Anybody have any experience with adoption and/or children being a little behind? Share your stories

[EmtheFishLady]

Edited to add: I just reread Connors story, and was struck by how happy he looked that first night with you all. 

Like he knew and was thinking "Hey! These are good people, and I'm so happy to be here with them!"


Your husband is a fine writer too.  

 

I am still shocked at how well my little girl did. She literally went from only child to a brother in a few hours, and took to him like he's been her brother always. It was just meant to be.

Well, my son is far from being a celebrity, but they chose to NOT to adopt in the states because of the readiness with children are given back to their 'birth' parents.  His exact words, "Dad, I couldn't bear loving a child and having it taken away from us."  One GD has an autoimmune disease and if left in China would have died by now.  It's best to not judge the actions of others - most of us should spend more time judging ourselves.

I think your family has definitely been a blessing to those two girls. I don't know that if adopt here either to be honest. It's so difficult and depending on the state, heartbreaking. We didn't really get a choice, but had I been looking to adopt, we would probably have looked overseas as well. I have a friend who has two adopted children, but they had many adoptions fall through at the last minute also, and it was a long, expensive, and absolutely heartbreaking experience for them.

 

[Miss Biddy]

 

[Miss Biddy]

It's best to not judge the actions of others - most of us should spend more time judging ourselves.

True, true.

 

[lazy gardener]

I also have a family member from China. While standards have recently changed in China, little girls in China as well as many other 3rd world countries, if left in country of origin, would be destined to a life of poverty, being throw away children, never having an adoptive family, never having medical needs met. Many of these countries do not provide an education unless the parents can afford to send their children to school. Inter-racial/country adoption brings a whole new set of issues into play, but given the options, it's often the only option available to the child. Also, adopting in the US brings it's own set of issues. Our country often keeps kids revolving through the foster care system, moving from one home to an other, until they are almost 18, then suddenly, these older teens are offered up for adoption. Figure out the politics of that one, if you care to! I see it all the time in my state. Given the choice of dealing with US beaurocracy, the foster care system, and the rarity of young children being available, if I was looking to add to my family, I expect that I'd look for international adoption as well, where I'd be plucking a child out of certain poverty with a future perhaps involving being sold into the sex trade or other slavery type of issues when they become old enough to "work".

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

I'm glad to hear that the speech therapist thinks things are on track. That's definitely reassuring for parents to hear!

Sometimes I think the expected ages for children to hit milestones in development cause so much stress. So many parents of the children I babysat stressed so much over every milestone. I know I would too, but most of the children that were late to speak ended up speaking just fine later on. In one case, the older siblings were speaking for the girl and she knew how to speak just fine! What a surprise after all the worrying and speech therapy visits to find out she had quite the vocabulary, but didn't speak because she didn't have to! :-D

In my parent's case, I was early for just about everything. When my brother came along, there was so much stress because it seemed he was developing later but he was just going at the normal pace. I was the oddball that caused all the stress.

I'm sure the therapist gave you lots of good things to help Conner with his speech, but reading was always so important to me as a child. My mom read almost every night to my brother and I. I really think that's what helped me speak so early (I had one book I loved and started to speak because I wanted to ask my mom to read it to me. It was called Pudgy Pals.)

Keep us updated with your journey! It seems Conner is lucky to have you!

 

[wallaroo]

I just want to step in an say that I need to step away from this thread now. OP, please feel free to reach out if you need to.

 

[ashley6388]

I'm pretty late to this, but my husband fostered our son when he was 1 and adopted him when he was 2. I came into the picture right before the adoption.
We always knew he was a high strung child, but his behavior got more and more aggressive and erratic. By the time he was in kindergarten he had been suspended because he intentionally clawed 3 boys' eyes to the point of bleeding. He had no remorse and said they were playing a game.
He did things like that all the time and thought it was a game.
He is a bit behind in every way. We had to do speech therapy with him as well.
He's 8 1/2 now but functions like a 4 year old. He reads at about a kindergarten level.
He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, ocd, adhd, and odd.
He's on a cocktail of antipsychotics so he can function and not hurt people, but that's the best we've been able to get him. Just functioning.
I mean it's soooo much better than he was. But just functioning isn't what I hoped for him.

 

[lazy gardener]

Ashley, that's a tough row to hoe. I wish you the best with your son. Are you getting the support services you need for him?

 

[ashley6388]

Unfortunately not. We have him in weekly therapy and his meds are ok, but at school he has no support. I've begged and pleaded for them to test him for disabilities for about a year now, but so far nothing. I begged them to fail him last year but they passed him.
I'm afraid he's going to get left behind. I've even talked to the board of education. Nothing.

 

[EmtheFishLady]

Try a private school if you can possibly swing it. We send Lillian to private school. They are much more helpful and accepting. Lily's current school is incredibly small, only 5 kids in her entire class. She has no issues, but she benefits from the smaller class and the one on one attention. It's also easier to get to know the teachers, parents, and control who your child is exposed to. I plan on sending Connor there as well. A lot of private schools accept payments, and also have scholarships.