US parents try to 'unadopt' son
The newspaper said confidential files revealed that the boy's biological parents, who were alcohol and drug addicts, had physically abused him to the extent that his brain stem was damaged - hindering his ability to gauge the passage of time.
Read More: https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/Hi/americas/6035447.stm
I couldn't access the relevant page for this, but from the short introduction to this news, it sounds like the adoptees were already aware before they applied for adoption that the child was already damaged health wise to a great extent.
This always saddens me, when I see the break down of placement within adoptions. It is a lot more common than many people think. I know that the ratio in the Uk of adoptive placements working out is far lower than the ratio of adoptions failing, and the child/children falling back into the 'system'.
When going through adoption procedures to start off with, these points are made very clear to the adoptees, as realistically they have to be made very aware of the facts for everybody's sake involved.
I know that when a breakdown has occurred, these children have to endure the sense of loss twice over, once from their birth families, and again through an adoptive placement. The damage ensued by these children is normally irreparable, and sometimes never get over their feelings of abandonment and grieving, which unfortunately carries through to their adult lives even to affecting how they themselves parent their own children.
Children that come through the care system rarely are not damaged in some way or another, and I think that regardless of how strenuous or difficult things may be, when you have adopted a child, you have made a commitment to them for the rest of their lives.
(Sorry if this offends anyone, but I'm telling it how I see it!)
What I can personally add, is that having adopted 2 young children with special needs and behavioral difficulties, life isn't always a bed of roses, (sometimes it is, ) but rarely so, but the whole point to adoption should surely be that you are offering the child/children a chance of a life that they wouldn't otherwise get, and by sending them back, you are really not behaving much better than the birth parents, and instilling a sense of 'self worthlessness' for the rest of that childs life, causing catastrophic future damage.
International Level: Activist / Political Participation: 29 2.9%
QUOTE |
I couldn't access the relevant page for this, but from the short introduction to this news, it sounds like the adoptees were already aware before they applied for adoption that the child was already damaged health wise to a great extent. |
QUOTE |
According to the Washington Post, Helen and James Briggs adopted the boy six years ago, after Mrs Briggs - a foster mother - fell in love with him. But in 2003 the boy, who cannot be named, sexually abused a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. Mrs Briggs said it was only then that she discovered his troubled past. The newspaper said confidential files revealed that the boy's biological parents, who were alcohol and drug addicts, had physically abused him to the extent that his brain stem was damaged - hindering his ability to gauge the passage of time. The files also suggested that he had been sexually abused. The boy had been in and out of five foster homes since he was 16 months old, in psychiatric institutions seven times and diagnosed as possibly psychotically bipolar... She had wanted to bring the boy home after his sex offender treatment, following the case in 2003. But then psychologists labelled him a sexual predator, meaning she would have to give up being a foster parent, which she sees as her livelihood, and would no longer be able to allow her three grandchildren in the house or keep a young girl she had fostered from birth. Mrs Briggs decided to dissolve the adoption, which requires the consent of the boy, who is now back in foster care. But so far he has refused. She is said to be asking politicians to help her find a way out.... "At first blush, you think 'What, you're trying to give up your kid?'", Virginia politician David Albo told the Washington Post. "Then you find out this lady has received awards for all the foster work she's done. And that she never would have adopted the boy and put other children in danger if she had had the information that was withheld from her." |
International Level: International Guru / Political Participation: 1089 100%
Thanks for that LDS, it makes it clearer now.
Many cases have been like this in the 80's and 90's here in the UK, and people have successfully sued Social Services for not disclosing information here in the UK. These days, to some extent, Social Services do seem to have learnt their lesson, and it's a pity it's going to take similar cases in the US to make them alter their ways.
I can't go into much detail, due to confidentiality, but I can say that in the 90's in the days when Social Services here used to hide information, that we had a boy placed with us to foster with very similar behavior, and we were led to believe that he didn't have any behavior problems, when the sinister reality was that he wanted to murder everybody in our house, was diagnosed as a social deviant and a paranoid schizophrenic, and he was only 6 years old. I can only say that the time he spent with us was a living nightmare and we were afraid to sleep at night. We were called into his school because he sexually assaulted the head of the school, and finally psychiatrists eventually detained him in a permanent psychiatric unit, only when he had thrown 2 of social services pet dogs down the stairs and broken their legs. I begged for social services not to do this to this little boy, but their minds were made up, as they deemed him a menace to the public.
It turned out that because all his foster placements previously had failed, the social services decided that his best chance would be not to divulge any of this information to any carer.
To fully understand where these feelings within the child come from, you first of all need all the information available to hand.
It sounds like the social services in this news case had also gone down the route of what the carers don't know won't hurt them. This in turn is doing no-one any
favors, and from personal experience, I can't see much worse or harrowing picture in my mind than a 6 year old, locked up in a mental institution, when they weren't born that way, but are a product of what mankind can do to each other.
I hope soon that the laws in the US will also change, so that they know that it is not acceptable to carry on messing up childrens lives like this.
It's so very tragic when we are talking of lost youth and childhood , and it happens time and time again.
This is one of the reasons that we stood up for our 2 adopted children, and fought social services so that they couldn't split the children up from each other.
International Level: Activist / Political Participation: 29 2.9%