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Accueil arrow L'adoption en Russie arrow Santé et éducation arrow psychologie arrow More About the Children Available for Adoption part 4
More About the Children Available for Adoption part 4
14-08-2009

Roger Ridley Fenton

Abused Children in the New Family

A special problem with sexually or physically abused children is that they sometimes make false accusations of abuse against their new parents. There are a number of reasons why children do this, not all of them malicious. This is traumatic for the parents, of course, because an accusation like this can result in the accused parent having to leave home or all the family’s children being taken into care. It can also be traumatic for the children, including the one making the accusation, and it is almost impossible to disprove sexual abuse.

 But paedophiles are often ingenious and patient, and there are cases where paedophiles have adopted and fostered children whom they have then abused, often for many years before being caught. They also find jobs in children’s homes, as social workers, and even get onto adoption and fostering panels . In some cases, paedophiles adopt with the sole purpose of abusing their new children, although most probably slide into abuse afterwards in the same way as some birth parents do.

There are also cases where an abused child becomes an abuser in his new family or community, abusing younger children or bullying them, or being cruel to animals. These children need urgent and long-term intensive treatment. It has been known for social workers to hide information that points to the potential for this kind of behaviour in order not to jeopardise a prospective placement, and agencies have been successfully sued as a result. But it is more common for the sexual abuse genuinely not to have been disclosed to anyone prior to placement. Some experts recommend that adoptive and foster parents assume that any child they take has been abused and act accordingly, just as some experts recommend that you assume any child placed with you is HIV+. I don’t go that far, but it is definitely a good idea to assume the possibility of abuse and to always (for many years) bear that in the back of your mind if unusual or inappropriate behaviour starts to show itself. It is also now standard practice among good adoption agencies to prepare all prospective adopters for the possibility that a child placed with them will have been sexually abused, and to teach them the basics of how to deal with this. Even if their child hasn’t been previously abused, there is always the possibility of abuse after placement, as the sad case of the Scottish comedian Wee Burney (Eric Cullen) — abused by a paedophile ring led by his adoptive uncle — demonstrates.

It is often specified by social workers that neglected or abused children should be the youngest by a good margin in their new families. I’m not convinced that this is necessary, although it makes sense that older existing children will act as role models for the new child, and you should be sure of their co-operation. There can be dangers in adopting a child older than your existing children, if he may himself become an abuser.

Love is a strange thing, and children can love the most inadequate parents (thank goodness, for all our sakes; if love were predicated on worthiness most of us would be pretty lonely). Neglected and even abused children will often love their parents very much, in spite of everything, and unless there are child safety issues — which can often be overcome by professional supervision — the adoptive family will need to be open to the possibility of contact, for children who want it. On the other hand, the pro-contact lobby among adoption professionals has gone to unreasonable extremes in a few cases, with unwilling children now being required by court-imposed contact orders to have face-to-face contact with abusive birth relatives by social workers who think it will be therapeutic for them.

If you feel social workers are pushing direct contact with the birth family against the best interests of your child or against his wishes, you should say so. You can always threaten to withdraw from the placement before the adoption order; if the social workers are desperate enough to find a new family for the child or sibling group, this gives you a good lever. Even at the time of the adoption hearing or later, you can challenge a contact order which you feel is damaging your children, and contact arrangements which are not part of a contact order are unenforceable. Just make sure that you are truly acting in the children’s best interests, guided by their expressed wishes or obvious behaviour, and not simply motivated by punishment or revenge against the parents, your own outraged morality, or fears about your own status in the children’s eyes.

Adopting abused children requires special people with special preparation, because the problems these children bring with them are the most deeply seated, most pervasive and most intractable, and the full extent of the damage they have suffered is often not apparent in the early months or years. Unfortunately, especially with sexual abuse, such children are often placed with new families who have been totally unprepared for the challenges, simply because the social workers did not themselves know what had happened to the children. You do need extra skills and great inner resources, outside professional help, a sympathetic and helpful extended family and friends, and a strong marriage or partnership able to withstand tremendous strain. But there is nothing to compare with the achievement of bringing a new life and future to an abused or neglected child and watching her take the opportunity, maybe slowly at first, then more confidently, and blossom into a competent, emotionally secure adult.

 

Children of Incest or Rape

In some cases women or girls who become pregnant as the result of rape or incest do not obtain a therapeutic abortion, either because of their own religious beliefs or because they go to the doctor too late. Some of these babies are kept by their mothers, who can love them in spite of the way they were conceived. Some mothers are unable to accept the children, and some victims of rape may be forced to relinquish their babies by their horrified families, and they become available for adoption.

Personally I cannot understand why some potential adopters turn up their noses at these children, but they do. It is one of the “problem” categories social workers ask about when interviewing potential adopters. But these children are hardly responsible for their own origins; it is not as if they were tainted with the mark of Cain, except in the eyes of a few bigots. The risk of genetic problems in the case of children of incest is a little higher than normal, but still not great. In terms of day-to-day raising, like foundlings and other babies, children of rape and incest present no more problems than a child born to you, although children of rape may have psychological difficulties later due to a lack of information about their birth fathers.

Some potential adopters may find it hard to explain to them how they came to need adoption (and it must be explained sooner or later) without condemning their birth fathers. If you feel you can’t cope with this kind of background, tell the social workers. If you are unsure how you would cope, remember that counselling is available to prepare and support you.
 
 

Brothers and Sisters: Children in Sibling Groups

There are many sibling groups available for adoption. They range from two children (including twins) up: the largest I’ve heard about in this country is seven; although there was a group of eight in the USA a few years ago, and the American news agency Associated Press (AP) ran a story on 6 June 2001 about an orphaned sibling group of 16 in the state of New Mexico who were being kept together by a building contractor and his wife, who were — not surprisingly — building a very large new home to accommodate them! The fact that they are sibling groups almost inevitably means one thing: grossly inadequate parenting, or worse. Reread the previous section on abuse and neglect and multiply it by the number of children in the group, each of whom will probably have experienced the abuse differently and have different needs from the others. You can count the number of orphan sibling groups per year available for adoption in this country on the fingers of one hand, and even they will have been traumatised by the circumstances leading to them needing adoption. Some of these groups of brothers and sisters are available for adoption because a single parent can no longer cope with them, or because of divorce when neither parent wants custody.

If a family is found to have abused any of its children, all the children may be taken into care and adopted or fostered. So it is possible in a group of brothers and sisters that only one or two of them will have been direct victims of abuse, although the others will have suffered in other ways: as terrified witnesses, or inversely, as spoiled favourites of parents who abused the others. This differential abuse can create very different emotional needs in the children, and adoptive families will have to be perceptive and flexible in their treatment of them.

Each child in a sibling group is a separate personality, with individual likes and dislikes, strengths and needs, which the new family needs to work with and develop. Advertisements for sibling groups make a special point of describing each child separately. Only occasionally will groups be split, usually because one of the children’s needs are so incompatible with those of the other children that they cannot be catered for by the same family. If a group has to be split it will almost always be the case that both adoptive families will be expected to ensure continued and regular contact between them. In one case I know of a very large group was unable to find one family to take them all, but the social workers managed to find two families very close together.

In a sibling group there will naturally be a leader, who may have been the surrogate parent of the family where the children were abused or neglected. There may also be a victim, but not always. Usually this will be the child scapegoated by the parents in an abusive birth family. The leader may need to be relieved of her responsibilities and allowed to have a more normal childhood. The victim will have to be supported and built up. Both will have grown up in their roles, and they (and the other children) will need help to change.

Families with serious problems are likely to have more than one kind of problem, and in a sibling group some of the children are quite likely to have mental or learning handicaps or be physically handicapped. It may be best for both new parents to stop working and become full-time mother and father for a large brood of young and school-aged children who need special help.

In spite of their problems, sibling groups have the advantage of solidarity and mutual love and concern. They have had to parent each other in the past because there was no reliable adult. The older children act as the group memory for the younger ones. The older children can also interpret for younger children, making it easier for the new parents to learn their likes and dislikes, what makes them feel secure and what makes them feel in danger. In their new family a sibling group will usually retain its cohesion, while now being able to branch out as individuals once the external pressure is relieved.

In addition to the enormous psychological strains in adopting a sibling group, there are practical considerations, especially in taking a large group into a previously childless family. Suddenly the laundry quadruples, the car is too small, the cooking pots are too small, the dining table is too small, there aren’t enough chairs or beds. Your house itself may be too small. Adoption allowances can help with some of the practical problems. A settling-in grant (one of the payments often called Section 23 payments, after the section of the Children Act 1989 which authorizes them) can buy a larger car, clothing, dishwasher, toys, furniture, bedding, etc. This can extend to a deposit on a bigger house and help with mortgage payments, or financing an extension on your existing house. If this sounds like a lot of money, remember that it costs a lot more to keep children in foster care or a children’s home. In the long run it’s a bargain in financial terms for the agency and the government, and they should expect to help as much as is needed.

A large sibling group may join your family one or two at a time, giving each child a chance to settle down a little and suss you out before the next one arrives. Certainly the introduction period for a sibling group is likely to be protracted because of the enormous amount there is to learn about each other.

If you have already raised a family you will know about the strains and joys of several children in the house. You will be experienced in dealing with competing and conflicting demands. If you don’t have any children already but have good experience of groups of children in your extended families, in voluntary work or professionally, you could also seriously consider a sibling group. Certainly you will need to be fit and healthy, flexible, understanding, resilient, and either in a strong relationship or with outside help in the form of extended family and friends, who can relieve some of the strain from time to time.

Existing children in your family may look forward to having an instant football team or an inexhaustible supply of playmates on tap, but they may also resent the intruders who seriously dilute the attention they used to get from Mum and Dad while increasing the chore workload. They can support or wreck a placement, and the social workers will assess their likely reaction very carefully. There is a lot to be said for sibling group placements where existing children are definitely older and more mature and able to help without resentment. There’s also a lot to be said for mixing the two groups of children — placing a sibling group with existing children near the same age range — where they can integrate and play together. It simply depends on the needs, good and bad points of each set of children, and your family as a whole.

Children You Already Know

In some cases you may know of a child who needs or will need adopting. It may be the child of an unmarried relative or friend, or the friend of a friend. It may be an older child who is having a hard time at home whom you have got to know and love. You cannot simply take such a child over unsupervised and expect to adopt her. And if a child just moves in with you (private or informal fostering) you do not have the legal parental responsibility you need to sign documents, consent to medical treatment, choose a school, etc. on the child’s behalf. All adoptions have to go through the social services and the courts. But given the circumstances, as long as those with parental responsibility are willing and the agency is satisfied with you as potential adopters for the child, it may well be possible. When you first contact your local authority agency you should make it clear that you have a particular child in mind.

Such an adoption has advantages in terms of knowing the child’s medical and psychological background, and contact with the birth family may be easier. But it is not an adoption to be recommended unless you are happy with a large degree of openness. If you feel that you will have to cut yourself off from a group of your relatives or friends or move to another part of the country in order to secure some kind of exclusive possession of the child, you should not go ahead with the idea.

Long-term formal fostering is an alternative here, with the advantage of continued financial help and professional advice, but the disadvantage of not giving you any legally enforceable rights to keep the child if the birth mother changes her mind or the social services decide to move the child. Fostering also does not give you legal parental responsibility, and the social services will have continuing supervision and decision-making powers.

 

 
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