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Good article on myths of adopted children
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 221572" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Interesting.</p><p></p><p>I've personally, closely, known three adoptees from the time they were adopted. The first one was my best friend's adopted little brother. He was 6 when adopted from an orphanage. He and his brother had been left there/taken from birth mother because the birth mother was unfit. I believe drugs and alcohol were involved. The boy was damaged but wanted so much to belong.</p><p></p><p>The adoptive family were loving, caring and well-off. They (in my opinion) spent a lot of money on the boy, I think it was too much too easily and with hindsight should have been handled better. They sent him to the best school they could (a local military school) but he just couldn't hack it. With hindsight, they really should have had ongoing counselling and supervision from a therapist to help the boy transition. I understand the adoption was dissolved (at least unofficially) when the boy ran away in his teens. I haven't seen him since he was about 14, haven't heard OF him since he was about 30 (and had a criminal record, was shacked up with an old classmate of mine and had her pregnant).</p><p>Outcome - not good, despite apparently positive beginnings and (at the time) the best placement. The adoption was probably due to genetic/environmental factors which predisposed the failure of the adoption; needed more services not available in those days. I believe he has tried to find his birth brother. When a young child he told me he wanted to find his natural family but I knew (he didn't) that they were dead, apart form his brother.</p><p></p><p>Adoption 2 - my sister's first adopted child. A son, adopted at 10 months and believed to be (in the vernacular of the day"mentally retarded" because at 10 months he still wasn't responding, still wasn't sitting up and his mother was also "retarded".</p><p>Within a week of arriving, and my sister working with him to stimulate him, it became clear than he had been simply left to lie on the floor with no toys and no interaction. A week after arrival he was sitting alone with good balance and was beginning to crawl. He walked at 13 months and form there seemed to develop well. In fact, he cottoned on to the "Santa" clause, as we call it, before his older brother but agreed to keep it all going so as not to upset the others.</p><p>However, he DID have learning problems (severely dyslexic and we wonder if he also had Asperger's). His adoptive father was a total ratbag and was horrible to the boy. Despite my sister's best interventions school didn't give him any support for the dyslexia. The only reason we knew about it was because I was a trainee teacher and recognised the signs in his schoolwork, when he was 6.</p><p>He ran away from home at about 14, was on drugs and undoubtedly prostituting himself to pay for it as well as break and enter. He accumulated more and more criminal charges, did serious time in jail and finally at about 40, has started going straight. He has had numerous children by numerous women (a serial father) and the eldest is definitely very bright, but also dyslexic. Not as bad as his father. The little boy is also being assessed for Asperger's. My nephew is now following up on his other children to have them assessed. </p><p>Outcome - bad for a couple of decades, probable genetic reason for problems also connected with higher likelihood of adoption. Has not shown any interest in contacting his birth family (a pity, at least as far as birth grandmother is concerned; she was his sole carer as an infant, only gave him up reluctantly).</p><p></p><p>Adoption 3 - my eldest sister again, adopted a girl at 7 months old. The little girl had been very ill in hospital numerous times with malnutrition. Her birth family fought the adoption despite being charged with neglect. The baby would never take a warm bottle, and wouldn't be held while having a bottle; would only take it while lying in her cot. Very sad. She was a problem growing up in that she CRAVED attention to the extent of sabotaging others. Her younger sister (my sister's natural child) would step back and let the adoptive one have the attention she wanted. Both girls became child care workers, the younger one's insight now has her running her own centre. The adoptive girl has been very troubled at times but stayed on the straight. Got pregnant young, now has about five kids but is a VERY good mother and is still close to her family. Has expressed curiosity about her natural family but is scared of failure/rejection. Interestingly, her youngest child was admitted to hospital with all the signs of malnutrition and it took my sister (the baby's grandmother) to intervene and convince authorities that there must be a physical cause. They eventually found a hereditary digestion disorder and now believe that this is why my niece was "in hospital for malnutrition" so much as a baby. Because her natural family were already "on the books" as being charged as neglectful, the adoption did eventually go through but it took several years. we now think an injustice was probably done; although my memory of that little girl refusing to take a warm bottle, or refusing to be held, makes me very sad. But you can't take a baby from its mother just because the mother chooses to feed the baby by putting her in a cot and grabbing a bottle of formula from the fridge and tossing it into the cot.</p><p>Outcome: success, but still problems probably indicative of hereditary digestion disorder, but a lot of emotional fallout perhaps as a result of very early disruption.</p><p></p><p>My sister was told (and I was being taught, in my teaching classes) that it's all down to nurture. The old ideas that a kid can be born to be bad and nothing can change that, was being thrown out. I used to read avidly, including the Dr Spock books my sister bought. I remember Dr Spock in that vintage loudly claiming that there was only one form of hereditary mental illness (Huntingdon's Disease). At that time, Bipolar (or as it was called then, Manic Depression) and Schizophrenia were both included in the category of mental illness. But back then, they were considered entirely environmental.</p><p></p><p>The people more likely to put a child up for adoption (apart from teen mothers) were often people who themselves had problems, often from their own genetic makeup or something in their make-up that predisposed them to problems that meant they were less likely to cope with a small baby. SO the question then becomes - how would THIS child have fared if tey stayed with their natural parents, compared to how they fared with their adoptive family?</p><p></p><p>Instead of being critical of adoptions gone wrong, or with a less than glowing success, you need to consider how well the child would have gone if the adoption hadn't happened. And looking at this - with my friend's brother - he had a happier childhood away from the orphanage and I think a better outcome. My nephew, I think he would have been much worse off with his birth mother. My niece - it's hard to say. If her natural family WERE looking after her, then maybe she would have been equally well off or even better off, with her natural family. </p><p>With my niece and nephew you also need to consider that the family they went into was NOT a happy one. Their adoptive father was eventually divorced by my sister but he had succeeded in doing a lot of damage by then. My sister had three natural kids; the youngest is definitely a easy child. The eldest - a easy child who has since had a total breakdown, at least partly due to the stress of growing up the eldest in a dysfunctional family plus having been 'set up' by his very dysfunctional father with some black and white views and bigoted opinions which have directly led to his downfall. Their natural brother is a gentle difficult child, showing some physical and emotional damage from his environment and also his make-up.</p><p></p><p>The picture is much more complex than is often credited. I do feel that adopted children do need to be handled more carefully, thoughtfully. But they also have every bit as much of a chance as they always had. Or should have. However, purely because of the circumstances that led to them being put up for adoption in the first place, they were already potential difficult children to start with. So frankly, ANY improvement from there is a bonus.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 221572, member: 1991"] Interesting. I've personally, closely, known three adoptees from the time they were adopted. The first one was my best friend's adopted little brother. He was 6 when adopted from an orphanage. He and his brother had been left there/taken from birth mother because the birth mother was unfit. I believe drugs and alcohol were involved. The boy was damaged but wanted so much to belong. The adoptive family were loving, caring and well-off. They (in my opinion) spent a lot of money on the boy, I think it was too much too easily and with hindsight should have been handled better. They sent him to the best school they could (a local military school) but he just couldn't hack it. With hindsight, they really should have had ongoing counselling and supervision from a therapist to help the boy transition. I understand the adoption was dissolved (at least unofficially) when the boy ran away in his teens. I haven't seen him since he was about 14, haven't heard OF him since he was about 30 (and had a criminal record, was shacked up with an old classmate of mine and had her pregnant). Outcome - not good, despite apparently positive beginnings and (at the time) the best placement. The adoption was probably due to genetic/environmental factors which predisposed the failure of the adoption; needed more services not available in those days. I believe he has tried to find his birth brother. When a young child he told me he wanted to find his natural family but I knew (he didn't) that they were dead, apart form his brother. Adoption 2 - my sister's first adopted child. A son, adopted at 10 months and believed to be (in the vernacular of the day"mentally retarded" because at 10 months he still wasn't responding, still wasn't sitting up and his mother was also "retarded". Within a week of arriving, and my sister working with him to stimulate him, it became clear than he had been simply left to lie on the floor with no toys and no interaction. A week after arrival he was sitting alone with good balance and was beginning to crawl. He walked at 13 months and form there seemed to develop well. In fact, he cottoned on to the "Santa" clause, as we call it, before his older brother but agreed to keep it all going so as not to upset the others. However, he DID have learning problems (severely dyslexic and we wonder if he also had Asperger's). His adoptive father was a total ratbag and was horrible to the boy. Despite my sister's best interventions school didn't give him any support for the dyslexia. The only reason we knew about it was because I was a trainee teacher and recognised the signs in his schoolwork, when he was 6. He ran away from home at about 14, was on drugs and undoubtedly prostituting himself to pay for it as well as break and enter. He accumulated more and more criminal charges, did serious time in jail and finally at about 40, has started going straight. He has had numerous children by numerous women (a serial father) and the eldest is definitely very bright, but also dyslexic. Not as bad as his father. The little boy is also being assessed for Asperger's. My nephew is now following up on his other children to have them assessed. Outcome - bad for a couple of decades, probable genetic reason for problems also connected with higher likelihood of adoption. Has not shown any interest in contacting his birth family (a pity, at least as far as birth grandmother is concerned; she was his sole carer as an infant, only gave him up reluctantly). Adoption 3 - my eldest sister again, adopted a girl at 7 months old. The little girl had been very ill in hospital numerous times with malnutrition. Her birth family fought the adoption despite being charged with neglect. The baby would never take a warm bottle, and wouldn't be held while having a bottle; would only take it while lying in her cot. Very sad. She was a problem growing up in that she CRAVED attention to the extent of sabotaging others. Her younger sister (my sister's natural child) would step back and let the adoptive one have the attention she wanted. Both girls became child care workers, the younger one's insight now has her running her own centre. The adoptive girl has been very troubled at times but stayed on the straight. Got pregnant young, now has about five kids but is a VERY good mother and is still close to her family. Has expressed curiosity about her natural family but is scared of failure/rejection. Interestingly, her youngest child was admitted to hospital with all the signs of malnutrition and it took my sister (the baby's grandmother) to intervene and convince authorities that there must be a physical cause. They eventually found a hereditary digestion disorder and now believe that this is why my niece was "in hospital for malnutrition" so much as a baby. Because her natural family were already "on the books" as being charged as neglectful, the adoption did eventually go through but it took several years. we now think an injustice was probably done; although my memory of that little girl refusing to take a warm bottle, or refusing to be held, makes me very sad. But you can't take a baby from its mother just because the mother chooses to feed the baby by putting her in a cot and grabbing a bottle of formula from the fridge and tossing it into the cot. Outcome: success, but still problems probably indicative of hereditary digestion disorder, but a lot of emotional fallout perhaps as a result of very early disruption. My sister was told (and I was being taught, in my teaching classes) that it's all down to nurture. The old ideas that a kid can be born to be bad and nothing can change that, was being thrown out. I used to read avidly, including the Dr Spock books my sister bought. I remember Dr Spock in that vintage loudly claiming that there was only one form of hereditary mental illness (Huntingdon's Disease). At that time, Bipolar (or as it was called then, Manic Depression) and Schizophrenia were both included in the category of mental illness. But back then, they were considered entirely environmental. The people more likely to put a child up for adoption (apart from teen mothers) were often people who themselves had problems, often from their own genetic makeup or something in their make-up that predisposed them to problems that meant they were less likely to cope with a small baby. SO the question then becomes - how would THIS child have fared if tey stayed with their natural parents, compared to how they fared with their adoptive family? Instead of being critical of adoptions gone wrong, or with a less than glowing success, you need to consider how well the child would have gone if the adoption hadn't happened. And looking at this - with my friend's brother - he had a happier childhood away from the orphanage and I think a better outcome. My nephew, I think he would have been much worse off with his birth mother. My niece - it's hard to say. If her natural family WERE looking after her, then maybe she would have been equally well off or even better off, with her natural family. With my niece and nephew you also need to consider that the family they went into was NOT a happy one. Their adoptive father was eventually divorced by my sister but he had succeeded in doing a lot of damage by then. My sister had three natural kids; the youngest is definitely a easy child. The eldest - a easy child who has since had a total breakdown, at least partly due to the stress of growing up the eldest in a dysfunctional family plus having been 'set up' by his very dysfunctional father with some black and white views and bigoted opinions which have directly led to his downfall. Their natural brother is a gentle difficult child, showing some physical and emotional damage from his environment and also his make-up. The picture is much more complex than is often credited. I do feel that adopted children do need to be handled more carefully, thoughtfully. But they also have every bit as much of a chance as they always had. Or should have. However, purely because of the circumstances that led to them being put up for adoption in the first place, they were already potential difficult children to start with. So frankly, ANY improvement from there is a bonus. Marg [/QUOTE]
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Good article on myths of adopted children
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