e-mail
It’s not so much that I’m writing Parts 2 or 2,000 on traumatized children, but all my posts reflect this reality in our life that has resulted from the adoption of older children.
Continuing to expound upon Focal Point, “a strong relationship with a caregiver is by far the most potent buffer against child traumatic stress. This is precisely the asset that children involved with child welfare typically lack. When children lack a secure bond with a caregiver, they are highly vulnerable to the immediate effects of trauma.”
I am all for the foster care efforts, for the theory involved in parental reunification. I agree, overall, that it is in the child’s best interest to not have a broken parental bond. That said, I’d also like to take the other side, and wail about how long parental termination takes. Once a parent has repeatedly demonstrated a complete unwillingness, or an inability, to follow a case plan, please think of the children’s rights and terminate this dead end.
All too often, even after decades and generational involvement with Child Protective Services, we will see caseworkers keep trying to repair a dysfunctional family that doesn’t even want to change, preferring a life of drugs and alcohol.
My family is comprised of children who were left in the system too long, whose parents did nothing to get the children back, who continued to live with registered sex offenders, who would not sober up, nor stay out of jail, or who did not care anything about providing for their family.
“Additionally when traumatic stress is left untreated-or when it is compounded by ongoing experiences of instability and uncertainty in the absence of a strong attachment to a caregiver-problems begin to multiply and can impact every area of the child’s functioning.”
Unprepared, untrained, or overly naïve adoptive parents are then in for a shock as their new child, or children, will not respond immediately to “good” parenting. Instead very angry children, trusting no one, destructive, and often deceitful and larcenous arrive in their new homes, and immediately set about to destroy this relationship before it too lets them down. Disruptions inevitably occur, the cycle continues, and ultimately the child will age out of the system, labeled ‘unadoptable’ and will then be sentenced to a statistical likelihood of homelessness or jail.
“Cognitive, attentional and emotional resources that are normally devoted to learning, exploring and developing are instead devoted to coping and survival strategies. While these strategies may work to protect the child in the short run, they are often maladaptive in the long run, resulting in problems with forming healthy attachments, regulating attention and emotion, and learning. In turn, these cascading problems leave children vulnerable to further traumas and victimization, and increase the likelihood of school failure, substance abuse, and involvement in anti-social activity.”
Yup, the teachers are going to call us up, tell us how adorable our children are, yet how lost they seem to be in class, shutting down, refusing to work, looking like their brains are a million miles away, or worse yet acting out rudely. And these are the fortunate children, who’ve survived the traumas and made it into an adoptive family, yet it takes years for the children to accept that.
In the meantime, we, as parents, must seek the professional help that our children need, swallow our pride because we can’t “fix” them with our love. Our love is the number one ingredient necessary, but it takes so much more in terms of resources, commitment, strength, wisdom, counsel, stability and security.
I agree with you Cindy. It took the courts 4.5 years to terminate on 5 kids from the same family, despite the fact that mom was convicted of sexual assault of a minor.
The best interest of the child does not always come into play.
And then it falls on us to try and repair all the damage….