Unadopting a Child...

[michelle]

I really feel that someone acting on the boys behalf should sue DCF because of their not saying what happend to him he did not get treatment that much earlier. That definately is their fault and he suffered for it.

I agree with that. They should be held accountable for that.

 

[mssheila]

Yes, you absolutely do have to pay your full amount of child support if the child is in the custody of the other parent or the state. Also, if the child is in juvenile jail.

I can have an opinion without having adopted a special needs child.


Why isn't this boy in the juvenile system instead of back in foster care? Do you have to pay child support if your child is in the juvenile system? I would not want to pay for a child that was a molestor but if it were my biological child I would not have a choice. When you adopt a child it should be as if it were your own.
Since the law says he can choose to keep her as his mother she is stuck with him. Though I don't know why anyone would make her keep a child she does not want except to get support from her. I would not want the boy either, but kids are like a box of chocolates...you don't always get what you want. ( sorry just had to put that in there)
I feel for her but don't think the law is going to go in her favor.

 

[mssheila]

Okay, it's early, and I haven't yet had my coffee, but this thread hits home for me. I hope I can make sense.

I believe that if you have a child in your home that becomes a physical danger to anyone else living there, they must be placed elsewhere. I know its not an easy decision, but we had to make it. My stepson lived with us for 4 years. He was a very difficult child. He was diagnosed (AFTER we got him, and started him in therapy and he saw a psychiatrist) with ADHD, bipolar, and conduct disorder, which is what they call kids who will eventually turn out to be full blown antisocial personality disorder.

We went through hell with him. I mean, HELL. We have two smaller children. The day my stepson pulled a knife on my husband and tried to stab him, is the day he was sent away from our home. We had no choice. However, we still pay a huge sum of child support, more than twice the amount that this mother does, and he's in Juvenile hall. We never disputed that we needed to care for him financially.

This woman will not be able to get out of child support. I don't think that's what she's trying to do, though... I think she just doesn't want any of the other children hurt. We had to make that decision, and it was awful! But she SHOULD have made the decision as soon as she found out about the kids being molested by this teen.

 

[OneLostGrl]

Okay, it's early, and I haven't yet had my coffee, but this thread hits home for me. I hope I can make sense.

I believe that if you have a child in your home that becomes a physical danger to anyone else living there, they must be placed elsewhere. I know its not an easy decision, but we had to make it. My stepson lived with us for 4 years. He was a very difficult child. He was diagnosed (AFTER we got him, and started him in therapy and he saw a psychiatrist) with ADHD, bipolar, and conduct disorder, which is what they call kids who will eventually turn out to be full blown antisocial personality disorder.

We went through hell with him. I mean, HELL. We have two smaller children. The day my stepson pulled a knife on my husband and tried to stab him, is the day he was sent away from our home. We had no choice. However, we still pay a huge sum of child support, more than twice the amount that this mother does, and he's in Juvenile hall. We never disputed that we needed to care for him financially.

This woman will not be able to get out of child support. I don't think that's what she's trying to do, though... I think she just doesn't want any of the other children hurt. We had to make that decision, and it was awful! But she SHOULD have made the decision as soon as she found out about the kids being molested by this teen.

It sounds to me like you and your husband realized the child needed to be out of the home and in a secure facility BUT you did not throw him away.
That's the difference between the 2 situations.

I completely agree that the child we are discussing needs to be out of the home. I just do not agree with the mother giving the kid back to the state.

 

[michelle]

Okay, it's early, and I haven't yet had my coffee, but this thread hits home for me. I hope I can make sense.

I believe that if you have a child in your home that becomes a physical danger to anyone else living there, they must be placed elsewhere. I know its not an easy decision, but we had to make it. My stepson lived with us for 4 years. He was a very difficult child. He was diagnosed (AFTER we got him, and started him in therapy and he saw a psychiatrist) with ADHD, bipolar, and conduct disorder, which is what they call kids who will eventually turn out to be full blown antisocial personality disorder.

We went through hell with him. I mean, HELL. We have two smaller children. The day my stepson pulled a knife on my husband and tried to stab him, is the day he was sent away from our home. We had no choice. However, we still pay a huge sum of child support, more than twice the amount that this mother does, and he's in Juvenile hall. We never disputed that we needed to care for him financially.

This woman will not be able to get out of child support. I don't think that's what she's trying to do, though... I think she just doesn't want any of the other children hurt. We had to make that decision, and it was awful! But she SHOULD have made the decision as soon as she found out about the kids being molested by this teen.

Sounds like you made a wise decision. Someone could have been killed. I would have been scared to death.

 

[txsvicki]

A friend of mine is a foster mother. She was very open with the agency about her own past, which included sexual abuse, and told them she did not think she could foster children who had been sexually abused as she was still in therapy dealing with her own issues. They lied to her and placed a child who had been severely sexually abused in her home; this child went on to act out and abuse another child at the daycare home she stayed at.

I believe it. The social workers may not know yet if a child is going to sexually act out with other kids. It can happen in a flash and some kids will watch and wait for their opportunity to do something to other kids. They don't always catch it at first and not all sexually abused kids will do this though according to a psychologist that I have spoken to. A boy I know of was watched very closely but was old enough to go in the backyard alone and would get out of range of the kitchen window and was exposing himself to younger kids inside the home through a window where he could not be seen. The other kids told on him and this incident was very minor compared to other things he had been doing in the middle of the night or very early morning hours despite seeing a psychologist and getting medication for other known issues. There is no known sexual or physical abuse in this boy's history but there was drug exposure during pregnancy, parents on drugs, domestic violence between the parents, low IQ, ADD, and possible sexualization at an early age from seeing something between adults. I know for a fact that a child who is sexually acting out will be left with other children/siblings around until they are age 10 here in Texas. Families are told to watch them all the time but that is practically impossible to do 24/7. After age 10, they will be taken out of the home and placed with another relative where there are no other children, foster home, group home, or even juvie if the molestation was enough for charges to be filed. I also have talked to foster families who have had kids come in who do this and they are regularly sent on elsewhere. A psychologist told me that Texas has hardly any mental illness facilities for children to stay and a psychiatrist told me that he has never seen an older child who does these things stop, and that no medication or treatment will cure it. I'd be willing to bet that the boy in this article was acting out before age 12 but became more severe and was caught at puberty, just as was warned about in the boy that I know. I believe that some are destined to become psychopaths and I really don't blame this foster Mom for wanting to get out of this. She has to protect the other children and maybe even herself someday. I don't believe that she should be held financially responsible for a child who was in the system and was being encouraged to adopt so that he would be out of the system. The states try to protect kids but they also try to protect any money that they have to pay out. It's really disgusting. Once a child does this, children's protective should get them away from living with other children immediately if at all possible and pay out whatever it takes to get more foster parents or help relatives to care for them and more intense specialized treatment in this area couldn't hurt even if they don't think it really helps. If they start young, who knows, it could help them instead of waiting til they are age 12-15. The boy I know was doing this was first caught at age 7 and then removed from other kids at age 11 1/2 but no intense treatment is being given. He is now living with an 80 year old woman who receives absolutely no financial help or support from children's protection services as a foster parent would.

 

[michelle]

Heres a very informative article on the child and the woman who wants to unadopt him. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100801151.html

 

[OneLostGrl]

Heres a very informative article on the child and the woman who wants to unadopt him. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100801151.html

I read that article at the beginning of the thread.

Ya know what I'm having a hard time with- at the link the "mother" is talking about the files they gave her at the hearing for the molestations and she says in those records it states... "He'd been hospitalized seven times in psychiatric institutions and diagnosed as possibly psychotically bipolar. He'd thrown knives, kicked in walls, pulled out all his hair and threatened to kill himself. He'd heard voices telling him to do bad things."

She's trying to tell us that he lived in her home as her child for 3 years and she never saw those symptoms? This is a child who supposably is "psychotically bipolar" and has a history of throwing knives, kicking in walls and pulling all of his hair out??!! and she never saw that??

Folks, I'm telling you- if someone is "psychotically bipolar" they are not in control of themselves and there is no way that this child lived in her home for 3 years and she didn't know he was nuts. What, he stopped pulling all of his hair out when he moved in with her?? Never kicked in another wall again, huh?


I'm sure her loved helped him some.. but love doesn't cure psychosis. It can't make the voices in someones head stop.
I don't buy it, sorry.

The woman is either lying about what was in those confidential reports or she knew he was sick from the beginning and accepted it.
Not that it changes the fact that he molested the other children but it changes what one should believe from this woman. IMO

 

[close_enough]

I read that article at the beginning of the thread.

Ya know what I'm having a hard time with- at the link the "mother" is talking about the files they gave her at the hearing for the molestations and she says in those records it states... "He'd been hospitalized seven times in psychiatric institutions and diagnosed as possibly psychotically bipolar. He'd thrown knives, kicked in walls, pulled out all his hair and threatened to kill himself. He'd heard voices telling him to do bad things."

She's trying to tell us that he lived in her home as her child for 3 years and she never saw those symptoms? This is a child who supposably is "psychotically bipolar" and has a history of throwing knives, kicking in walls and pulling all of his hair out??!! and she never saw that??

Folks, I'm telling you- if someone is "psychotically bipolar" they are not in control of themselves and there is no way that this child lived in her home for 3 years and she didn't know he was nuts. What, he stopped pulling all of his hair out when he moved in with her?? Never kicked in another wall again, huh?


I'm sure her loved helped him some.. but love doesn't cure psychosis. It can't make the voices in someones head stop.
I don't buy it, sorry.

The woman is either lying about what was in those confidential reports or she knew he was sick from the beginning and accepted it.
Not that it changes the fact that he molested the other children but it changes what one should believe from this woman. IMO

yeah, & she talked her husband into adopting him, after he'd already been living w/them for a year....wtf?...i'm with you on this....it's hard to believe she didn't 'have a clue'.....

 

[michelle]

I read that article at the beginning of the thread.

This article is longer then the original one I posted. I just found this on looking for an update on the case.

 

[txsvicki]

I read the whole article and the Mom said that when the boy pulled his hair out she just shaved his head, so she did know that he did that to himself. If she was told that he was hyperactive, he must have been on stimulants. These can make some kids psychotic and hear voices. I noticed that the records show that he is possibly psychotic bipolar, so I wonder if that was a reaction to his ADD medications because the very same thing happened to my grandson and no one believed me. Now the med. boxes have to have warnings about psychosis. I believe that she wasn't told everything and that it is not right for her to have to pay child support or make the decision to give up her grandchild. Foster kids have to live with a family a year before they can begin adoption so the fact that she had him a year before trying to adopt doesn't suprise me. I said in another post that kids who might or already acting out sexually will get worse around puberty so I imagine this is when she actually did catch him. One of this woman's reasons is that she does not want to give up her foster grand baby who she is raising along with another little foster girl. There's no way these kids would be allowed to live in the same home as the teen. The boy was only with her for 3 years and 3 years in treatment so she really didn't have him that long. He's almost grown and in my opinion still needs to be in some sort of group home where he can continue to get help and this lady needs to be freed of the financial responsibilities so that she can continue to work and help her other kids. The foster care system is most likely getting SSI checks on the boy anyway if he is still allowed to receive them after being convicted or sentenced to a treatment facility.