Returning an unwanted child!
 

Omgosh, I really need to study but I am sitting here with my jaw on the floor. I'm watching CNN and waiting to hear about the fate of the 4 missing miners in WV, when they started talking about this story:

Grandmother: Adopted boy sent back to Russia was violent - CNN.com

We get upset when someone adopts a dog and then changes their mind and gets rid of it and that's bad enough.... but a child?!? So so sad!

All I can say is WOW. I don't think the truth will be coming out immediately. So many people are going to try to cover their behinds and point fingers. If the boy truly did the things that were described, that's disturbing. Why would a Russian adoption agency knowingly adopt a mentally unstable child out to any family?

This story is sickening on so many levels. First off when you adopt a child it should be like you have given birth to that child... sometimes children arent perfect and have problems, physical, mental or both... you should be willing to work through those problems. However, even if you decide you are not cut out for it and cannot give them the home they deserve, you do not stick a child on a plane alone with a note that says you dont want them... there are other ways to go about giving up a child. :mad:

I am not saying it's right, but I know a lot of these children in these foreign places are not treated well. As infants they are not shown affection or even touched and they become disconnected from people . This woman may not have been equipped to care for this child many people are not. It takes years and years of intense therapy for these children to even be able to live a fairly normal life. As infants touching and hugging is so important and if these comforts are not given the child will not even experience compassion or know how to have it. As mothers we teach our children by touching them and hugging them . I have watched so many stories on how this occurs and the outcome is almost always violence from these children. So before we judge lets get the whole story.. JMO

Shocking. My godchild was adopted at 13 months of age from Russia by my best friend and she is now 13 years old and the sweetest, most compassionate child I have met. I do know that a lot of these kids do have problems but one would hope you would adopt for life.

I agree it's sickening, but if you ever watched what these children are capable of doing and the degree of violence that they have you may feel differently.
They harm animals and their siblings and other stuff and sometimes the parents need to protect their family and can't do anything to help the adopted child, I am not saying this is the case in this story, but it happens a lot more than we know.
Some parents are in it till the end and will go to the ends of the earth to help the child, others can't.
I see how the children rock back and forth and are so disconnected, all this from not experiencing human touch, it's awful :(

I think it a sad situation all around.

I dont know what kind of problems this kid had but she CHOSE to adopt him and I think that at the least warrants enough compassion to place him in the hands of the right agency and not dump him on a cross country flight alone. Whatever he did, or however bad his problems were they likely were not his fault and imagine how scary it would be to be a 7 year old kid alone on a flight across the world. I am not trying to say she had to keep him, I dont know her situation or his but the way she went about giving him up is what I find fault with.

I really hope that there are some repercussions to his adopted "parents/family" for just putting him on a plane and sending him back like that, they abandoned him! If that child had issues imagine how the poor boy feels being turned away like that! His anger and frustration and vilolent tendencies could have come from previous abuse coupled with moving to a new home in a new country where they speak a different language, was unable to cope, probably had issues already of abandonment, and then was turned away again unwanted by this family that was supposed to be the beginning of a new great life and they were supposed to love him and care for him(can you tell I'm going to school for psychology). When you adopt a child you are that child's parent threw the good and the bad your supposed to help that child! To not even contact the agency saying hey were having problems maybe second thought, I mean it's absolutely ludicrous! I am enraged at this whole thing and probably rambling but this is absolutely ridiculous, there is no reason to send a child on his way like this he is only seven years old! It's just disgusting! @$%^$!

I can't believe she just put him on a plane but I will tell you this has happened in the past before with other people adopting children from Russia.. Some of these children were never touched the first years of their life and as such have real mental problems..it is so sad but it does not excuse what this woman did..

This is exactly how I felt watching this story on T.V. I work with children and we recently had to suspend a student for violent behavior and he was a challenge to say the least so I'm sure the parent got more than what she bargained for BUT she should have done everything under the sun to get him the help he needed. How can you expect to adopt a 7 yr. old child (or however old he was at the time) from another country and expect for them to not have some issues. What if her birth child was having the same behavorial issues? Would she just abandon him at the bus stop? Thinking about everything this child has probably been through makes me want to cry :(

i don't understand why people want to adopt children from other countries in the first place when there are so many right next door that need a home, but that's just my opinion.

sort of like everyone sending money to earthquake victims overseas, but so dead set against giving a dime for healthcare right here at home.

oh well -what can ya do?

I agree with you , I think maybe the person giving her advice was not a child expert so she didn't get the right advice of what to do. No, it's never these children faults , but like I said it takes years to fix what other people have done to them since birth. :( People sometimes are just not able to handle the years of fixing this problem, but yes I think she handled it wrong . :( A lot of oversea adoptions go one everyday and turn out fine , but a lot do not and I think it's cause the agencies are not disclosing critically info on these children and their problems. It's very sad :(

That is horrible. What kind of person puts a 7 a seven year old child on an airplane, alone on a transatlantic flight? I am sure this lady thought she was doing the right thing in protecting her family but common sense would tell you that a seven year old is not mature enough to go through that alone.

I am just in shock.

Elaine... your post was so touching!

I know you feel like the one who is blessed but I am sure your boys believe it is them who was truly blessed.

I think people like you are rare in this world :thumbup: My nephew also has Asperger's he is 14 and although it's under control it will never go away.
This I feel is totally different, we are talking about violence and bodily harm. There was a boy who harmed his 2 yr old sister in a very bad way *Not talking about this case* there is a difference when dealing with a severely violent child. Not being able to sleep at night or having to lock your other children in their rooms at night for fear of harm or in some cases death. I think the parents should have known from the start something was very wrong and the workers were not clueless, they knew full well what this child was capable of.
I have seen cases like this numerous times where the parents can just not handle it anymore, I am not saying this is a case like the ones I have seen, but you can't sit here and say you know how these parents feel and their daily fear if you have not lived through it. It's easy to say I would do this or I would do that * not referring to anyone on this thread I mean in general * , but we don't know what we would do if it happened to us.
Some of these children are very violent and need to be watched ALL the time, it's just not as easy and even more difficult when you have other children in the home to worry about.
Like I said I am not saying what this woman did was right, I am just saying we need to know all the facts before we pass judgement , thats all.

This is terrible . I do believe she was given bad advise if there was a lawyer ? as she stated . Some people think a child will be mentaly sound and have no issues whats so ever to be moved far out of their country ,Torn from their family and the life they knew .Nobody but the child knows what he/she had to suffer through in thier life . Just shakes my head .It's one more person that failed that child.

What an amazing, beautiful story... I had chills while reading it. We need more parents like you in this world :)

I agree, that doesn't make much sense. But then on the other hand, it doesn't make much sense that she would return him the way she did. I don't know, I am waiting to hear the true story as well because people who adopt usually are warm, caring, loving people. It's such a sad situation.

I'm in no way passing judgment. I've done a lot of research prior to adopting and Russia has one of the worse systems out there. The children live in orphanages, where normal children are placed with severely mentally handicapped children. They are often place two or three to a crib and in some cases even tied down with little to no stimulation. These children often do not become available for adoption until after the toddler stages and by then the damage is done. Also, the the children are a lot of time products of fetal alcohol syndrome. This is not the first case where a child from Russia has either been returned or put into US Foster Care due to attatchement disorder. It's unfortunate, but yes there is a big difference. Not all but quite a few children being brought home have attatchement disorders, bipolar, and a lot of it is caused due to the fetal alcohol syndrome as well as the environment they have lived in for years prior to being available for adoption. I did not read this story, but without even reading it IF the parent could not handle the child and believe me I'm not faulting the family for saying "It's too much for me to handle" but I am saying that this child should never have been sent back to Russia. The family has given this child a life sentence. As I said in foreign countries it is not like here. Once that child is returned the country does not allow for a new adoption. That child will rot in an institution because really that is what a Russian orphanage is. The best route for this family to have taken was to hand the child over to a US system were there he would have atleast had a fighting chance. I believe when you adopt you take that child as your own blood. I always tell my children you were not born in my belly you were born in my heart. I can't imagine ever handing my child back no matter what but honestly, I don't think any of us can say for sure what we'd do until we are put in that position. I thank God every day that I was never put in a position where I had to make this kind of decision.

I've seen documentaries on these children brought home from Romania and Russia and the rage they display. It's very very hard to live like that on a daily basis, to not be able to go to sleep without worrying whether the child will burn your house down, harm your other children etc. And, it's not to frighten people from adopting from these countries, but you do have to trust your attorney and your agency as unfortunately, these two countries have a very high rate of kids coming home like this. And, really it is due to the institutionalization they have been forced to live in for so many years before being available for adoption. Do any of you remember the big segment years ago, like maybe 20 years ago about the children in Romanian Orphanages and all the families rushing to Romania to adopt. I do. I watched it and it was heartbreaking. Normal children or children with something as simple as a clef palett being labeled unadoptable and institionalized. I think it was 20/20 that did the segement and went through the orphanages with cameras, some under cover. If you ever watched it you would know why this child came to him as he did. Elaine

I cannot understand what kind of a heartless person would do something like this. She is a healthcare provided and are we not suppose to have compassion? She packed a 7 yr old onto a transcontinental flight with a note! :eek: She should be charged with every crime in the book possible! Her actions have not shut down a network of adoptions and the chance for other children to have a life filled with love. How very sad:(

I can totally see your point and that is why you need to do your homework when it comes to adoptions. From your post, I can tell that your knowledge was from doing much research on this subject prior to adopting. But I think the issue is that people think "I can change him" and not fully understand it is not something that can be changed. It sounded like they expected him to become what they expected and when things started to spiral out of control they made a decision that was inappropriate or not well thought out. When you take in a living creature (child, dog, cat, whatever) you need to do as much research as possible and accept your decisions and cope as best as you can. It sounds like the adoptive mom did not take appropriate steps to address his issues and instead make a snap decision to transport him back to Russia. I cannot imagine having such fear of a child and have read stories about the condition of the orphanages in Russia and Romania. It makes me sick to think about all of those children living in those types on condition without love or even basic stimulations. Being adopted, I cannot imagine my adopted parents not loving me or living on those types of conditions. :(

Boy, there are so many sides to this issue. Being a foreign born adoptee that came from an orphanage, adopted at almost 2yrs old by overly strict religious parents who were emotionally and physically abusive. She, one summer DID try to ship me back, at the age of 12, I can see a couple of sides. I've also read cases where unstable, violent adoptees grow up to return to their adopted families and kill them in their beds. Scary stuff. Where do you draw the line? When do you take chances with your safety on someone that may or may not be rehabilitated? Most adopting parents are in it for the right reasons. Mine adopted 3 for all the wrong reasons. My middle brother and I, coming from the same orphanage (he was adopted at age 5) both suffer from reactive attachment disorder. (the youngest was adopted locally at 3days old) I am able to terminate a relationship with no lasting emotional consequences. I don't understand people that miss their parents, kids, grandkids, have roots, etc... I fulfill the socially obligatory roles and I do love my kids and grandkids. I am over the moon about my furbabies....LOL

Anyway, I guess I'm saying that if that woman was scared enough she did what she felt she had to do. Or she was like my mom and she was just abusive and carried through on a threat. There is more than one side.

I'm sorry, that your adoptive parents turned out to be physically and emotionally abusive. I think in a lot of countries requirements need to be changed and adoped parents should be checked up on, just as if they adopted here in the states. They do the fingerprint checks, to check for any crimanal records, they do a homestudy to check to make sure your home is suitable with regard to being clean and a room for the child, and through the homestudy the social worker will ask you questions about your childhood, why you want to adopt etc. yet many countries stop short after this. They failt do a psychiatric on prospective parents and they fail AFTER the child comes home to follow up on the progress and on the parenting. In my oppinion this child should be tracked for at least a year by social services to make sure that BOTH child and adoptive parents are adjusting. Unfortunately, there are holes in the system that allows for people to adopt that shouldn't have children. Guatemala, for one is one of the easiest places. There are no age limits (Which I'm not totally against since my husband is older then I) There are also no limit on the amount of children you can have (Which again I'm not totally against since other countries such as China who use to only allow one child per household, following their own govermental rules that has since been changed) and they do not require the parents to travel to the country. If the parents do travel, the child is then issued a final decree of adoption prior to ever entereing the US. This I'm against. I think the adoption should be finalized in the US and only AFTER the child has been monitored in the care of the US family for one year. I think this would prevent a lot of what happened where this boy was sent back, and I also think it would have prevented the abuse you suffered. We as adopted parents do go through a lot of background checks, fingerprinting, strangers coming into our home to ask questions that biological parents never have to go through, yet still some have slipped through the cracks and for that I'm sorry.

In our system laws are passed, yet not addressed on how to apply them. I can go on and on on this subject. I'm going through it now with my son who is 16 and his passport. Citizenship Act of 2000 was passed in 2001 it reads any US family that adopt a foreign born child and that child has come home with and RI3 Visa, that child is an automatic citizen, eliminating the step of having to apply citizenship for that child yet places like passport, NJDVM are unaware of this law and still look for the certificate of citizenship which INS no longer supplys. In order to have it, you then have to file for citizenship (Kind of silly) and pay the fee of $400 which by the way use to be $75. Then the issue with the birth certificate, many families have applied to have their foriegn child's bc ammended to a NJ bc so the child does not have to continually supply all his foreign paperwork. This new ammended bc is suppose to eliminate this and act to allow the foreign child to give just what a US born child would supply yet still places like the State Dept (of all places) still require when applying for a passport, the original foreign documents. They are not familiar with the NJ statue on the NJ BC which is law, yet they are unaware of it.

Anyway, I think you get what I'm saying. Things, laws are put in place and passed yet no one is appropriately trained in how t apply them and like everything there are holes in the system.

I'm really sorry for what you went through as a child brought to the US. And, as far as this little boy goes I pray to God that the the same loop holes help this boy slip under the Russian Laws and allow for him to be placed for readoption and not just institutionalized for the rest of his life.

Elaine

As you say, you can't legislate for every contingency. My brother and I developed RAD in the orphanage setting, before adoption. My adoptive parents would have passed any tests with flying colors, but this was 50yrs ago before any of that...LOL There are natural born families with much worse problems and that is a whole 'nother forum, I'm sure!

One less mouth to feed in that orphanage & for the sake of the $$$...definitely not the child!:(

I'm fairly neutral on this subject - I just don't feel we have all the facts yet. The adoptive parents are saying that the child reported abuse to the orphanage. The orphanage is saying that the child reported abuse from the adoptive parents. The news articles never state if the adoptive parents ever sought medical and psychiatric treatment for the child.

In a situation where the parents tried all they could do with medical attention and were truly in fear for their lives and felt they couldn't do anything more to help this child, then maybe returning him was in the child's and their best interest HOWEVER I do not believe putting a 7 year old on a international flight with a note is the right way to do it. Someone from that family should have accompanied that little boy. If they didn't feel comfortable with just one family member alone with him, then have two adults accompany him. You don't just send a child alone with a note on an international flight to Russia. That's wrong, IMO. If he truly is violent, then the agency should have known and should have said something to the adoptive parents. That IMO is also wrong.

I feel bad for the little boy though, violent or not. He's been through so much at such a young age. I pray he gets the help he needs and goes to a loving family that can give him everything he needs and he can live a normal life.

A few years ago I was watching Montel Williams. He had a show on this
very thing. There was a couple who had adopted two brother's as babies from
Russia. As the boys grew they did things that you would not believe children
could even think of to do. Became violent, abused animals, set the house on
fire, were not loving or accepted any kind of human touch. The adopted
patents tried seeking help but only to be turned away from the agency that
they adopted from. The boys were under the care of a psychiatrist and other
doctor's for observation. Parents feared for their lives. So please don't judge.
Children who are brought up in institutions in foreign countries are left in
cribs alone all day and fed in the same place. They have little stimulation
and who knows what kind of parent's they came from. Wanting to give
a child a loving home and ending up with a child that can harm you must
be terrifying. Most of those children are unadoptable but the agencies
push them out without telling future parents of their problems only to
make room for more homeless children. I couldn't believe what I was watching. But it was all true. I don't believe this child was put on a plane
without the other side being notified. There is more to this story than is
being told. Leave it to the press, because all they want to do is sell
paper's.