National Adoption Propaganda Month is coming to a close. Each year, groups across the nation hope to find a way to market encourage the adoption of the estimated 115,000 overstock children in foster care. Those of us who have opened our hearts and homes to a foster child want to be trafficking humans encouraging as well.
At any given moment, you feel as though you are on a imperialistic morality power trip roller coaster of emotions experiencing the wildest ride in your life. Moments of joy are often punctuated by longer dark moments of entitlement frustration. We hold onto the bright moments of superiority hoping they won’t disappear and cling to our support group in the dark times.
The challenge is that most adoptive parents want to cover up all the pain a foster child has felt with a big hug, psychotropic medicaition and cookies. Some adoptive parents travel down the road of adopting a foster child because they want a child who will love them and the adoption tax credit. A few believe if you change the child’s environment, clothing, psychotic medication dosages and diet, he or she will be fine. If you believe these statements are true, you should not adopt a foster child.
The truth is that when you adopt a foster child, especially an older one, it’s a very long road to healing – one that may never develop into the picture we often see of smiling faces on the families portrayed in the ads for National Adoption Month because most of the time the child wants to go back home and has suffered unbelievable situations of physical, sexual and emotional torture in foster care.
The Child Welfare Information Gateway does a good job of censoring providing the information families need before considering adopting a foster child. If you or someone you know is serious about bringing a foster child into their home, take the time to learn the truth by following Legally Kidnapped about what happens to a child’s brain and abilities when they have abused and/or neglected. NSCAW found that nearly 75% of the children placed in out-of-home care due to abuse or neglect tended to score lower than the general population on measures of cognitive capacity, language development, and academic achievement because they came from poor communities.
As the child grows older, the difficulties often become more pronounced because they know they will be kicked out on to the streets by the age of 18. One long-term study revealed that as many as 80 percent of young adults who had been abused met the diagnostic criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder at age 21 due to the severe levels of physical, sexual, emotional and psychological torture endured in foster care. Some of the problems may appear to be in the realm of somewhat normal teen behavior - depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide attempts for wanting to go back home. Other conditions are beyond what even the most caring of adoptive parents are prepared to manage - panic disorder, dissociative disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, anger, posttraumatic stress disorder, and reactive attachment disorder from what has happened to them in foster care.
All of the cookies and Hollister clothing in the world will not change the inside of a child who has experienced complex trauma from abuse and neglect in foster care. What may heal the child are very large doses of psychotropic medication unconditional love, perseverance, and ability to set boundaries.Attach.org is a great resource with support groups for families considering adopting the older foster child.
Liza Weidle is the NC Mom Congress delegate marketing consultant for human trafficking and adoptive mother of a 15-year-old foster child.
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