Adoption

[huskat]

Has anyone ever been a part of an adoption of kids from a dysfunctional home? Not "putting cigarette butts out on your forehead" type of dysfunctional, but definitely dysfunctional, nonetheless. The type of dysfunction that is generally foreign to successful families.

The parents often aren't awful human beings fit only for a prison cell, and more times than not the kids could not love their parents any more. They are their heroes, and can do no wrong, even when they see them doing wrong. They grow to act like them, talk like them, and learn to be just like their dysfunctional parents. They don't know any different. The kids were brought up on dysfunction, they know only dysfunction, it is their "normal". When things don't go their way, their first instinct is to resort back to dysfunction. It's comfortable. Chips off the old block, they are.

When kids from this environment get adopted into a non-dysfunctional (though far from perfect) family, it is very difficult for everyone. It's like another planet for adoptive parents and kids alike. That transition is very rough on everyone, and problems, behavior, and attitudes don't get changed overnight (both for the adoptive parents and kids). Could take years. Sometimes they never do. Sometimes...they do.

Just an overly dramatic thought I had. Carry on.

 

[Spartanhusker]

Not in the way you describe, but I've seen adopted children have either spectrum of effects on families. In the case of my son and daughter in law, after the death of their infant, adoption was really their only option and it has been great...so far, and with God's richest grace, ongoing. My own parents took in two kids on separate occasions from dysfunctional homes(though wildly different cases) and it was GREAT for the kids taken in...but not so much for me, as a 13 year old at the time. To me, it made US dysfunctional, but I was alone in that thought.

Not sure this addresses your original thought but there you go....

 

[ohio_husker]

It makes a huge difference on the age of the adopted child/children. The younger ones obviously have not had the behaviors ingrained so much and adapt much easier. This is why so many older children in transitional care (ie. foster care) have a hard time finding permanent families. They have adjusted to the environment that they have had to cope with for long enough to survive, that when they are put in a stable and structured situation, it is extremely difficult for them to handle for so many reasons. It is also hard to find adoptive parents that can effectively handle the transition, for the length of time required, to allow these kids to adjust.

 

[kerpal_68]

Maybe Riley can send some of them back to the foster home.