Adoption Support Group
Adoption is the legal act of permanently placing a child with a parent or parents other than the birth parents. Whether you are looking to adopt, putting your child up for adoption, parenting an adopted child, or just thinking about it, this is the place to discuss.
Hi, new to the group, but still need help. Three years ago, my wife and I took custody of her great-nephew (we just don't have the money to adopt, but we have went to court and got legal custody). We live in MS, and they lived in IL, we got a call from a family friend telling us what was going on, so we got in the car the next morning, and went to Chicago, hunted them down, and convinced the birth mom to give us custody, it wasn't hard, she did not want him anyway.
She was addicted to crack, and paid for her addiction, and other bills, by being a prostitute. She would put a plate of food on the floor, and make him eat like a dog, and laugh because it was so cute. Then she would put a plate of food on the floor, turn the playpen upside down on top of him, and leave for 3-4 days at a time. She was also living with a convicted child molester, who was taking baths with him. He was almost three years old, and the only clothes she had for him was 2 t-shirts, and his diapers. We had to go buy a car seat before we could even take him anywhere. We carried her down to the child welfare dept. and had her write a letter giving us custody of him. It was signed by a what do you call it, she is the one that has the authority to remove children from the home, and it was also notarized by another employee of the welfare office.
Of course the only thing the letter was good for was to keep us from getting arrested for kidnapping if she called the cops. And when we went to court to get custody it carried a lot of weight with the judge.
Now three years going on 4 years later, he still can not talk correctly, we have him on concerita, we were using vyvanse until it quit. Even with the medication he is still very difficult. He has violent outburst, large temper tantrums, he refuses to follow the rules, he knows what they are, and if you tell him not to do something, he'll repeat the rule, then do it anyway. He will sneak his drink in his room, and just pour it on the floor, just because he want to. We had to pull the carpet up, and put down a hard floor covering, because when he gets mad, he will go in his room and pee in the floor. When you tell him to do something or not to do something , he will start screaming and run to his room, and slam the door, and throw a temper tantrum, or he will look at you and say no, or call you something ugly, or all of the above.
He is in first grade, he's in the special ed program, and has a personal assistant. The boy is very, very smart, but refuses to do his school work properly. He either acts like he doesn't know it, just ignores it, or starts screaming. We bought an educational cd game for the computer, he will actually start playing it, and will complete 2nd grade questions correctly. He will watch us do something once or twice, then he knows how to do it. He operates a dvd player, a playstation2, an xbox, he knows how to swap the tv between each component, and knows how to play the games better than our older boys. We catch him when he thinks no one is around, he will be counting, or saying his abc's, and will do them correctly, but when you ask him to do it for you, or his schoolwork, he acts like he doesn't know it.
There are days that he will be just as good as can be. He will try to help with whatever you are doing. He will do anything you ask him to do. He will do his schoolwork, he'll know his abc's and counting. He will sit down next to you and sit there for a long time, and never act up. He might be like this for a day or two, then all of a sudden Dr. Jekyl and Mr Hyde.
He is very OCD. He will get obsessed with something, and that is all you will hear for days at a time. He had a Hot Wheels car that he never played with. One night when picking up his toys, it wasn't in his toy box, and he went nuts, and was running all over the house looking for it, we finally got him in bed 2 hrs later. The next 4 days that is all we heard, he emptied his toy box two or three times a day looking for it, he looked under the couch, all the cabinets, every bed in the house, and everywhere else. Then he started asking for a flashlight we finally had to give him one to avoid a meltdown, he finally spotted the car under a very large and even heavier china cabinet. It takes 4-5 large men to move it, but we had no choice, it had to be retrieved. Once we got it out, he carried it to his room, put it in the toybox, and never touched it again. It was supposed to be there, so it had to be there, or else.
We are at our wits end. We don't know what to do next. How do we reach him. When we got him he as almost 36 months old, we had him tested as soon as we got him to see what we needed to do to help him, he tested at a 8 month level. He will be 8 years old in December, and he is test scores range from 6-7 years. He has came a long way, but there is still so far for him to go, and he acts like he doesn't want to improve. What do we do, How do we reach him?
She was addicted to crack, and paid for her addiction, and other bills, by being a prostitute. She would put a plate of food on the floor, and make him eat like a dog, and laugh because it was so cute. Then she would put a plate of food on the floor, turn the playpen upside down on top of him, and leave for 3-4 days at a time. She was also living with a convicted child molester, who was taking baths with him. He was almost three years old, and the only clothes she had for him was 2 t-shirts, and his diapers. We had to go buy a car seat before we could even take him anywhere. We carried her down to the child welfare dept. and had her write a letter giving us custody of him. It was signed by a what do you call it, she is the one that has the authority to remove children from the home, and it was also notarized by another employee of the welfare office.
Of course the only thing the letter was good for was to keep us from getting arrested for kidnapping if she called the cops. And when we went to court to get custody it carried a lot of weight with the judge.
Now three years going on 4 years later, he still can not talk correctly, we have him on concerita, we were using vyvanse until it quit. Even with the medication he is still very difficult. He has violent outburst, large temper tantrums, he refuses to follow the rules, he knows what they are, and if you tell him not to do something, he'll repeat the rule, then do it anyway. He will sneak his drink in his room, and just pour it on the floor, just because he want to. We had to pull the carpet up, and put down a hard floor covering, because when he gets mad, he will go in his room and pee in the floor. When you tell him to do something or not to do something , he will start screaming and run to his room, and slam the door, and throw a temper tantrum, or he will look at you and say no, or call you something ugly, or all of the above.
He is in first grade, he's in the special ed program, and has a personal assistant. The boy is very, very smart, but refuses to do his school work properly. He either acts like he doesn't know it, just ignores it, or starts screaming. We bought an educational cd game for the computer, he will actually start playing it, and will complete 2nd grade questions correctly. He will watch us do something once or twice, then he knows how to do it. He operates a dvd player, a playstation2, an xbox, he knows how to swap the tv between each component, and knows how to play the games better than our older boys. We catch him when he thinks no one is around, he will be counting, or saying his abc's, and will do them correctly, but when you ask him to do it for you, or his schoolwork, he acts like he doesn't know it.
There are days that he will be just as good as can be. He will try to help with whatever you are doing. He will do anything you ask him to do. He will do his schoolwork, he'll know his abc's and counting. He will sit down next to you and sit there for a long time, and never act up. He might be like this for a day or two, then all of a sudden Dr. Jekyl and Mr Hyde.
He is very OCD. He will get obsessed with something, and that is all you will hear for days at a time. He had a Hot Wheels car that he never played with. One night when picking up his toys, it wasn't in his toy box, and he went nuts, and was running all over the house looking for it, we finally got him in bed 2 hrs later. The next 4 days that is all we heard, he emptied his toy box two or three times a day looking for it, he looked under the couch, all the cabinets, every bed in the house, and everywhere else. Then he started asking for a flashlight we finally had to give him one to avoid a meltdown, he finally spotted the car under a very large and even heavier china cabinet. It takes 4-5 large men to move it, but we had no choice, it had to be retrieved. Once we got it out, he carried it to his room, put it in the toybox, and never touched it again. It was supposed to be there, so it had to be there, or else.
We are at our wits end. We don't know what to do next. How do we reach him. When we got him he as almost 36 months old, we had him tested as soon as we got him to see what we needed to do to help him, he tested at a 8 month level. He will be 8 years old in December, and he is test scores range from 6-7 years. He has came a long way, but there is still so far for him to go, and he acts like he doesn't want to improve. What do we do, How do we reach him?
He is not seeing a therapist, because at this point he would get nothing out of it. As I said he doesn't speak correctly, it is like baby gibberish, it's not even mispronouncing words, this is just noise, that he makes. He has gotten where he will say a few words correctly, but even on those there are times that unless you live with him, you will have no idea what he is saying. On top of that, he will not sit/stand still long enough to talk to him about anything. most of the time when you try to talk to him he starts gibbering about something else, and then walks away, if you try to stop him he goes into a meltdown. If you try to get him to color, He will color what he wants, if you ask for something specific you either get something totally different, or he just scribbles all over the page, refusing to do anything else.
So you see he is still so far behind where he should be emotionally, and otherwise mentally, that we don't have many options for treatment. Despite the fact he is so far behind, at the same time he is so intelligent, that it is scary. He has the intelligence to catch up to where he should be, but ti's like he doesn't want to. I have seen that behaviour in teenagers, but never someone as young as he is.
We are in it for the long haul, we'll be here until he is able to care for himself, whenever that is. But it would be nice if he would catch up to where he is supposed to be, a lot sooner than later.