Posted on 11/08/2007 8:41:58 AM PST by Lorianne
Anyone who adopts needs to read Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier.
from a fellow adoptee
Welcome to Free Republic, picklehead!
Hey, all you people throwing stones at this woman...QUIT! You just do not know. I work in children’s psychiatric services and this really sounds like RAD, or Reactive Attachment Disorder. It is hell for the adoptive parents to deal with. These children have been through so much, they do not trust anyone who loves them, yet are sweet and loving to total strangers. I see so many foster children in the facility I work at who suffer from this. Sometimes these children just never do work through this, even with the most loving, understanding, wanting to adopt them, foster parents. So DO NOT judge what you all DO NOT understand and have NEVER seen first hand. I have seen children sweet one moment then hitting, biting and screaming the next the foster parent who came to see them. Just giving them love is not enough here. The bond just does not develop between them and who wants to adopt them at times. It is heartbreaking, but does happen.
“Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory”
“The penny dropped, and she realised her mother wasn’t coming to get her,” says Julie. “She had no other option but me. At that point she actually started making more effort, but it was too late by then.
“It’s hard to explain, but deep inside me I’d given up and I couldn’t go back. I began to be very anxious about what to do.”
Good Lord, this woman had won! Zahina had turned the corner and begun to bond. And then for her own selfish, petty reasons Julie gave up. Did she do this to punish Zahina for not being the perfect daughter from the start? Out of spite? “I’ll show her.” No question who the immature one is here. The damage she has done to this poor little girl is unfathomable. She should hang her head in shame rather than seek validation by going to the press. I feel no sympathy for Julie, only contempt.
So tell me...are you willing to let your adoptees look at their REAL birth records?
I am. I’m all for open records. The government should not be complicit in keeping secrets for and from its citizens.
Wow - guess Im the thread killer and the only people who want to talk are the Adoptive Parents...sheesh...you’d think they were afraid of what ADOPTEES think...
Cheers!
Please do not assume all Liberals think and behave this way. I consider myself a Liberal and (-gasp-) Democrat, but I don’t think children are disposable. For that matter, I don’t think animals are disposable either. It breaks my heart to know that every day hundreds of perfectly wonderful dogs and cats are surrendered to “shelters” that will most likely euthanize them, simply because they became inconvenient for the owners.
As far as I’m concerned, if you take a living thing in, you make a commitment to it that you must keep, even if it doesn’t turn out quite the way you want (one of my cats got sick with cancer a year and a half after I got her, her medical care cost thousands of dollars and she died anyway, but I don’t regret doing everything I could for her. Living creatures don’t come with guarantees).
Liberal though I may be, as a product of a broken home myself I actually agree that single parents are not ideal and should not adopt, especially an older child likely to need additional help and support. And if this woman was so determined to adopt, then she should have found a way to pay for whatever psychological/ social services she and her children needed. “That’s not available in Manchester” just doesn’t cut it. Do what you gotta do to make it work, lady.
While she may have done what she thought she needed to do to prevent damage to her biological daughter, she has done that daughter a great injustice by giving her a bad example of what to do when problems arise in a relationship. She has taught both girls that relationships are disposable if they’re not perfect, and other people are not to be relied upon or trusted. Sad.
Is this the Ken Blanchard who changed my life with Leadership and the One Minute Manager? Yes or no, I couldn’t agree more with your post. I’m reminded of this every day with my 15 year-old son, though I’ll admit military school sometimes sounds like a great idea!
If you know a family that is in crisis due to RAD this is a wonderful book that you can purchase at: www.beyondconsequences.com
There are ways to help the children of our future. These children will grow up to be the ones to rule our nation and we want them to have all the tools to do so.
you should have made more of an effort, not everthing is about you. your daughter will be scared from this to.i’m sure she has thought that if she is bad enough you will get rid of her to. all chidren need special attention, they all have different needs. when she started to try and love you and accept you as her mom you turned your back on her. your daughter would have came around and later in life she would of had a sister she could fall back on as a friend. sure you had good intentions but no follow through, and thats what being a parent is all about , making a child feel better about themselves and preparing them to be an adult. you seemed to be more intersted in how you felt, should have been all about the kids.thats what a adult does!
Well thank god she gave her back because its obvious she is a horrible parent.
She couldn’t love the child, but she wanted the child to love her. She couldn’t bond with the child, but she wanted the child to bond with her. She talks about the child being disconnected.....um......yeah.........ya think? She’s been ripped from her home and placed with a stranger who doesn’t love her.
When she describes the roller skating in the road incident I had to chuckle. That IS a normal child. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to tell my wonderful, normal children not to play in the road, only to catch them doing it again five minutes later. Being a parent means you tell them however many times it takes for them to understand. They don’t think they’re going to get hurt...they think they’re invincible.
With a biological child you don’t get any guarantees about their behavior..why is it any different with adopted ones.
Perhaps the mother should have had the girl sign a contract saying she would behave or lose her home.
This sickens me. Obviously this girl needed UNCONDITIONAL love, and this cold-hearted woman can’t provide it.
She should be ashamed of herself.Not for giving her back, because hopefully the girl will find a home. The pseudo-mother should be ashamed at not opening her heart and seeing the pain this girl has faced in her life. For not giving the child the ok to miss her family. For not validating the girls feelings of loving her real mother.
Simply put...you cannot expect love and respect from someone you don’t love and respect.
It is obvious as things progressed the poor girl realized to be accepted she had to march in line and live with no love. Who can blame the girl for thinking she would be sent back.
My FAVORITE part is when the woman “reassured” her she would never be sent back. And then SENT HER BACK.
What a sad 7 years of life this little girl has had. Her parents shipped her off to relatives, they split and she was put into the foster care system. Then this “mother” (and I use that term loosely) adopted her to complete her family. While there must be more to the story than the article shared with readers, Julie is self-absorbed and highly selfish without a doubt!
Julie should have done her research before adopting an older child and going through family counseling to ensure the smoothest transition possible. If resources were not available in Manchester, she could and should have gone elsewhere. I am not from Britain, but I am sure there are places outside of Manchester to seek help for children.
She talks about the material things she did to make Zahina comfortable and feel welcome, but what about the emotional things? Did she treat her like her own daughter? Maybe she tried her best, but it does not sound like it was enough. When Zahina wrote the stories and shared them with Julie, she promised not to throw her out on the streets like a naughty little cub, and immediately did what she promised not to do! Wow, that’s a great way to build her already failing sense of trust! Way to go, Mom! What did Julie expect from adopting an older child? Did she really think she would NEVER long for the mother she grew up with for several years? Dream on! From reading the article, it doesn’t sound like she tried to embrace Zahina’s feelings for her birth family, and was offended that she had feelings for them still. How immature! Children given up at birth still dream of meeting their birthparents, and miss them even though they don’t remember them. Of course a child who remembers her parents will long for them and wait for them to pick her up. How narcissistic to think Julie was that special to replace them!
I sincerely hope Julie has been barred from adopting again. I don’t know how this woman passed her adoption studies and interviews, but the caseworker that approved her should be audited and questioned!
Adoption is a lifelong commitment, even if the child you choose is a “difficult” child. You do not get a receipt or store credit to exchange that child for another one with a better temperament. As an adopted child (who was a real pain in my teenage years to raise, btw), I find it highly offensive to read “she did was what best for her daughter”. Zahina was to be her daughter too, if Julie was responsible enough to step up and be her mother.
Hopefully, Zahina will find a loving home and can find the acceptance she longs for so desperately. Above all, she is a child and deserves to be loved unconditionally and I hope she finds the love she’s searching for.
One thing I forgot to mention...
Did she ever bother to think about the impact of one of the girls being adopted and the other being her biological daughter? That can be devastating in a family, especially if Julie showed any favoritism, which she probably did based on her comments about her feelings towards Zahina’s treatment of Laura. I’m sure that Laura was not the sweetest angel in the world, and wasn’t too happy to share her mother with Zahina. Likely, Julie only saw what the “adopted” child did, and the biological child was the innocent one. I have seen this happen to one of my best friends first hand. It has caused a great deal of hurt feelings and pain, but my friend has always been the “bigger” and more mature person in the relationship never bringing up her parents treatment of her sister who is their biological child.
Welcome to FreeRepublic. The poster is not the author, so please remove your tagline.
I understand it was difficult but the damage you did to the little girl who was already in trauma is terrible. She was looking for reassurance that you were not going to throw her out on the street. Then that is exactly what you did. Of Course she had a gaurd up. Wouldn’t you if you had been left by your family? I am sure we would all have anger, fear and a wall up not to get hurt again. She finally starts to get past the anger (muddy shoes incident, etc) and start coming around and you say, SORRY..too late!
You did more damage to this little girl than if you just left her be. Would you do that to your 11 year old? NO? Well, then I guess you did adopt her with conditional love.
It not all about you...you could have worked with her and gave her a little more time. It was a great thing you did if you followed through. It was only a year and she isn’t a dog.... a dog doesn’t even deserve that. You took on the responsibility....then gave up and Zahina was the one who suffered..again!
Please see #238.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.