Candace

Talmadge

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February 20, 2009

Real Heroes? Those Who Adopt Older Children, Risks and All

We like to celebrate police and firefighters and, lately, airline captains as heroes. But my vote goes to all those who foster-parent or adopt older kids from the nation’s child welfare system. They are unsung American heroes whose stories are both inspiring and cautionary.

Frankly, adopting an older child out of the welfare system is an enormous risk unsuited to the faint of heart. According to a 2007 report to Congress, more than half (58 percent) of the families who managed to run the gauntlet and adopt older children described their child as “difficult or very difficult to parent.” Children in the four-year study “exhibited an average of 10 difficult behaviors, including the following: violating rules of conduct (70 percent), verbal aggression (55 percent), physical aggression (48 percent), stealing (48 percent) and vandalism (31 percent).”

This detached, clinical language cannot begin to convey the emotional havoc (not to mention expense) these kids can wreak in the lives of those trying to help them.

“We know the kids we get will probably have problems,” says Carol, who, with her husband, Ted, (names changed for privacy) is trying to adopt an older child from the welfare system. “We know we’re going to have to invest in therapy.”

It’s one thing to be forewarned intellectually. It’s another thing entirely to experience the emotional reality of trying to cope with such adoptive children. One couple I know well adopted an 11-year-old girl and her five-year-old half sister from the Texas welfare system back in 1993.

On paper, they were the perfect adoptive parents for challenging children. Both of them are mental health professionals who addressed the issues of kids in the welfare system every day in their work. But even they were caught completely off guard by the extent of their children’s difficulties.

The older girl never bonded with her new parents and never tried to do so. Instead, she was a chronic runaway. A year-and-a-half after the adoption was finalized, the older child left for good, refusing to return. She wanted to go back to her biological mother even though the woman had abused and neglected her.

Stunned and heartbroken, the couple faced the turmoil of finding the older girl a place to live, dealing with the biological mother’s changing demands and keeping all of this information away from their younger daughter, wounded yet again by her elder sister’s abandonment and betrayal.

As she grew up, the younger girl became more and more of a problem, too, exhibiting behaviors like stealing, lying and refusing to do her homework. The couple spent thousands of dollars not only on therapy for this child, but on remedial tutoring – all in vain. As a teenager, this girl finally was diagnosed as bipolar, which helped explain much of her bizarre and infuriating behavior.

Today the younger daughter, who has not earned a high school diploma and is now 20, no longer lives at home but visits her parents occasionally. They are relieved to be free to get on with their lives and restore their shattered marriage, which was stretched to the breaking point over these two pathetic, broken children.

“Most states are lousy about telling parents the truth about the kids they adopt,” Carol says.

No kidding. That was indeed the case for my friends, who never learned the full truth about their adopted daughters until long after it was too late.

Of course, states have a vested interest in their lack of candor. Truth in advertising can lead to buyer’s remorse when there’s still time to back out of the deal. Those who do taxpayers a favor, however, by wanting to remove children from the welfare payroll deserve nothing less than the complete truth about the kids they are willing to take into their homes and hearts. Candor and full disclosure are in everyone’s best interest, most especially the children’s.

Perhaps if adoptive parents know it all and still agree to go forward, success rates will go up. 

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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