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You may have read about a prominent Dutch diplomat and his wife who “returned” their Korean daughter, whom they adopted when she was four months old. They handed the girl over to social workers in Hong Kong saying the adoption had not worked out.
In a statement published by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Raymond Poeteray — a Hong Kong-based Consul — said his daughter was “very sick,” and suffers from a “severe form of fear of emotional attachment.”
The child currently lives in a separate house, (the Hong Kong Foster system) and the entire family is in therapy.
“We tried intensive family therapy to find a cure. To our great disappointment, things didn’t get better, they got worse and the rest of the family began to suffer immensely from that,” he wrote in a letter signed by him and his wife, Meta.
“In mid-2006, on the advice of known medical specialists, professionals from the adoption organization ‘Mother’s Choice’ and the social services of Hong Kong, it was decided that in (her) interest she should be placed in a separate house and we would not be allowed to have any contact with her. The therapy for our family and our daughter continues to this day.”
I have heard of several children who have found new homes after they have been adopted from countries like Russia. I have mixed feelings about disruptions because I know that sometimes parents are doing the right thing for their children when they find the right home for them.
I have a friend who recently dissolved her relationship with her daughter, adopted from Russia two years ago. In my heart I know that it was the right choice for her, her family, and her daughter. Often, children have such special needs that can not be met in particular homes.
Is it not better to find the right home than to allow the child to suffer in the wrong one?
The mixed feelings come from parents like the Poeteray’s. Are they telling the truth when they say that their daughter was ill and unattached? Or is the an issue wherein the mother is unattached? Has a nanny cared for the child more than the mother? Did they adopt her to fill a void and not because they wanted a child? Did they ever really claim her as their child?
They seem to blame her for the dissolution but how much effort did they put into the relationship before they realized they were in trouble?
Yes, a thought provoking discussion; in mentioning dissolution, I shudder at the thought and I feel so attached to my child that I believe it would kill me to give him up. But I think more parents (those birth parents we have adopted from) do in fact give them up even when they don’t have special needs for many reasons. I understand what you are saying though, Most parents of biological children do not consider “giving them back” because of special needs or otherwise. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words. Thanks for sharing.
A thought-provoking discussion. My first reaction is, however, “What about those of us who gave birth to our children? Those kids frequently turn out to have ‘special needs.’ We can’t ‘give them back.’ We have to work through the issues, persevering. I guess, theoretically, we could put them up for adoption, but that’s not something a parent considers.”
Tough issues. Tough choices. No easy solutions.
Thanks for participating in the Christmas Edition of the Carnival of Family Life! The Carnival will go live at midnight (Pacific time) on December 24, 2007, at Colloquium!
Happy holidays!
We do biomedical treatments. One thing I have found in the last week that is really beneficial to him is additional magnesium. Try giving Epsom salt baths before school to see if that lowers his tolerance or calms him.
We are in the middle of these same issues. Daniel who has FAS has good days and bad, but on any given day, he has a hard time listening to me, and when he doesn’t get his way he can be aggressive. It has gotten somewhat better, but he still takes a swing at me when he gets mad. He is not really aggressive at school, but he is terribly impulsive. Yesterday, at the bus stop, he was making fun of his “friends” and being disrespectful to me. I know what I “should have done”, but I wanted him to go to school and avoid a major meltdown and wrestling match. I realize now that sometimes I just try to avoid confrontation with him, which really doesn’t teach him anything. But, I did decide that he will not ride the bus for a while, which he loves the bus and he had consequences yesterday afternoon when he got home from school. This [raising these boys] ranks with one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life. I am trying to decide what to do with this experience besides share with other adoptive families. Really though, some days it takes all my energy just being Mom. Thanks for writing this blog.
Becky,
I belong to an adoption group (yahoo but we all met through my agency). Everyone on there says their kids on doing great! But, behind the scenes some of them email me with questions on how to deal with behavior issues.
I am certainly not the one to ask all the time but the been there, done that kind of questions I can answer.
Right now were are starting to see the start of the downslide…the impulsiveness, the serious aggression, not listening, attention issues, etc.
I know that pre-adoptive parents need to hear these things but the problem is it would probably scare them away so agencies won’t do it.
THIS is the SOLE reason I freelance.
I have just been able to catch up. I agree as well that agencies do not do a good enough job of preparing pre-adoptive parents. I felt we got mixed messages; we had one all day training session about “adoption issues” which included RAD, developmental delays and the possibility of FAS, BUT the louder message I heard was there are more healthy childrenavailable and waiting for families in international orphanages than there are children in the US. SO, we thought, we will get healthy cheldren who will have ‘mild adjustment” provbems. When we got home with our boys, everyone remarked at how well they seemed to be adjusting and how bright they were. And they were, but home life was a differenjt story. After about 2 years of post placement visits, we finally started seeing the truth; they had more than just discipline problems, they had complex trauma, ect. Being mad at the agency does no good, we didn’t believe dissolution was an option or necessary (although, I’d be lying if I didn’t say we wanted to send them back a time or two). Anyway, I am wondering if more pre-adoptive parents need to hear from post-adoptive families. We only heard from the ones that said “We’re doing fine!”
I have been reading, I just ended up being super busy with the holiday, my “kid” brother visiting from Israel and trying to help sort out that Canadian adoption fiasco and some health issues.
The foundation I work for is originally for aiding families and caregivers of people with special needs. It has been only recently that adoption issues were referred to us and we have been trying to help families adopting out of the predominantly Hungarian areas of Romania and mostly Italian families adopting from Hungary. And oh boy, are there problems!
Hevel, I wondered where you were!
I’m glad you can help families like the one you did. Kids need people like you. I know of several people who do this type of thing for Russian children and personally, I think it helps save those children’s lives.
When I read the news about this case I thought something smelt funny about it. However, as an adoptee and as someone who worked with families adopting special needs children, the dissolution of adoption is often the best thing to do. Mine own adoption was, fortunately, dissolved shortly before I turned 18. (I think I commented here about why that was the best solution for me.)
I think the way adoptions–and many times cross-cultural adoptions–are handled by certain agencies can add to the stress of the child or family life not being like the parents thought to be.
Just recently I helped with the re-placement of a young Hungarian Roma boy who was adopted by a Canadian family at age 16 months about two years ago. The agency that handled the adoption never explained to the parents that the child was ethnic Roma, that the child spent his first year in an overcrowded, overstimulating environment with his birth family, the reasons of the removal of the child from the home and many other things. Luckily the child could be placed with an ethnic Roma family in Toronto, so he wasn’t returned to Hungary.
Oh, certainly. We have worked VERY hard with our son and we thought we were prepared for what he would need.
Our agency schooled us on attachment issues. They did not give us adequate information on sensory issues, severe developmental delay, PTSD, institutional autism, and speech and language delays, all of which our son has.
Our agency made us read books but what we needed was more personal time with our agency…perhaps forums with other adoptive parents to tell us the truths about what is really happening.
I agree that pre-adoptive parents who want perfect little children. I see it all too often. And they are shell-shocked when they get home. Gosh, even my parents are still in la-la land when it comes to my son. They want him to conform to their needs and it just does not happen.
People don’t realize how hard adoption really is…I often get the feeling that people think it is the easy way out and it isn’t.
I agree with you that agencies often sugar coat the potential problems. This is one serious issue that needs to be addressed. On the other hand, I maintain that in this day and age, unless you live in a home without internet access, it is inconceivable to me that you can adopt a child and not have at least a cursory understanding of some of the risks involved and some of the physical and emotional issues that may arrive. It’s easy to blame agencies and social workers, and some of them are to blame. But I’m so sick of people sticking their fingers in their ears, of expecting a child to meet THEIR needs, and then returning the kid when, no, she isn’t the cooperative little dressup doll you always dreamed of. So while I DO agree that it is best for a child to live in a home where the family is committed to working through any issues, rather than a family unequipped to deal, I think there is far too much blame placed on broken children and irresponsible agencies/social workers. How about personal accountability?