling. It is what it is, and when you adopt you have to realize that things may not go smoothly. I definitely feel like I over-idealized our adoption experience before it happened...and that has led to a lot of problems.

To me, it's no more depressing than the statistics of having bio children with hugely taxing special needs. You roll the dice there, too...and though having a bio child seems to be better odds of having a "normal" parenting experience, it's no guarantee. When I read stories of families that have faced difficult special needs, it reminds me a lot of these stories of adoption disruption. Bio or adopted, sometimes there are needs that parents can't handle. Adoption just throws in a whole new dimension to it all, because so many children are adopted with extensive histories of neglect, poverty, or trauma and because often adopted children don't have accurate case histories that help inform potential parents.

10 to 25 percent was with domestic foster-adopt, though, wasn't it? I don't think international adoption would be quite that high, though I found the 1% claim by the agency a little fishy. My guess would be somewhere around 5% of international adoptions, depending on the program and the typical backgrounds/ages of the kids adopted. Maybe even higher? I don't know. I think there's so much shame associated with disruption that many internationally adoptive parents would hide the truth from their adoptive parent community.

[Julia Rose]

It says in the article that all the research is on foster-to-adopt, so you're right about filtering the data.

Still, it seems to me that there is *more* potential for disruption in international adoption because of the effects of institutionalization and of various nation-specific maladies (e.g. FAS for Russian children, lead poisoning for Chinese children, etc.).

[AllyRae]

Sadly, I'm not surprised. With our own RAD experience, we were very ill prepared. Our agency also basically abandoned us (and has since closed). Our homestudy agency wouldn't return our calls. Our early intervention department in our county said there was nothing they could offer. The attachment specialist in the state was dismissive and his clinic did not accept insurance (and required thousands of dollars up front to treat). The pediatrician had no idea where to turn. The children's hospital adoption clinic wouldn't see her because they did not work with children under a certain age. The first child psychologist had no experience in RAD. It wasn't until DS's autism therapist agreed to see DD that we even were able to find anyone to work with her.

So we had to go through all of those chanels just to find someone to assess her and work with her. And while he is wonderful, his expertise is in autism and not RAD. There are literally *no* resources that specialize in RAD around here, and I live near Columbus, Oh, so you'd think there would be something.

With no resources available, it's no wonder that some families can't make it work out...especially international adoptions where you don't "expect" RAD to happen so there isn't a barage of social workers already on the case. It's really sad because you shouldn't have to have such difficulty finding someone to help you and your child...

[philomom]

I'm glad this is finally getting some publicity. I saw another article recently in a Time Or Newsweek about this, too.

When I lived in Atlanta, in a very wealthy neighborhood... one of the neighbors adopted from Russia. The girl was just three when they got her.. young enough, you'd think to be able to assimilate. These were experienced parents with two older children, the home was marvelous, their community supportive and caring and things went very badly. The child hoarded food, threw tantrums, was violent and despite the best help money could buy, nothing changed much.

I was at a picnic with said child when she was nine... most kids were done eating and had wandered off to play, so I very slowly and talking to other adults started to take up paper plates left by the children... I got to her plate and seeing that there was very little food on it.. thought she was done and took it.... the child erupted into a huge fit. It was an honest mistake, I tried to hand the plate back... nothing helped and they ended up leaving the event early.

I've lost touch with this family because I moved but the rumor mill told me that the child has been institutionalized off and on over the years. The parents simply cannot cope with a violent child who is as big as they are.

If only the parents had known. They might have spared themselves and their other kids the heartbreak.

[philomom]

weird double posting thing

[philomom]

Mothering "froze" on me and I hit the button one too many times. Sorry.

[marsupial-mom]

Interesting article. The one thing I dislike though is the emphasis on preparation. There's only so much preparation adoptive parents can do. There's only so far our imaginations can take us without experience.

I think what's needed more than extra preparation is extra support. Once the kids home with us and issues begin to surface, adoptive parents need to know where to turn.

[m9m9m9]

Good article but it sounds like many I have read over the years.

I think one of the biggest problems with parents is their failure to recognize attachment and what it is and is not.

I can't count how many times I have read something about the child instantly bonding. Yes, it may appear to be that way but its a trauma bond. The child litterally is clinging for dear life to this person that is nice to them because they have no other choice. They aren't attached, they are not bonded, they are scared to death as they have just had everything familiar removed from them and now have this one person who is nice to them as long as they, the child, is "nice" back. There is also the popular thing about how the child won't let the mom out of their site, won't be put down, etc. The moms are raving about how "attached" the child is so eschews with the advice of professionals on how to build bonds of attachment and the healthy bond does not start to develop. These same moms find themselves perplexed 2, 3, 7 years down the road when their "nice" child is suddenly angry, raging, tantruming, etc and they can't figure out why and they go to a therapist and the therapist starts to hint at attachment issues and the mom freaks. I have seen it in real life so many times and its sad.

Logically, does any person who is normally mentally healthy truly have an immediate and loving family relatioship type bond after being with someone for less than a few hours? No. Its not going to happen nor should one look for it to happen.