Is the situation with Russia and the adoption ban affecting anyone here?

[lauren]

Just wondered if this was affecting anyone's families?

Russian adoption ban

[jenjj]

This ban makes me so angry!! I conseed that there has been some aweful stories about Russian children being treated badly. However, the Russian goverment and their very misguided adoption laws strongly contribute to the problems. Not allowing a child to be adoped until they are one year of age ( that really ends up being 2 or 3 years by the time the process is complete )and then keeping said children in pooly staffed orphanages is the perfect way to create children with attacment disorders. Add in thier very high rate of fetal alcohol exposure and it is crazy to expect that these children could ever be normal. The adoption policy of the us and other countries needs to be updated to include a sence of urengcy to place orphan children in perm. Homes. It is very clearly undrstood amoung thoes of us in the mental health feild that neglect in the first year of life has life long negative effects on attachemt, development,and intalect. We must stop dooming these children and their adopted families to a life time of pain by allowing adoption to take so long.