International Adoption Reader

One of rather recent accomplishments of my country’s legal system was the sanctioning of corporal punishment in child raising in general, including families.

In order to guarantee each child his basic human dignity, and in order to help prevent abuse, by setting a clear sign that no humiliating act exercised by adults can be tolerated in raising a child,  this law basically says spanking at home, as anywhere else, is not ok.  While people who have a profound knowledge of the legal system might state that the new restrictions are not really that fundamental, compared to the former jurisdiction that would not allow any acts that put the child at risk to suffer severe pain or damage,  still, public awareness towards questions of improving parenting skills and parent education has increased considerably ever since. Also, doctors, childcare institutions and schools feel much more at ease (because they have the formal obligation, and not a choice based on personal responsibility) to report potential signs of abuse to youth welfare authorities.

While, apart from legals and in everyday life, obviously not every slapping, smacking or spanking will be qualified as abuse, it is well-known that exercising these techniques will  lower the tolerance and make it easier to cross the line between an attempt for correction of a certain behaviour and severe hurt and pain. And this is why the “no spanking”-rule absolutely makes sense, although it cannot guarantee that child abuse will not take place. In contrast to many other countries, though, it may be hoped that it will lessen its probability, not only in general, but also in cases of adoptive families.

(There are no figures available that might offer proof for this assumption, because once the adoption is finalized, there will be (in my country) no way of distinguishing adopted and birth children in official documents, hence, no statistics concerning any aspects of adoption will exist.)

It is this background makes is incredibly hard for me to believe that a family who openly admits that spanking is within their range of parenting techniques would ever pass a home-study anywhere in this world (not to mention people who follow Michael Pearl’s so-called parenting advice), or post placement supervision.

The following remarks are of more general nature and not intended to be country specific:

Apart from the legal perspective and on a more emotional level, it is very hard to face the fact that people who deliberately chose to parent children, after a long process of waiting and of showing great effort, will be capable of abusing this very child.It is just as unbelievable that often, denial of the family and friends is the only consequence when mistreatment and abuse take place.

The same reaction – denial -  is what often follows if cases of child abuse are being discussed in public: Like, for example, ignoring the fact altogether and, if it cannot be ignored, claiming that abuse can take place anywhere, and so adoptive families are just no different. Since the aim of adoption, and what makes it legitimate, can only be to provide a safe environment for a kid who would not have a chance for a family life otherwise, it is pretty obvious and needs no further discussion that this argument is pointless, since the standards applied for adoptive families must naturally be much higher.

What mistreatment and abuse do to children is just as obvious; an excellent summary – sort of reminder, and highly recommendable  – can be found here.

For a certain time, mainly one platform run by adult adoptees focussed on child abuse in the context of adoption, PoundPupLegacy, and they had a hard stand. These days, the Reform Talk people (adoptive parents)  are doing a great service by providing the “Hall of Shame”. Each and every case described there is horrible, and yet, they keep happening.

Apart from flaws in  the formal home-study qualification process, the following aspects might be considered to contribute:

Parent screening and education:

Psychological evaluation of future adoptive parents is lacking, and so is the psychological support in the process.

Some argue a mandatory psychological screening of all future adoptive parents would be necessary, and I wholeheartedly agree, since it would at least reduce potential risks.

While a lot of parents complain how the pre-adoption  screening process is intrusive, (because it is in the hand of a single social worker, who you may or may not get along with, and who can exercise a high degree of personal power) at the same time, many would, later in the process,  readily accept parent education and  assistance in certain questions, if enough qualified support was available. Unfortunately, this demand is often not brought forward with the necessary pressure, and the request for establishing a better infrastructure for assisting adoptive families is often simply ignored.

Reasons behind the lack of screening and education:

The prevailing  ideology of declaring adoption as an alternative way of building a family, as an alternative to fertility treatment or giving birth, causes misunderstandings as to what special demands will wait for adoptive parents. While the idea not to discriminate  against adoptees any longer might have been one positive driving force behind this “just the same as”-ideology, and certainly an honorable motive, the negative part definitely is that the fundamental difference between biological parenthood and adoptive parenthood is simply ignored. The ideology of “loving them all the same way” can consequently lead to a complete set of wrong expectations towards the new family life.

Children with a difficult history need a support system apart from and besides  the family – simple as it is, the truth that “love is not enough” is still true. Unfortunately, often the difficult circumstances in the past life of a child are either unknown or not properly researched or not evaluated correctly, and parents find themselves, (and becomes aware of that), at a rather belated point in their process of becoming a family,  in a situation that no-one expected  – but unfortunately without any assistance by the agency, which is often not even able to provide as much as an address for a specialist.

So when wrong expectations and a very difficult history meet, there is reason to fear severe conflicts. Adoption does not end when the child arrives at the family home, nor should services of the agencies end then.

Agency accountability, and the lack thereof:

The lack of proper post placement services, the idea that after the child was placed, the agency’s responsibility is limited to sending a more or less carefully composed post placement report to the original country of the child, is one of the scandals of current practices in international adoption, one that needs to be addressed on all levels and by all means.

The second demand would be to introduce a far better government surveillance of agency work than currently in place. If an ethical process had taken place from the beginning to the end of the formal adoption, neither could it be the case that important information about a child’s history is not available at the time of adoption, nor could families who are not really prepared to parent “difficult” children adopt those with severe disabilities or a history of trauma.

This is not to deny that personal responsibility of the adopting adult is  what makes the difference in the end, for the child.

Concluding, and referring back to the “Puzzle of Reform” created by Reform Talk, there is almost no puzzle piece excluded when it comes to the question of how to prevent potential abuse of adopted children; mainly, the topics

Resources and Education, Homestudy, Postplacement, Honest Representation Accountability,

and, in some cases, even Hague, Trafficking and Corruption would need to be addressed in order to prevent abuse and mistreatment.

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A P.S. on the 26th: Please make sure to read what Von has to say about the signs of child abuse, why they are often misunderstood and the consequences of denial for the children involved.