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I haven't read the report or all the posts in this thread so forgive me if this has already been dealt with. I'm wondering if, in the cases where adopted kids are abused, if there is any difference between those kids and kids in general? I mean, are the abused adopted children more likely to have special needs? If so, that could explain the higher rate of abuse in the demographic group most adoptive parents are part of. Perhaps these parents wouldn't have been abusive in different circumstances. This could also explain why in families with both adopted and bio kids the adopted kids are more likely to be abused. The stress of caring for kids with special needs, especially if they are behavioral, can sometimes lead otherwise non-violent people to snap. Of course this is not an excuse in any way. There is never any excuse to abuse a child and as an adult you have an obligation to reach out for help before it gets to that point. It's the adult's failure to properly deal with their stress that leads to abuse, not the child's behavior per se. However, if the increased abuse is related to the child's special needs and the stress this causes for the parent the abuse is indirectly a failure of the adoption system that doesn't properly prepare parents and support them after the adoption. If that's the case that would actually be good news because it would be a solvable problem which inherent characteristics of adoptive parents wouldn't be.
Has there been any studies that test for differences in the children, such as age of adoption, life before adoption, problems with the bio parents that could be genetically be passed on to the kids such as mental illness, etc.? If so, are there any differences between the different groups of adopted kids? Such as, are kids who were adopted at an older age from an abusive and neglectful orphanage more likely to be abused than, say, kids who were adopted at birth and has relatively healthy birth parents?
I am sure there is research out there, but whether it controls for who is parenting as a variable would be an important question.
I looked at the position paper of the American Academy of Pediatrics on abuse of children with disabilities. It didn't specifically discuss different types of families, but certainly the stress on parents is considerable.
"The Children's Bureau reported that an estimated 872,000 children were determined to be victims of abuse or neglect in 2004.(2) More than 50% of child victims experienced neglect, almost 20% were physically abused, and 10% were sexually abused. Of 36 states that reported on disabilities, child victims who were reported with a disability accounted for 7.3% of all victims. Children with the following conditions were considered as having a disability: mental retardation, emotional disturbance, visual impairmnt, learning disability, physical disability, behavioral problems, or another medical problem. It was believed that these conditions were underrecognized and underreported, because not every child received a clinical diagnostic assessment when child maltreatment was suspected." [see link for footnotes]
Here is a study by Schnitzler and Ewigman, published in Pediatrics in 2005, that builds on the study I posted earlier:
Objective. To determine the role of household composition as an independent risk factor for fatal inflicted injuries among young children and describe perpetrator characteristics.
Design, Setting, and Population. A population-based, case-control study of all children <5 years of age who died in Missouri between January 1, 1992, and December 31, 1999. Missouri Child Fatality Review Program data were analyzed. Cases all involved children with injuries inflicted by a parent or caregiver. Two age-matched controls per case child were selected randomly from children who died of natural causes.
Main Outcome Measure. Inflicted-injury death. Household composition of case and control children was compared by using multivariate logistic regression. We hypothesized that children residing in households with adults unrelated to them are at higher risk of inflicted-injury death than children residing in households with 2 biological parents.
Results. We identified 149 inflicted-injury deaths in our population during the 8-year study period. Children residing in households with unrelated adults were nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries than children residing with 2 biological parents (adjusted odds ratio: 47.6; 95% confidence interval: 10.4–218). Children in households with a single parent and no other adults in residence had no increased risk of inflicted-injury death (adjusted odds ratio: 0.9; 95% confidence interval: 0.6–1.9). Perpetrators were identified in 132 (88.6%) of the cases. The majority of known perpetrators were male (71.2%), and most were the child's father (34.9%) or the boyfriend of the child's mother (24.2%). In households with unrelated adults, most perpetrators (83.9%) were the unrelated adult household member, and only 2 (6.5%) perpetrators were the biological parent of the child.
Conclusions. Young children who reside in households with unrelated adults are at exceptionally high risk for inflicted-injury death. Most perpetrators are male, and most are residents of the decedent child's household at the time of injury.
A good way to see what kind of research is being done is to check the footnotes of decent articles, although of course that's a very rough and ready way of doing it. That's how I start out, though.
first time poster but long time lurker. had to come out of hiding to comment on this post...
Quote:
"Has there been any studies that test for differences in the children, such as age of adoption, life before adoption, problems with the bio parents that could be genetically be passed on to the kids such as mental illness, etc.? If so, are there any differences between the different groups of adopted kids? Such as, are kids who were adopted at an older age from an abusive and neglectful orphanage more likely to be abused than, say, kids who were adopted at birth and has relatively healthy birth parents?"
i believe that this quote comes dangerously close to blaming the victims (especially the part in bold) even with the qualifier...
Quote:
The stress of caring for kids with special needs, especially if they are behavioral, can sometimes lead otherwise non-violent people to snap. Of course this is not an excuse in any way.
first time poster but long time lurker. had to come out of hiding to comment on this post...
i believe that this quote comes dangerously close to blaming the victims (especially the part in bold) even with the qualifier...
I'm with you on that. In the experience we had, classes covered the "what ifs" and the types of children and behavior and needs that they might have. I don't think it is always the "issue" or the level of issue but just the fact the parents don't ask for help and keep asking if they are not being heard. Some adoptive parents, just like birth parents, have expectations of the way it WILL BE, the wonders of parenthood and all the joy, but the children don't always know the script, neither birth nor adoption delivered to me the perfect child and both presented problems that I needed help with which were not fault. There is no excuse for abuse no matter what any child may bring to one's life, no excuse. We have had two home studies in two different states, KS & AZ. We attended classes, had a minimum of 3 visits while the study was being completed, attended classes in town for 6 weeks and when we had a child placed, we were interviewed by the placing agency while our paperwork was being reviewed and had 3 or 4 home visits after the child was placed with us. We had physical exams completed, were required to write biographies for all of our family members from birth which were discussed with the case worker and ourselves. Our older son was interviewed alone by the case worker. I learned he told the case manager it would be fun for the family to adopt a younger child because we could get new toys! We also had to submit financial information and a budget that would include how we would cover new expenses involved in the care of the child we were adopting. And, this was over 20 years ago so I am sure I forgot some of the details. Oh, the fingerprinting and background check - had to go to the police station to be fingerprinted and that was my first time. I can't believe we went through so much when I look back on it. As we all know, child abuse is over the top and I'll never understand what is wrong with those people but if I could have a couple minutes with each one of them, alone, behind closed doors..................
To flip Lizita's question on its head, what about studies that focus on mental illnesses in abusers? How about parents (biological and adoptive) who abuse because they have "emotional problems"'/mental illnesses/poor coping skills/substance abuse issues/family history of abuse? It would seem more profitable to focus on how to help those who are in power and commit the abuse, rather than blaming the victims, as adoptedamanda said.
And do a better job of screening adoptive parents so that those who are have substance abuse problems, mental illnesses, etc., do not adopt (and they do, because our system is corrupt), as we discussed earlier, related to the Washington State Commission Study.
i believe that this quote comes dangerously close to blaming the victims (especially the part in bold) even with the qualifier...
I don't see that at all. It's simply asking whether "difficult" children (due to any number of factors) are more likely to be abused. That's a reflection on the parents' abilities (or lack thereof), not the children.
Again, without the actual numbers, you are playing the speculation game and that all it is. Referring to what I bolded, we don't know if this is true or not. This is what you want others to believe and your opinion.
About your comment of me denying abuse by any sector of the population and not looking at adoption objectively....yeah right. If you actually read my posts, you will see that I'm all in favor of reform. This much discussed Washington report has some very good commendations which I agree with. I think that every single person on this thread agrees that abuse in any form is unacceptable and it does happen. If there are holes in the process like the homestudy process discussed in the report, yes, this needs to be rectified. There are people out there that do horrible things and somehow they slip through the cracks and become adoptive parents. We all recognize this. Even if we implement the best of screening though, there will always be people that slip through and do knuckle headed things like forgetting a young child in a car. Just read about the Colorado mom who left her two sons in an overheated car for 90 minutes while she visited a male friend. They both died. Had these been two adopted children, you can be assured that this would have been a much larger incident. However my point is people will always do idiotic things and you can't prevent all abuse or negligent things from happening. There is certainly room for improvement though and that is what many of us have been discussing in a positive way.
Sorry but I think that I'm a bit more objective about adoption than you are. Not going to argue the numbers game with you anymore although I will keep correcting people when they make statements about higher rates of abuse in adoptive families as compared to biological ones.
It isn't speculation at all.
If the mean size of a population of apples is 1kg. And we remove all the apples that weigh more than 1.5 kg, will the mean go up, or down?
Because it is literally that simple. We have a mean rate of abuse (the mass of the apple), we take out the larger apples (the subset of the population known to abuse at a higher rate), we KNOW definitively what will happen to that mean. The same way we know what will happen to the mean of the apple.
The mean will not only change, but also the direction of the change.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 01-18-2013 at 03:15 PM..
Reason: Please discuss the topic, not each other
I'm not going to get into statistics or arguing with anyone here, but think it should be noted that RAD (radical attachment disorder) is not uncommon among children who have experienced abandonment, neglect, abuse, and frequent changes in primary caregivers. This is a description of many, many children who have backgrounds including orphanages, institutions, and/or foster care. In brief, children become unable to trust or to connect emotionally with others, particularly primary caregivers, as a result of having their previous trust betrayed by mistreatment and inconsistency. Instead, they may act out in various ways - being superficially charming but very, very difficult and even violent in some cases.
Kids with RAD can be extremely hard to parent, and RAD can be very difficult to treat. RAD does vary considerably in intensity, depending upon the child's natural resilience and upon the degree of neglect, etc. previously experienced. Younger children generally recover more completely than do older children, for obvious reasons. Older kids can recover, but many go on to become adults with borderline personality disorder, an equally hard condition to treat effectively (however, BPD's causes are not absolutely confirmed, and may well include other factors, including genetic propensity).
It is absolutely wicked that children are treated in ways which lead to RAD...but it can also explain why some adoptive parents, who may love a child with their whole heart, still have an extremely difficult time parenting that child effectively. Nonetheless, a diagnosis of RAD is not an excuse to neglect or abuse a child. Better to disrupt, if absolutely necessary.
The cases of disruption I've read about (I have not talked with anyone personallly who has disrupted an adoption) occurred only after intense, sincere, non-abusive efforts to help the child, or because of other, unforeseen and tragic situations within a family made it impossible to adequately parent a child with special needs (including newly diagnosed terminal illness of another child), or because other children in the family were endangered by the child. The latter situations resulted in the troubled children being readopted by experienced families in which they were the only or the youngest child, by several years, and the children seem to be doing much, much better, without raging, physical attacks, etc.
That said, I can see how a child with RAD could stretch parental patience to the absolute limits, even for the best-informed, most compassionate, mature, and experienced parent. Such a child would surely be at increased risk of abuse if placed in a home with a parent who is not so well-informed, mature, experienced, etc., but that's no excuse.
If you need help with a child, get help. For everyone's sake...
I don't see that at all. It's simply asking whether "difficult" children (due to any number of factors) are more likely to be abused. That's a reflection on the parents' abilities (or lack thereof), not the children.
IMHO.
When I was on another forum, every now and then someone would post about children being killed by their parents.
I remembered a couple of times where everyone was outraged when they thought the children had been killed by biological paresents but when it turned out that, in fact, the child had been killed by their adoptive parents, suddenly the mood of the threads changed - it was along the lines of "those poor parents, their child must have had RAD and they snapped", even though there was nothing in the articles that pointed to that at all.
As an adoptee, it made me wonder whether if I had been killed by my parents when I was a child whether everyone would have just said "she was adopted, thus she must have had emotional difficulties/been of bad blood" - i.e. blamed the victim. I wasn't that well-behaved a child as a young child (though well behaved as a teenager), so it is possible that people might have just assumed I was some bad seed.
I don't understand your link. The article just re-states what I said about it not being mandatory. The author goes on to discuss the cases where it may be required. But to re-answer, no, psychological evals are not mandatory. And, there is no proof that they will reduce abuse in adoptive families. As far as churches encouraging their congregation to adopt, I don't see a problem with this either. Every state has its rules and regulations and every adoptive parent in these respective states will encounter their state's statutes and will need to comply prior to being approved. And, I don't understand what you mean by disruption?
I'm referring to this bit:
Quote:
The reasons and expectations centering around adopting are typically discussed, as well as your feelings toward the biological parent(s) and/or the child’s present living situation. There should be a section that articulates relevant background information. Here, your history is addressed. Of particular concern will be pre-adoptive stressors such as fertility issues, miscarriages and other losses, relationship conflicts, etc. Beyond your respective individual adjustments, should be a discussion concerning your marital adjustment. Examples of conflicts, and the mechanism of resolution, by you and your husband may be offered. If psychological measures are utilized (e.g., a personality test), a thorough explanation of the data should be presented, as well as the impact of said findings on your potential to be suitable adoptive parents. Finally, the evaluator’s conclusion regarding you and your husband’s abilities in parenting an adoptive child will be offered.
One would assume that homestudies would ask the above questions at the very least. Are you saying they didn't do that with you? They should have.
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Okay.
Glad you agree.
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