Just how bad can life be with an adopted traumatized child? After all, it is just a child, right? For most people a picture comes to mind of a sweet cuddly child, who is just looking for love, understanding, and positive reinforcement. With enough love, any child can be turned around. Those people who fail, they just do not try hard enough or they are just too critical. Before I began more than a decade of foster care, I might have said these things myself. Before I began fostering older children, I believed these things myself. After years of attending support group meetings, providing respite care to desperate parents, and mentoring foster, and adoptive parents I know a different truth. If you have not parented a child like this, then you have no clue what it can be like living 24/7 in the same house. I bring this up because of the recent abandonments of teenagers in Nebraska. 

I belong to a yahoo group for parents who live with children exposed to alcohol before birth. Without giving too much information, I would like to share some pieces of a recent plea made on the group for help. This is an extreme situation involving a very young child. Many will have trouble believing a child so young is capable of such extreme behavior. I am sure that is why this mother is having so much trouble getting the help for her child even though she has been begging for help. Even her husband is doubtful. Apparently, the child does not misbehave when Daddy is present.

Linny and her husband have adopted several times: Internationally; through the foster/adopt system; and transracially through domestic adoption. (Five infants, three older child adoptions)They have known the joys and disappointments of adoption, having placed one child into residential (with no help from the state system) ; reversing/dissolving another adoption, and having one child re-adopted. She and her husband have three little ones at home now and are hoping to adopt one more.

I recently responded to a blog concerning the controversy over the Nebraska safe-haven law and what the state systems consider 'abandonment'. I'd like to take a moment to give a perspective of what it can be like to deal with older adopted children who choose (or cannot) change their behaviors in order to live in a safe traditional home. 

Yesterday, I wrote an article about why spanking is not usually effective when disciplining the adopted child who has suffered trauma. I promised to write today on what does work and why. I mentioned offering rewards or dangling carrots in front of the traumatized child to modify behavior as a successful method. After 14 years of providing foster care, respite care, and day care to well over 100 children, and 25 years of parenting, we have tried about everything.

Although it is the most common form of adoption in the United States, very rarely do I run into other adoptive stepparents like myself. When we moved and I found out that neighbors of ours were an adoptive stepfamily just like ours, where it was the stepmother whom adopted, I was thrilled to finally find someone that I could chat with about being an adoptive stepparent. Sadly, we learned very shortly after moving in that the family was in great trouble, and sure enough the mom packed up and moved out.

There were two boys, the one that they had together she took with her, the one that she had adopted, she left behind. At first she came a few times to let the boys play together, drop one off, or maybe take the other with her, but within a few short months visits had stopped altogether.

She had found someone new, filed for divorce, and moved away. She no longer contacts the child whom she had adopted, supposedly loved, cared for and raised. She went from being mom to being nothing, with no goodbye; no anything.

Mom's House, Dad's House: Making Two Homes for Your Child author: Isolina Ricci asin: 0684830787

Now Ma’am, if you would just calm down some, your child would not become so out of control. You are overreacting and scaring the poor darling. Children at this age need a little privacy and freedom from parenting. Is there anywhere she can go to let things cool down for a few days instead of the juvenile home? Look at her; she doesn’t belong there, why she looks like an eight year old.

Officer, before you give me parenting tips, you might want to check my child’s record. She was just released from the juvenile home last Monday. She is on house arrest and running away is a violation of her probation. She is actually 12 years old, and that was her third stay at the juvenile home. I need you to arrest this child for assault. I am pressing charges. You see the black eye that she gave me just before she threw her lunch across the kitchen? She wanted me to run to the store to get her a F*%$@&^ croissant for her sandwich and I wouldn’t do it.

You accepted a foster placement last night, sight unseen. It was one of those middle of the night emergency placements. There was a preliminary CPS sob story, “Fostermommy, I’ve called every other foster family on the list and you are my last hope, can you please take this 15 year old child? I’m sure it will only be for a few weeks, maybe less. Her mom just has to obtain separate housing from a boyfriend.” Well, you’ve heard similar stories if you accept emergency placements. You know nothing about the child in advance, except the gender and possibly the age, although both have been known to be incorrect upon arrival. Foster children have also had their parents’ rights to them terminated after waiting two years for mom to obtain separate housing. It was a weak moment so you accepted the foster child placement. You let the poor darling sleep in after such a rough night and because she arrived so late. When the child finally wakes up the next afternoon, you realize that night and day have more in common than your family has with this child. Can you possibly make this foster child fit into your family?

Nancy Spoolstra is the parent of two biological and three adopted children. All three adoptees exhibited serious emotional issues associated with early breaks in attachment and traumatic beginnings. The youngest and healthiest adoptee, Beth, joined Nancy ’s family after disrupting from her first placement two weeks before her third birthday. Nancy is the Founder and Executive Director of the Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN), a national organization dedicated to supporting families in their efforts to parent and live with traumatized children. Additionally, ATN advocates for appropriate services and mental health options for this special group of children. More recently, ATN has recognized the need for adult adoptees to access services, support and resources that would enable them to address their own issues of attachment and loss and progress in their journey towards emotional health and healing.

Finally, after several months of running hither and yon, I am starting to come up for air. This past few months, ever since I ceased blogging on another adoption blog site, my life has been pretty much non-stop. I have had a standing invitation to blog on this site for several months, but I haven’t had time to blog anywhere! 

I exhibited and/or presented at two conferences out east, traveled to Alaska with my family on a cruise, sandwiched a few days in between to watch the Olympic swim trials in Omaha (with my swimmer daughter …) and spent the last couple of weeks in computer hell, trying to rebuild my older PC and get my new one loaded with all my stuff. I did my first two stints as an “official” Stroke & Turn judge for Beth’s swim meets (in 90+ degree heat) two days in a row, and followed that with an all-day photography seminar where we took photos of several different models. Following the photographer/teacher into the tall grass to shoot this picture netted me some great shots and about 40 chigger bites. It has been a long, splotchy, itchy week.

Summer can be particularly stressful for RAD children because of the lack of structure. You try to offer routine and structure over the summer. However, it is nearly impossible to plan an activity for each minute, eight hours a day, as the school does. There is the added difficulty of having the RAD child spend all day, everyday, with the adoptive family. The close proximity to the significant parent figure seems to overwhelm the RAD child, which usually results in a meltdown. Meltdowns can occur over what appears to be the most insignificant of causes. P an 11-year-old female is now on her third lodging at the county juvenile home. She has also had two; short-term stays, in residential treatment. P was adopted with her birth siblings by their foster parents, after three years in the foster home. On Sunday afternoon, P mixed up some tuna fish and mayonnaise to make a sandwich. She opened the refrigerator and searched furiously, then demanded, “Where are the hamburger buns.” Her mom calmly answered, “There is the bread; we are out of hamburger buns.”

Has the severity of foster child behaviors been increasing over the years? Some people, including teachers, foster parents, and workers believe that it has. There are those who attribute the increased violence to television and video games.

When should you ask your foster care worker to remove a foster child from your home? Most agencies, including mine, require a written two-week notice of intent. Sometimes, the thought of waiting two weeks can be a little scary if the child is acting out severely. Therefore, if you notice behaviors and attitude starting to escalate, it might be a good idea to go ahead and submit your notice. If things calm down, you can always withdraw your request to have the child moved.

I realize that it sounds like I am advocating for having a child moved. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. I do realize that it is rarely