Re-thinking disruption...

I hope you have some patience for me today because I am sorting out my thoughts on this as I write (I can't wait to blog till I have it figured out because I don't have time and once I figure something out, I move on). 

So, as I ponder the New Realities of today's adoptive family, I really think it's time to change how we perceive an interruption in the family life of an adoptive family aka a disruption. The first point of changing our perspective is, in my opinion, changing how we perceive adoptive families. As I've said before, we aren't living Shared Fates, we are living Parallel Fates - we are socially constructed families who are put together because children/youth need parents and parents want a family unit that includes children/youth and for some reason that is deeply unique to each family, they have chosen adoption as a means of creating that unit. How or why  we all go to these places are often irrelevant to the creation of the family. That is, a child's social worker looks through files and picks one that suits the social worker's view of what is best for the child. Sometimes the child has input ie "I want siblings" or "I want to be the only child" or "I want to live on a farm" or ......  Why on earth we think a traumatized child or even the 11th social worker in the file actually knows what is best is beyond me. Too often, the family is chosen because they are the only family who will accept the child or sib group and all other factors that may support or hinder the merging of this child into this family are then pushed aside. 

Okay, now we have this socially constructed family unit and somehow it is supposed to magically transform into something that resembles society's view of "family". Generally that includes everyone developing relationships that allow opportunities for the child to blossom cognitively and emotionally and for the parents to feel good about their parenting skills and for everyone to be eventually (sooner rather than later) sitting happily around the Christmas table so very thankful to be together. Well, if you are reading this, then you know that isn't how it works out. 

In some families, in fact, in many adoptive families, we don't get that happy Christmas scene. Instead, we get anger, resentment, mental health issues, lying, violence, drugs, stealing, chronic conflict, depression, anxiety, stress, isolation, mood dysregulation and more. Most families stumble through this and if we are all together at the age of majority it's considered a successful adoption. If we don't quite make the finish line, then it's considered a disruption or a dissolution. We are broken as a family and the relationships are legally and socially terminated. Good bye, toodle-oo, hosta la vista. One way exit. 

Well friends, as I've said before, I don't agree that arriving at the youth's age of majority with the parents' health wrecked, and the relationships barely present, and the young person leaving the home filled with anger and resentment toward the adoptive parents, hey, that isn't success. And I don't think that not making it to the finish line and having the youth or child re-placed in foster care is a failure. We aren't genetic families and we don't have neurotypical children and we can't live by the same rules or have the same expectations placed on us.  Success and failure are very different for us. But, too often, we don't get a choice. If we can't live with a child or youth anymore (for whatever reason), then we are pushed out his or her life. There is no alternative that allows us to change and adapt how we relate ie youth in kinship or foster care most of the time but continuing to see the adoptive family and to participate in whatever is possible of the adoptive family life. I don't agree that simply because we can't get along in the same house or sit together for Christmas dinner (or any dinner - or even sit in the same room) that the adoption has to be over. There needs to be time and space and support for those who want to continue the relationship to do so in an alternate form - to find their own way to be a family - and to have the time for the youth and parents to mature, to learn new skills, to let go of resentments, and to create a relationship that works for them rather than one that fits a pre-determined template. 

Or, rather than placing an older child or youth into a family with the expectation that these parents will become mommy and/or daddy in the traditional, genetic sense - they are allowed to live together in a way that doesn't force expectations of relationship and roles and allows them time and support to develop what will work in their unique situation. 

I know that's a huge challenge because we have a DNA drive to be parents and to be the mom or dad. But, DNA doesn't consider adoption - it doesn't consider taking a traumatized and neurologically harmed child from one setting, to another, to another and so on, until he or she finally ends up with some random people who now claim to be mom and/or dad. 

We need to acknowledge that we are different from genetic families, and that we have to have different rules and different expectations, and that neither our successes nor our failures can be defined by past or traditional models. We need something new that fits today's adoption realities. 

Well, back to work. Please have your best day possible and stay true to what you know is right for you and your family. 

Aiming higher...

It seems that in the adoption industry, an adoption is considered successful when the family makes it to the finish line - that is, they are still together in some form when the youth reaches age 18 or so. It doesn't really matter that many of us have crawled to that finish line over the debris of broken relationships, stress related health conditions, fractured marriages, financial devastation, social isolation, a devastated sense of self- worth, and ptsd. 

Well friends, I'd like to aim a little higher than that - I'd like to aim for success to include parental health, strong marriage, stable finances, good relationships with our other children and extended family, high self-worth, well developed social networks etc. Is that unreasonable?

I don't know why it's okay for Hazardous Families to suffer. And we do suffer. For some reason, it seems like if we admit that, then we are betraying the industry or some adoption myth that must be upheld. I have never pretended that my family was all rosey - but I have also held back on much of it to protect Junior and because I'm Canadian and we tend to value privacy. 

Well, I don't see how that helped my family or anyone else. The fates still befell us in confusing and terrible ways, and continue to do so. Like you, I can't access the kind of help I need - good respite, effective professional services......... they just aren't there. 

I follow my own advice and strategies for surviving each day, but my family, like yours, needs and deserves more. Our Juniors are entitled  to a family that can maintain the energy to get to that finish line - and we have the right to get there with our relationships in reasonably good shape and with the energy to leap happily into whatever the next years will bring - you know, sort of like neurotypical parents do when they transition into their next life stage.  

So, from here on in I'm not accepting the industry's version of success --I'm aiming higher, and I damn well intend to get that finish line with Junior and myself and the rest of my family in good shape and feeling like it was worth it. 

What about you?

It isn't either/or...

So, I'm often asked lately if I now oppose the adoption of older children. NO, of course I don't. I will never be convinced that it's in any child's best interests to be denied the opportunity to grow up in a legally permanent family. 

What I do oppose, however, is the abandonment of the adoptive parents once the placement is finalized. I oppose leaving adoptive parents to manage on their own as they adapt to neurodiverse children and youth who will take years and years to reach a point of emotional regulation, if ever. And, don't let anyone tell you otherwise - all of our children are neurodiverse. Their negative pre- and post natal experiences of drug & alcohol exposure, of hearing and witnessing emotionally dysregulated adults, of neglect and abuse etc...... it doesn't leave them with neurotypical brains regardless of how sweet they look or how much attachment therapy they receive. 

I also oppose the continued use of therapies and supports that have not proven to be effective in actually helping the children to develop emotional self-regulation and relationship skills. And I oppose the lack of ongoing supports that are free and available to parents so that they aren't brought to their emotional knees when the relationship, or the potential for a relationship, with the children becomes a source of daily pain. And, I oppose the shortsightedness of the adoptive industry that revels in the early years of the adoptive family but fails to provide age and stage appropriate supports when the child hits adolescence and begins the natural process of de-taching when their brains haven't even developed to a point where they can a-ttach. 

Truly, I don't understand why people think in *either/or* terms - such as - the children either remain in foster care or they get adopted. 

How about continuing to place children and youth for adoption AND providing adoptive parents will relevant and effective skills and supports so that the parents don't develop neurodiverse brains from the years of stress and chronic conflict that is almost inevitable with our children. 

Where is the ongoing or *use when needed* respite care? Where are the courses for foster parents on the unique factors of providing respite care for adoptees? Where is the training for adoptive parents on how to manage chronic conflict - in fact, where is the chronic conflict even acknowledged as a normal part of adoptive family life?

I know that agencies and government departments who place children will site lack of funding for such services. Okay, well, first these same places have to admit that the services and supports are needed and then they can begin sourcing the finances. You can't have a goal until you have correctly identified the need. How basic is that?

Most adoptive parents pay exorbitant fees to therapists (like me) and do so by forgoing any hope for retirement savings or sometimes even for their own health care. They also don't have access to respite and if they do find it, they are too often accused of *dumping* their child, albeit temporarily. 

There are some workshops and some therapists  who provide parent support - but most often it's about increasing parenting skills, as if that will do the trick. They are presented as if learning how to manage conflict will end the conflict - or if learning how to manage a rage will end the raging - or if understanding that the child's grief that provokes the negative behaviours will resolve the behaviours. Well, if you are reading this, the you likely know that these things don't end during the child's growing  up years. With some of our children, they never end. 

What to do about this - well, the first thing is to start talking about it and that's what I'm doing here. The second thing is to start advocating for services that we need and are provided - and we need to reject the same old same old that have never brought about change. We also, as adoptive parents, need to stop being afraid to tell people how hard this path we've chosen is. We are not failures simply because our child or teen can't respond well to therapy - we aren't failures because our child or teen hasn't bought into our version of family. We aren't failures because we lead parallel lives with our children. We just are what we are - parents who are doing our best and struggling - and we are parents who need better and more appropriate help. 

So, have your best day possible - you are entitled to a better one.  

Done with silence...

Much of the truth and the challenges of adoptive family life are denied by professionals which leaves you, the adoptive parents without the resources to help you figure out how to live with a child who daily uses both words and behaviors to tell you that they are not good enough. 

She does this by rejecting your affection; by attacking you verbally and sometimes even physically; by swearing at you; by lying about you to others; by refusing to engage in the basics of family life (such as eating Christmas dinner with the family without disruption); by getting kicked out of, or quitting, every extra-curricular activity in which she asks you to enroll her; by chronic lying and stealing; by the discord created by secret contact with birth family. 

And in the process, you lose something of yourself. And you begin to believe that he is right, you are not good enough. And so you withdraw from friends who don't understand (which is likely all of them). You stop responding and you start over-reacting. You develop a sense of high and anxiety alert just like your child's. You begin to doubt your own reality amidst the lies. Yet, you still love your kid with all of your heart and instead of rejecting him in return, you endure and you keep trying and your heart aches so badly you think it will crack and you feel like your home is the saddest place in the world. 

And that, my friends, is where I think the skills development needs to take place. It is in learning how to live with a child who doesn't, and may never, care about you. It's in learning how to live a parallel fate so that while you are offering your child the opportunity to learn that life can have meaning and that relationships can be safe ---- you still have the capacity to enjoy a life of quality and meaning. You need the skills to love your child without surrendering your joy and your own emotional health. 

So now you want to know how to do that, eh? Well, I'm working on that. However, to me, the first step in this process is to start talking about it out loud. To start telling others publicly about what our lives are like. We need to make the adoption industry catch up with today's adoption realities. I have feared doing this because I don't want my children to read this or hear me speak at workshops and then think this means that I don't love them or that they are, or were, too much trouble. I have been held back because I know that my children, and yours, aren't responsible for the problems they present and so I don't want them to feel blamed or hopeless. That has kept me silent, and it has kept me from doing anything to change how things are. Well, being silent to protect my kids might have worked for some of them, but it sure didn't work a couple of them, so I'm done with that. I think it's time to shake things up. How about you?

Hey friends, you are entitled to a better day.

 

Further explaining myself...

This blog is really a thinking work in progress because its where I'm working out my thoughts and opinions on what I think needs to be talked about in the adoption industry. So, if you find I'm not very clear, well, I expect to be more so as my thoughts develop.

What do I mean about *Parallel Fates*? Well, David Kirk believed that we had to acknowledge the differences that adoption brings to a family. That meant that even though our beginnings were separate, our fates could be shared. Nowadays, the children are most often adopted after they have been pre-parented by birth parents, and at least one set or more of foster parents. They have already shared their lives, and the first steps of their fate, with many people. 

So, on to how this relates to Parallel Fates -  As you know, between the ages of about 2 and 4, children may be playing in arm's reach of each other, but they are each in their absorbed in their own little play world. They don't share, they don't interact (other than to occasionally try to take the other's toy), they don't have the same rules, or the same expectations, they have limited communication with each other, and they aren't playing the same thing. They didn't intend to be together, they were placed in the situation by well meaning parents who believe the children need the social time with peers or because the toddlers attend the same daycare. 

I think that adoptive families are often doing the same parallel type of thing because even though the parents and children live together, they share little in the way of healthy and positive communication; they don't have the same goals; they don't share the same language of feelings; they don't agree on the tasks to be done or the relationships to be formed; their values differ and clash; and, they are unsupported or even sabotaged by those who don't understand or validate this version of family. 

Furthermore, the children and the parents don't really choose to be together because their family is constructed by social workers and policies and tragedy and loss. While the parents are outwardly focused on creating their vision of a loving family, the children are inwardly focused on coping with brain differences caused by pre-natal exposure to toxins combined with the long term brain impact of early neglect & abuse. The child with substantial brain differences is expected to conform to the expectations and values and goals of neurotypical parents and neurotypical teachers and maybe some neurotypical siblings. Its a round hole and square peg kind of thing and as a result, their lives are less about sharing their fates and more about surviving their fates. 

This leaves the members of the adoptive family living very parallel lives - in the parent line most will do their best to provide Junior with everything possible to make this a functional, loving family and to help Junior reach their version of success. However, in the child/youth line, Junior's understanding of family and personal success is a result of what he experienced before this family was constructed and he will continue to react to that version for most of his growing up years. 

As always, I want to state that I strongly believe that adoption is the best alternative for children who can't be raised by their genetic parents. I also want you to know that I truly love my children. But, as I watch the changing challenges in adoptive family life, I believe we need to be having some very different conversations about what adoption means to all members of the family. The adoption industry needs to be seeking the opinions and input of those now grown adoptees who were placed after infancy. It needs to be acknowledging the challenges that current adoptive parents face in dealing with birth family and with brain differences. We can't keep pushing a perception of adoptive family life that might have been true 10 or 20 years ago, we have to deal with what we have now. 

Well, that's today's rant. 

Hey, you are entitled to a better day.

Birth parents' influence...

One of the least managed and least acknowledged issues in adoption today (in my opinion) is the impact of birth parents on the adoptive family. Most prospective or even current adoptive parents that I work with still seem to be under the impression that whatever is in the adoption order regarding contact or access will be upheld by all parties. And, many people turn to international adoption because they believe that will reduce the likelihood that they will ever have to deal with birth parents. 

Well, that might have been true years ago, but not anymore. Today, you can bet your bottom dollar that if your child is on social media, or has access to anyone else's accounts, that there will be contact with genetic family. To complicate the issue, many youths get their Facebook accounts just as they are entering their teens, possibly the worst time of all for them to have to deal with the complexity of family of origin. And, for the adoptive parents who are likely dealing with some degree of acting out, the challenge of dealing with negative birth family influences is one straw too many. It might also be a straw that you don't even know about.

And, just because you adopt a child from another country, even a 3rd world country - well, they have computers there, too, so don't expect distance or language to be any protection from unwanted or un-monitored contact. 

I've had many parents tell me that they would know if their child was having contact with bfamily because they monitor their child's Facebook or facetime, or Skype, or snapchat or instagram or kik or whatever, but hey friends, do you really think your youth is showing you all his accounts? Not likely. 

Even healthy, planned contact can create problems. When genetic grandma drags out the family album with lots of pics of mommy or daddy looking great and pics of mommy or daddy playing or holding Junior (prior to removal and adoption), this can create emotional havoc. Whether the genetic grandparent or aunt or older brother means to cause problems, well who knows, but for Junior its a clear message that she belongs elsewhere and it creates a wall of secrets as Junior attempts to hide the amount of contact or the impact it's having on how she views her adoptive parents. 

The birth parents or other genetic family members who engage in social media contact without the involvement or consent of the adoptive parents probably aren't able to consider the best interests of the child anymore now than they were when the child protection authorities removed Junior from their care. They may engage in this contact out of love and grief for the child, or it may be an issue of power and control. Who knows and who cares, because their reason doesn't change the result - which is that Junior will emotionally disengage from the adoptive family and will not perceive the adoptive parents as his primary source of guidance, emotional support, and parenting. 

We can't stop or control this contact so there is simply no point in living in denial about its impact. What we have to do with this is understand that it is yet another way in which we live parallel family lives instead of a shared family life. We have to go into adoptive family life knowing that Junior is going to be *parented* by birth family regardless of the adoption order and that this is going to create emotional walls, increase conflict, and reduce adoptive parent influence, and sabotage  adoptive family relationships.

It also results in there being a plan for Junior to return to the birth family as soon as he can. Yes, that has always been an issue, but it didn't used to be planned and encouraged by the birth parents and it didn't used to happen when Junior was still in her early teens.  

So, let's get honest with this. Let's advocate for adoption trainers to be talking about this and teaching prospective adoptive parents that ongoing and un-monitored contact between Junior and birth family will be their reality. Let's ask adoption professionals to talk about how this changes adoptive family relationships and how it changes what adoptive parents can expect from their adoption experience. 

Okay, enough for today. Please remember, you are entitled to a better day.

Parallel fates...

Shared Fate: A Theory of Adoption and Mental Health, 1964 was a ground breaking book. David Kirk helped society to shift away from viewing adoption as a secretive and slightly shameful way of growing a family into seeing it as a social construct created out of a shared need for family. Kirk acknowledged that adoptive families had differences from genetic families and that it was to everyone's benefit to acknowledge and embrace the differences.  And, that book has pretty much been how adoption has been presented ever since.  Well, times....and adoption..have marched on and now, the adoptive parents and the adoptees have more of a parallel fate than a shared fate. Today, most children are adopted at a much older age, and might well have lived with their genetic parents for years, or at least long enough to have substantial memories - both good and fearsome. They may have had access visits with the genetic parents up to the adoption placement or long after through Facebook or more formal arrangements. They may have had many moms and dads while they lived with one set of foster parents after another....with some of whom they established bonds and others whose names they never even knew. They may have ongoing contact with genetic family members who continuously remind them who the *real* parents are and basically teach the children to believe they are living in exile ( I got that magnificent phrase from an adoption expert in Toronto). Yet, somehow, there remains an expectation that the adoptive parents will step in and (as long as they take the right attachment training) will be fully accepted as the forever parents.  Not quite that easy, eh.  True enough, most adoptive parents do love their children as fully and completely as if they were born to them. Humans have DNA programming to protect and care for the young (well, most of us do) so it's not that difficult for us to see ourselves as the parents of a child who was born to another. However, that doesn't always work the same way for the children, and it has nothing to do with attachment or bonding. It has to do with a complex combination of factors including brain differences from early neglect and abuse, from fasd, from too many caregivers, and from many conditions that don't get diagnosed before adulthood, as well as from ongoing or intervening contact with genetic family.  Before you get too mad at me, I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting we go back to secrecy in adoption, even if that was possible. I'm not evaluating the rightness or wrongness of how things are, I'm only trying to bring them up for discussion and validation of the current adoptive family reality.  I also want to be clear that I love my 14 children. Currently, I have good, or at least reasonably positive, relationships with 12 of them. It's a bit dicey with 1, and 1 hates me. I'm not going to talk about my family more than that because I need to respect their privacy as most are now adults, but I felt I needed to be transparent. I am not writing this blog out of bitterness or regret in my own life - I am writing it because I am both a parent and an adoption professional and I know its long past time for the adoption industry to undergo change. I'm also writing it because I know how hurt so many adoptive parents have been because we aren't talking truth about our lives - so, here is your place to do so. You may not agree with me - that's fine - just be polite and say the things you need to have witnessed.  Yes indeed, you are entitled to a better day.  http://www.hazardousparenting.com